The winners of the 2016 CISDL Legal Essay Competition On Climate Change, Sustainable Development and the Law: Governance Challenges and Innovations have now been announced.
Very strong entries were received from talented students from across the globe writing on the topics of:
- What are the most pressing legal and governance challenges in responding to the threats and opportunities of climate change?
- How can local and national law be harnessed for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, especially the new Paris Agreement?
- Which innovative legal and institutional instruments and practices hold potential to help address these challenges, at national or local levels?
- How can climate law and governance innovations be implemented across diverse sectors for more sustainable development?
The award-winning entries were announced in a special awards ceremony at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (CoP22) in Marrakesh, Morocco, and the best winning essays will be published internationally by the CISDL in 2017.
Winners
- Gold Winners: The French language gold awards were presented to Guy-Jules Kounga (Cameroon) and Zineb Hamdoune (Morocco). The English language gold awards were presented to Clarice Wambua (Kenya), Maoulainine Yahjabouha and Fatim Ezzahra Haytoumi (Morocco), and Conner Tidd (Canada).
- Silver Winners: The French language silver awards were presented to Ossama Azzouzi (Morocco), Marie-Bernard Dhedya Lonu (Democratic Republic of Congo), and Yepery Coulibaly and Asmaa Mahmoudi (Morocco). The English language silver awards were presented to Tatiana Abarca Alvarez (Costa Rica), Félix Leyman (Belgium), Joshua Smith (Canda), and Marianne Daval (France).
- Bronze Awards: In recognition of the high quality submissions received this year, the judging panel also awarded bronze awards and honourable mentions to Hanh Nguyen (Vietnam), Nicolas Blanc (France), Júlia Oliveira Rosa (Brazil), and M. Hussein Ait Belaid and Najwa Azami Idrissi (Morocco).
Organised by the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL), in cooperation with the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law (LCIL) at the University of Cambridge, the Centre for Research on Climate Resilience (CR2) at the University of Chile, and the Centre for Advanced Studies in Environmental Law and Policy (CASELAP) of the University of Nairobi, the legal essay competition was open to students of law and related fields at the undergraduate and graduate level, from all regions of the world.
Successful finalists were also invited to prepare a brief oral argument based on a hypothetical climate litigation fact pattern provided, for a special moot during Climate Law and Governance Day 2016 on the 11th of November.