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Faculty of Management, Law & Social Sciences

School of Law research on the Environment, Sustainability and Regulation (ES&R)

Environment and sustainability is one of the School's key research strengths.

We collaborate with leading institutions both nationally and internationally to proffer innovative law and policy solutions for major environmental and sustainability challenges. This covers a broad spectrum of issues, from longstanding environmental challenges to newer and emerging concerns.

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Research interests

  • Dr Prince Olokotor & Prof Engobo Emeseh have research focused on pollution and legislation. 
  • Dr Ilias Kapsis, Prof Engobo Emeseh, & Dr Prince Olokotor are working together on research looking at corporate social responsibility and accountability
  • Prof Emeseh has lead research programmes which are concerned with natural resources policy and governance. 
  • Prof Emeseh has been engaged in research on conventional and unconventional energy, decarbonisation, climate change, renewable energy and SDGs.

The School’s research is applied and action-oriented. Staff are engaged in knowledge transfer activities, capacity development and policy formulation.

Featured ES&R research

Professor Emeseh, Head of School, has a demonstrated leadership for her environment and sustainability research. Her particular interests include policy and regulatory responses to corporate wrongdoing in the natural resources sector in the developing world, particularly Africa, environmental justice, the SDGs, and the interface between international economic law and environmental governance.

She has led the establishment of several initiatives to create spaces for discourse, networking, capacity building, and policy development both within and outside academia, often working with civil society groups, intergovernmental organisations, and with government and their agencies.

She is currently a member of the Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission chaired by the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu. The Commission aims to develop a set of informed recommendations that lead to the development of a new legal framework that ensures accountability and an action plan for a healthy environment. It does this by ensuring appropriate clean-up and remediation of impacted sites, and that host communities receive sufficient compensation for the impacts of environmental pollution and degradation and reap the benefits from the production of oil within their communities.

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Our ES&R Staff

Engobo Emeseh

Head of Law School / Professor

Placeholder Image for Engobo

Professor Emeseh has extensive experience in higher education both within and outside the UK. Professor Emeseh has led the development of innovative market-relevant degree schemes, portfolio reviews, and diversification of delivery formats to cater to a wide audience, maximise resources, and improve the student learning experience, including external engagement and skills development. Engobe obtained her PhD from the Centre for Energy Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy, University of Dundee. She graduated with a first-class from the Nigeria Law School and Distinction from the University of Wales Cardiff. She is a former British Council Chevening Scholar and a Ford Foundation (IFP) doctoral fellow. Prior to her academic career, she practised as a barrister and solicitor in Nigeria, having been called to the Nigerian Bar. 

Research

Professor Emeseh’s research is broadly in the area of environmental law and policy, with particular interests in regulation and enforcement, environmental justice, corporate social responsibility, and the interface between environmental regulation and international economic law. She has published widely and presented papers at academic conferences and other international fora, usually within the context of the natural resources industry in Africa. She has been invited as an expert or appointed as a consultant on these issues by distinguished organisations such as the UNDP, the Africa Capacity Building Foundation, the African Legal Support Facility and the UN Economic Commission for Africa Institute for Economic Development and Planning. Professor Emeseh has demonstrated a sustained interest in knowledge transfer and wider engagement and has led the establishment of several initiatives to create spaces for discourse, networking, and capacity building both within and outside academia.

Contact

Email
[email protected]
Phone
+441274 234461
Placeholder Image for Engobo

Head of Law School / Professor

Our ES&R PhD Students

Believe Emurobor Edemadide

The enforcement of cooperate human right responsibilities initiative of multinational oil & gas firm

Picture of Believe Emurobor Edemadide

The study explores how Nigeria can effectively achieve the goals of the UN Guiding principle on business and human right to enhance the enforcement of corporate human right initiatives. it adopts a doctrinal (library base )approach to analyse and interpret a legal text in order to answer these questions: how has Nigeria evaluated the human right performance of multinational oil corporation and to what extent has enforcement of corporate human right change the behaviour of the corporation over the years? The study found out that the corporate human right of Multinational oil corporation if strategically regulated and enforced, can advance a sustainable human right performance of extractive corporation amidst investment goals and development.

What made you decide to undertake your PhD at the University of Bradford School of Law?

The University of Bradford School of Law has a good reputation when it comes to legal research, with great dedicated and supportive Professor, academic and non-academic members of staff to help achieve a quality career progress. What I heard about the school from my colleagues that got their admission first before I came in correspond with what I read online about the school and that prompt me to undertake the programme in University of Bradford School of law. 

How are you finding your experience of undertaking your PhD at the University of Bradford School of Law?

My personal experience so far has been very awesome and life-changing, starting from all the fantastic meetings I have had with my Principal Supervisor, Professor Engobo Emeseh, whose support and guide has been so Impactful and that has increased the level of my reasoning towards the progress of my research work. Also, the various research training programmes organised by the School and the online library services have all contributed to boost my independent research skill.

Contact

Email
[email protected]
Picture of Believe Emurobor Edemadide

The enforcement of cooperate human right responsibilities initiative of multinational oil & gas firm

Ebiemere Osaro

Protection of Foreign Direct Investment and Environmental Rights in Nigeria

Selfie of a student

The research is aimed at addressing the perceived Imbalance in the protection of foreign direct investment and environment rights of the people of Niger Delta region of Nigeria through legal jurisprudential inquest into the relationship between investment rights and environmental rights, and the need for a sustainable legal and institutional framework for their protection.

This is in view of the fact that, as the investment is crucial and vital to economic growth and development of the Nigerian nation's economy, so also is the environment to the inhabitants of the Niger Delta region that depend on it as a source of livelihood and the pillar on which rest the fact that man's right to a healthy environment Is inalienable.

In doing this, the various international conventions, treaties, declarations, and protocols, as well as the Nigerian domestic laws and institutions, will be examined towards evolving a sustainable platform for violent free Investment environment in the Niger Delta for sustainable economic growth and development.

What made you decide to undertake your PhD at the University of BradfordSchool of Law?

I decided to undertake my PhD at the University of Bradford School of Law because of the supervisory prowess of its staff in the core areas of my research interest, 'International Investment and Environmental Law' 

How are you finding your experience of undertaking your PhD at the University of BradfordSchool of Law?

Very encouraging and excellent as a research programme, my supervisors are at all time available and resourceful to the expected successful completion of my research. The entire academic staff of the school are amazing and wonderful in their relationship towards students. 

Contact

Email
[email protected]
Selfie of a student

Protection of Foreign Direct Investment and Environmental Rights in Nigeria