The Australian Centre for Climate and Environmental Law (ACCEL) brings together researchers, students and collaborators working on the legal and institutional challenges of climate change and environmental transformation. Based at Sydney Law School, ACCEL develops research across environmental, climate, public, private and international law, with a strong focus on the Asia Pacific.
ACCEL's research asks how law responds when environmental systems, economies and institutions are changing at the same time. Three programs give focus to collaborative research now developing across the Centre.
Kate Owens researches climate governance, environmental law and sustainability transitions. Her work examines how law and institutions organise climate transition, including the role of public authority, experimentation, investment and responsibility.
Rachel Killean's work focuses on environmental justice, accountability and governance in contexts of environmental harm. She is also Co-Convener of the ANZSOC Green Criminology Thematic Group, where she contributes to interdisciplinary scholarship on environmental harm and justice.
ACCEL builds on a strong tradition of environmental law scholarship at Sydney Law School and the leadership of its previous directors. Most recently, the Centre was led by Professor Rosemary Lyster, whose research on climate justice, climate adaptation and disaster law, including her monograph Climate Justice and Disaster Law (Cambridge University Press, 2015), helped shape the Centre's development and continues to inform its work today.
ACCEL collaborates with academic, policy and professional partners across Australia and the Asia-Pacific on environmental and sustainability law and governance.
Established in 2023 by Sydney Law School, Singapore Management University and the University of Hong Kong, and joined by Universitas Indonesia in 2025, the Alliance provides an enduring platform for comparative research on sustainability law and governance. Conferences in Singapore, Sydney and Hong Kong have each led to a special issue of the Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law. Universitas Indonesia will host the fourth conference in July 2027.
ACCEL has a longstanding relationship with the University of the South Pacific, including offshore teaching in climate and environmental law and student publication. More recently, ACCEL has developed research on Pacific climate finance with experts across law, political science, and finance. This work has resulted in peer-reviewed publications and is being developed into a larger external funding application.
Sydney Law School students in Vanuatu as part of the 'Climate and Environmental Law in the Pacific' intensive unit
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LinkACCEL also works with environmental law centres, researchers and public-interest organisations in Australia, including the Environmental Defenders Office and the Macquarie University Centre for Environmental Law. These relationships have supported student research, workshops and continuing research in areas including biodiversity, nature litigation and environmental harm.
ACCEL's engagement with external communities is supported by its Advisory Board, which brings together figures from the judiciary, academia and legal practice to provide strategic guidance and strengthen the Centre's connections with policy and professional communities.
The Hon Justice Nicola Pain
NSW Land and Environment Court
Professor Maria Lee
University College London
Dr Chris McGrath
Barrister, Higgins Chambers
Ilona Millar
Partner, Gilbert + Tobin
Andrew Smith
NSW Land and Environment Court
Jeff Smith
JOS Consulting
Professor David Victor
University of California, San Diego
ACCEL is committed to supporting the next generation of climate and environmental law scholars and practitioners. Through mentoring, collaborative research, and student-led initiatives, the Centre provides opportunities for students and emerging researchers to engage directly with the legal challenges of environmental governance and climate change.
The ACCEL Doctoral Affiliates Program connects PhD researchers working on climate and environmental law and related fields. It provides a setting for mentoring, work-in-progress discussion and research exchange, and gives doctoral researchers a more direct place in the Centre's research community.
Libby Newton coordinates the ACCEL Doctoral Affiliates Program and supports the development of early-career researchers working on environmental law and governance. Her work focuses on more-than-human rights and recognition, legal pluralism, and nature protection laws and policy.
Featured publication
Newton, E., & Killean, R. (2025). Global rights of nature movements. In R. C. Brears & J. Lindley (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Environmental Policy and Law (pp. 403–420). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55387-5_4
The following PhD students are members of ACCEL's Doctoral Affiliates program:
Alexandre Dantas
Climate justice and disaster law: Exploring Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in contexts of socio-environmental vulnerability in Australia and Brazil
Supervisors: Kate Owens and Andrew Edgar
Berk Eker
Human rights due diligence and the regulation of ultra-processed foods: Towards an international legal framework for corporate accountability
Supervisors: Belinda Reeve and Phillip Baker
Dongkai Sui
The legal liabilities of states in regarding climate change and the interplay with loss and damage mechanisms
Supervisors: Kate Owens and Tim Stephens
Graeme Dennis
Renewable energy power purchase agreements
Supervisors: Penelope Crossley and Gregory Tolhurst
Ishita Chakrabarty
For-profit consulting firms and delivery of aid (incl. environmental)
Supervisors: Jacqui Mowbray and Fleur Johns
Josephine Kim
Forestry carbon credits under the Paris Agreement
Supervisors: Rosemary Lyster and Celeste Black
Libby Newton
Governance of a living river and its lands: Implementing the Wilip-gin Birrarung-murron Act
Supervisors: Rachel Killean and Kate Owens
Pip Abbott
Rehydrating landscapes through law – Establishing a legal framework for restoration law to facilitate landscape rehydration and address biodiversity loss and climate change in Australia
Supervisors: Nicole Graham and Kate Owens
Thomas Chan
Artificial islands as an adaptive response to climate change – Has UNCLOS and Customary International Law hindered its progress? Considering artificial islands as a solution to loss of territory arising from climate change
Supervisors: Tim Stephens and Ed Couzens
The ACCEL Student Scholars Program provides opportunities for undergraduate and postgraduate coursework students to participate in public-interest research on climate and environmental law. Through the program, students collaborate with ACCEL researchers and external partners on research projects, policy analysis and knowledge exchange.
In 2025, three paid senior law students worked with the Environmental Defenders Office on two projects: implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework and access to environmental information across Australian jurisdictions. In 2026, ACCEL and the Sydney Centre for International Law established two paid climate justice internships with Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change, through which students are developing accessible legal education materials.
ACCEL maintains a continuing dialogue with government, courts, the legal profession, civil society and others working with environmental law in practice. The Environmental Law Year in Review and ACCEL Distinguished Speaker events provide regular forums for discussion of current legal developments.
Engagement also occurs through research itself, including the Threshold Harm water theft project, which involves regulators, Traditional Owners and irrigator representatives, and through the Director's work with the Law Society of NSW Climate Change Working Group on practitioner materials.
