Faculty news

Dr Nicole Rogers’ book Law, Fiction and Activism in a Time of Climate Change was published by Routledge in August 2019.

The book examines the narratives of climate change which have developed and which are currently evolving in three areas: law, fiction and activism. Narratives of climate change generated by litigants, judges, writers of fiction and activists are having, and will have, a profound effect on the way we respond to the climate change crisis. Acknowledging the prevalence of unreliable narrators, this book explores the reliability and significance of different forms of climate narrative. Dr Rogers analyses overlapping themes and points of intersection, considering the recurrent motif of the trickster, the prominence of the child, the significance and ongoing viability of the rights discourse, and the increasingly prevalent emergency framing with its multiple implications for law’s empire. She asks how law, fiction and activism measure up as textual and performative fora for telling the story of climate change and anticipating a climate-changed future. And, in addition, how can they help foster transformative narratives which empower us to confront the climate change crisis?

In a book review in the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, Dr Rogers’ writing was described as ‘a unique form of interdisciplinary analysis that identifies the emerging and problematic narrative of climate change within the modern world.’ Her publisher nominated the book for the prestigious, international Hart-SLSA book prize and it was subsequently shortlisted for that prize, together with two other books by United Kingdom authors. Internationally renowned author and legal scholar Bernhard Schlink, who visited the University last year as one of the School’s artists in residence, commented that ‘[t}he way it blends legal discourse, reflexions on fiction and reporting on activism, has spoken to me in a way other books on climate change hadn’t’.

Dr Rogers was invited to speak at both a plenary and breakout session at the National Climate Emergency Summit (pictured over page), held in the Melbourne Town Hall in February 2020; the plenary session was livestreamed and the recorded session is available on the Summit website. In this session, on Justice and Rights in the Emergency, Dr Rogers participated in a panel with Nyadol Nyuon, Tim Costello and Philip Sutton and discussed the interrelationship between climate change and the rights discourse, and the vulnerability of human rights in a state of emergency. In the breakout session (pictured below), on Duty of Care: Prosecuting the Case for Emergency Action, Dr Rogers participated in a panel with Elaine Johnson, principal solicitor of the EDO, prominent Melbourne barrister Julian Burnside and Ian Dunlop, and discussed the use of the extraordinary emergency defence by climate activists.

This year, Dr Rogers has also been consulted by members of the Crisis and Conflict Division at the Geneva-based Human Rights Watch on potential causes of action against the Federal government in relation to the climate crisis, and approached by the National Justice Centre for assistance in organising a Law Hackathon on the same issues.

Dr Rogers has received a number of invitations to present her research in both academic and activist forums. She was a guest speaker at a public seminar at QUT on ‘Climate Activism, Eco-Emotions and the Law’ in December 2019, and appeared there with renowned ecophilosopher Glenn Albrecht. She was also an invited participant in an interdisciplinary symposium on climate storytelling at the University of Melbourne in February 2020. In March, Dr Rogers was a guest speaker at a Gold Coast Climate Community Night. In May, Dr Rogers participated in an online interview with Extinction Rebellion Tasmania, which has been circulated as a podcast.

Generally, Dr Rogers’ research is shaping the legal discourse of climate activism in practical as well as academic contexts. Not only was it applied in the May 2019 trial of a climate activist but it has also subsequently been utilised in the Brisbane trial of three climate activists in March 2020, and will be drawn upon again in an August trial. Dr Rogers has been invited to collaborate with the Environmental Defenders Office in representing climate activists in north Queensland, and mounting test cases on their behalf. Her article on the use of the extraordinary emergency defence by climate activists was published in the March issue of Australia’s oldest and most cited legal journal, the Australian Law Journal.

Dr Rogers’ research in this area has received media coverage in Al-Jazeera, on the ABC, on the Sydney Defence Lawyers website, and in the Green Left Weekly. She was invited by The Conversation to write an article on this topic, which was published in September 2019. Dr Rogers’ research on climate discourses has been profiled in the Sydney Morning Herald.

The Wild Law Judgment project, which Dr Rogers instigated and co-led from 2014–2017 and which resulted in the publication of an edited monograph, continues to attract international attention. On the basis of her research expertise in wild law judging, and the interrelationship between environmental activism and environmental litigation, Dr Rogers was invited to act as a reviewer in the 2020 European Research Council grants programme. Two United Kingdom academics have now launched the UK Earth Laws Judgment project, which builds on the project and expands it into another jurisdiction. Dr Rogers has been invited to play an advisory role in this international project.

Finally, upon the request of her publisher (Routledge) Dr Rogers is writing a book on the Australian megafires and the impact which this catastrophic event has had and will have on various climate discourses. The book will be published next year, as the first in a new Routledge series which the commissioning editor plans to call ‘Glasshouse Currents’. In this book, Dr Rogers examines how the megafires have transformed existing climate narratives in Australia. She analyses new and developing understandings of the legal and extra-legal implications of the climate emergency, shifts in legal narratives, the role of climate fiction in preparing us for climate catastrophes such as the fires, and enabling adaptation, and the changing parameters of climate activism.