Associate Professor Justine Bell-James

Researcher biography
Justine Bell-James is an Associate Professor at the TC Beirne School of Law with expertise in environmental and climate change law and climate change litigation. She holds a PhD from QUT (2010) and was a postdoctoral research fellow at UQ's Global Change Institute from 2011-2013. Justine's research focuses on legal mechanisms for protection of the coast under climate change, incorporating both human settlements and coastal ecosystems. She currently leads an ARC Discovery Project (2019-2022) considering how coastal wetland ecosystem services can be integrated into legal frameworks. Justine is also an expert on legal mechanisms to facilitate blue carbon projects in Australia and internationally, and she was involved with the development of a blue carbon methodology under Australia's Emissions Reduction Fund. Justine's work is highly interdisciplinary and she is an affiliated researcher with UQ's Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science. Her recent collaborations and consultancies have involved colleagues from science, industry, NGOs, government and legal practice.
Justine also has expertise in climate change litigation, and her work on opportunities for litigation under Queensland's Human Rights Act 2019 has underpinned the first test case in this area.
Featured projects | Duration |
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Accelerating Adoption and Implementation of Blue Carbon in Australia CSIRO |
2021–2024 |
A model national legal framework for mangrove ecosystem services ARC Discovery Project |
2019–2023 |
Research to support development of a blue carbon project | 2021 |