Academic profile

 

Dr Antoinette Nestor is an academic lawyer with a background in Community Economic Development Law and Policy, Public Interest Law and Climate Change Law. She holds a PhD from Trinity College Dublin specialising in public interest law, access to justice and community economic development, an LLM from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA David J Epstein Programme in Public Interest Law & Policy), and Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) from University College Dublin. She is also a trained legal interpreter and translator (Spanish/English) and has a diploma in journalism.  

 

She is a Centre Fellow at the Cambridge Centre for Property Law (CCPL), Associate Fellow at the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL), Secretariat member at the Climate Law and Governance Initiative (CLGI), member of IUCN-WCEL (World Commission on Environmental Law), Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA).

 

She is the Director of Studies in Land Economy at Girton College and Faculty Advisor for the Cambridge Pro-Bono Project (CPP).

 

She is also a member of the Cambridge City Council first elected to office in May 2023.

 

 

 

 

 

Teaching

 

Paper 2: The Public Sector: Institutional and Legal Frameworks 

Paper 16: Land, Food and Ecosystem Services

 

 

 

 

Research interests

 

Her main research interests are the intersection between public interest law, access to justice, community economic development, sustainability and the environment, and linking private law, planning, environmental/climate change and international law to combat urban poverty and to redress social exclusion. She also looks at the role of National Determined Contributions (NDCs) within the Paris Agreement and their relationship with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Ecosystem Services. Her current research at the national level focuses on the use of conservation covenants in local development and how they can benefit nature. At the international level, she is looking into the green transition and its effects on indigenous communities in the Andean and Mapuche regions of South America, particularly the extraction of minerals and its effect on biodiversity. She is also further looking at the role of women in climate litigation, highlighting how their leadership challenges colonial power structures.

 

 

 

Publications

 

Book Chapters 

 

“The Atmosphere and a Stable Climate System: Rules and Practices of International Law on Climate Change Action” (co-author book chapter Sustainable Development in International Law on Natural Resources (Wolters Kluwer, forthcoming 2025)

 

“Public Interest Law and Regeneration: The case of Ballymun Community Law Centre - connecting the dots through CED”, Book Chapter in Contemporary Housing Issues in a Globalized World, Ashgate Publishers (2014) 

 

Media Articles/Commentaries/Blogs

“ Youth activists are now real agents of change at global climate summits” The Conversation, 12 June 2024

 

“Climate change commitments must be delivered at a local level”Cambridge Independent, 21 December 2023

 

“The Paris Agreement at the local level” Lucy Cavendish College News, 8 November 2022 

 

 “Whether it’s war or climate change, women always have to fight for justice”, Cambridge Independent, 8 March 2022

 

“I was energised by what I saw at Glasgow”, Cambridge Independent, 19 November 2021 

 

“My hopes and aspirations as I attend COP26”, Cambridge Independent, 29 October 2021 

 

 “The Impact of Law on Social Innovation Efforts", Cambridge Social Innovation Blog, Cambridge Centre for Social Innovation, 20 August 2018

 

 “The Research of CED in Ireland: An Overview”, Irish Review of CED Law & Policy, Vol. 1 (1), 6- 10 [2011]

 

 “Lawyers Now Helping Defend Ireland’s Communities”, Changing Ireland, Vol.34, 17 [2011]

 

 

 

 

Category/Classification

 

Community Economic Development Law and Lawyering, Local Government, Green Transition, SDGs, Climate Change Law, Sustainability

 

 

Research Centres

 

CCPL