Melbourne Law School

Associate Professor Margaret Young has been awarded the Junior Scholarship Prize by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Academy of Environmental Law. Awarded to a scholar with less than 10-years academic experience, the prize acknowledges the contribution to the area of Dr Young’s recent publication, Trading Fish, Saving Fish: The Interaction between Regimes in International Law.

The IUCN Academy of Environmental Law is a global network of more than 110 universities from 35 countries dedicated to building environmental law education and promoting the development of environmental law.

In awarding the prize, the reviewers stated that Trading Fish, Saving Fish had made a significant contribution to the understanding of international environmental regimes and their interaction.

“It is a beautifully written work based on extremely thorough research which effectively opens a new area of scholarship to the academe… Anyone interested in the issues of fragmentation, coherence and interaction in international law must read this book and many will wish to pick up the research themes outlined in it in their own research,” stated the Academy’s reviewers.

An international lawyer, Associate Professor Young specialises in trade law, environmental law and climate change law. Her book examined the role of international law in addressing the over-exploitation of global fish stocks, and drew on professional experience at the World Trade Organisation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the United Nations.

“It is an honour to have my empirical and theoretical work recognized by leaders of the environmental law discipline”, said Associate Professor Young.

“Global problems like fisheries depletion are impacted by a number of different legal regimes, and it is important to understand how they overlap and interact. Such inquiries also provide insight into the international legal system and its legitimacy.”

Margaret A. Young, Trading Fish, Saving Fish: The Interaction between Regimes in International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2011)