Lynda Collins

Lynda Collins is a Full Professor in the Centre for Environmental Law & Global Sustainability at the University of Ottawa Faculty Law. Professor Collins is an expert in environmental human rights at the domestic and international levels including constitutional environmental rights, Indigenous environmental rights, rights of nature, and environmental rights in private law. She is the author of The Ecological Constitution.

Professor Collins has advised multiple national and international organizations including the United Nations Association in Canada, the European Parliament, and Friends of the Earth. She has similarly participated in expert gatherings and participatory processes with the United Nations Human Rights Council, the United Nations Environment Program, and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment.  She co-Chaired Ontario’s Toxic Reduction Scientific Expert Panel by Ministerial appointment. Along with Heather McLeod-Kilmurray, is co-author of The Canadian Law of Toxic Torts.

Professor Collins has a secondary research interest in law student/lawyer wellness and the law and policy of subjective wellbeing; she teaches uOttawa’s course in Happiness and the Law. Professor Collins is a member of the bars of Ontario and California. 

Lynda Collins, The Ecological Constitution (Abingdon: Routledge, 2021).

Lynda Collins and Heather McLeod-Kilmurray, The Canadian Law of Toxic Torts (Toronto: Carswell, 2014).

Lynda M Collins, “Science, Law & Planetary Uncertainty” in Duncan French & Louis Kotzé, eds., Law, Governance and Planetary Boundaries (London : Edward Elgar, 2021).

Lynda M Collins & Brandon Stewart, “Engendering Hope in Environmental Law Students” in Teaching and Learning in Environmental Law (London : Edward Elgar, 2021).

Lynda Collins and Lorne Sossin, “In Search of an Ecological Approach to Constitutional Principles and Environmental Discretion in Canada” (2019) 52:1 UBC Law Rev 293.

Lynda Collins, “Sustainable Development Goals and Human Rights: Challenges and Opportunities” in Louis Kotzé and Duncan French, eds.,Global Goals: Law, Theory and Implementation (London: Edward Elgar Press, 2018).

Lynda Collins, “Environmental Human Rights in the Americas” in Erin Daly et al., eds., New Frontiers in Global Environmental Constitutionalism (Nairobi: United Nations Environment Program, 2017).

Lynda M. Collins, “Safeguarding the Longue Durée: Environmental Rights in the Canadian Constitution” (2015) 71 S.C.L.R. (2d) 519.

Lynda M. Collins, “The United Nations, Human Rights and the Environment” in Louis Kotze & Anna Grear, eds., Research Handbook on Human Rights and The Environment (London: Edward Elgar, 2015).

Lynda Collins & Heather McLeod-Kilmurray, The Canadian Law of Toxic Torts (Toronto: Carswell, 2014).

Lynda M. Collins, “Evergreen? The Environmental Law of Torts (2014) 22 Tort L Rev 107-119.

Lynda M. Collins, “Security of the person, peace of mind: a precautionary approach to environmental uncertainty” (2013) 4:1 Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 79-100.

Lynda M. Collins & Meghan Murtha, “Indigenous Environmental Rights in Canada: the Right to Conservation Implicit in Treaty and Aboriginal Rights to Hunt, Fish and Trap” (2010) 47:4 Alberta Law Review 959-991.

Lynda M. Collins, “An Ecologically Literate Reading of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms” (2009) 26 WJSLI  7-48. 

Lynda M. Collins, “Are we There Yet? The Right to Environment in International and European Law” (2007) McGill Int’l J. Sustainable Development L. & Pol’y  119-153.