Erin is pursuing her Ph.D. under the supervision of Professor Nathalie Chalifour. Her doctoral research project critically examines and re-imagines the meaning and implementation of the human right to a healthy environment to better protect not only individual environmental rights, but also planetary health in the face of the global ecological crisis. “Planetary health” is an emerging transdisciplinary field, social movement, and concept that recognizes the interdependence of the health and well-being of humans, other species, and ecosystems. Drawing insight from feminist relational theories and ecological approaches to law, Erin’s thesis proposes that when understood to prioritize principles such as human-nature interdependence, community, responsibility, care, and epistemic humility, the emerging right to a healthy environment can serve as an important tool for protecting the health of both humans and the more-than-human world along with environmental, intergenerational, and interspecies justice.
Erin holds an LLM in Global Sustainability and Environmental Law from the University of Ottawa, a JD from Dalhousie University with a specialization in Health Law & Policy, and a BSc in Neuroscience from McGill University. Before returning to academia, she practiced law for five years, gaining extensive experience in public and administrative law in the health care sector. Erin frequently presents, teaches, and writes on environmental law and human rights. She brings her experience as a health care lawyer and her passion for health equity and climate justice to her academic work and community initiatives. Most recently, she represented Friends of the Earth Canada as an intervener in Mathur v Ontario, the first human rights-based climate lawsuit in Canada to have a hearing on the merits. In November and December 2022, she attended the United Nations’ Conferences of the Parties on Climate Change (COP27) and on Biodiversity (COP15) as an official observer with a team of scholars from the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Environmental Law and Global Sustainability. She is also an active member of the Global Network for Human Rights and the Environment, with whom she has conducted research and supported a UN consultation on children’s rights and the environment.
The Jacques Gaudreau endowment fund was established in 1992 in memory of Jacques Gaudreau (1947-1989), an officer of the Department of External Affairs, by his friends, colleagues, and family.
Congratulations, Erin!