My research and teaching broadly encompasses five interrelated themes that I approach from a transnational, comparative and international perspective: international environmental law; human rights and the environment; the Sustainable Development Goals; law and governance for the Anthropocene; and earth system law. I have engaged in several collaborative North-South and other research projects, and have generated approximately 185 publications related to these themes over the past 20 years, including three monographs and 15 edited volumes. In addition to extensive undergraduate and postgraduate teaching experience, including course development, I have supervised several postgraduate students to successful completion. I am an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and German Academic Exchange Service alumnus, and have served a two-year term as Marie Curie Skłodowska Research Fellow at the University of Lincoln, where I led a Horizon 2020 project. In 2022, I was awarded the Klaus Töpfer Sustainability Fellowship by the Research Institute for Sustainability, Helmholtz Centre, Potsdam. I have been appointed in January 2023 as Programme Chair at The New Institute in Hamburg where I led a project titled Governing the Planetary Commons until July 2024. After having worked as a full-time academic at the Faculty of Law, North-West University in South Africa for over 23 years, I have taken up the position of Professor and Chair of the Law Group at Wageningen University and Research in December 2024.
