Yaffa Epstein

Pro Futura Scientia Fellow, SCAS.
Associate Professor of Environmental Law, Uppsala University

Yaffa Epstein defended her doctoral dissertation in environmental law, The Big Bad EU? Species
Protection and European Federalism, at the Faculty of Law of Uppsala University in 2017. There-
after, she led interdisciplinary research projects in law and ecology, funded by Riksbankens Jubi-
leumsfond and the Swedish Research Council Formas, and teaches environmental law. In 2019,
she was awarded Uppsala University’s Oscar Prize for early career researchers “whose scientific
writing is the most deserving and offers the greatest promise of continued academic writings at
the University.”

Epstein’s research has focused on interdisciplinary methods in law and ecology, especially as applied
to EU environmental law and to rights of nature. Her publications include “Science and the legal rights
of nature” (with Aaron M. Ellison, Hugo Echeverría, and Jessica K. Abbott, Science, 2023), “Animals
and nature as rights holders in the European Union” (with Eva Bernet Kempers, Modern Law Review,
2023), and “A rights revolution for nature” (with Guillaume Chapron and José Vicente López-Bao,
Science, 2019). She is co-convenor of the Research Group on Rights of Nature and Animals under the
auspices of the International Association of Constitutional Law. She is also currently co-directing a
research environment in “legal ecology”, a collaboration between Uppsala University and the Swedish
University of Agricultural Sciences, funded by the Swedish Research Council.

During her Pro Futura Scientia Fellowship, Epstein will work on the project “Developing Rights of
Nature Jurisprudence.” In this project, she applies interdisciplinary methods to explore the potential
for natural science to contribute to the development of rights of nature jurisprudence worldwide,
including in Europe..


Yaffa Epstein is in residence at the Collegium in the spring of 2024.
This information is accurate as of the academic year 2023-24.