PhD Thesis

Title: “ENVIRONMENTAL RULE OF LAW IN TIMES OF EMERGENCY. Rethinking the use of force and the law of armed conflicts in the era of climate change”

PhD Supervisor & Co-supervisor: Andrew Clapham

Expected completion date: 2025

The thesis explores which are those environmental legal aspects (including climate change regulations) that cannot be disregarded when the use of force is decided and later implemented, and when hostilities are taking place.
 

Profile
 

Romina is a PhD Candidate in International Law and Teaching Assistant at the Geneva Graduate Institute. Her doctoral research focuses on the use of armed force, the protection of the environment and climate change, and international humanitarian law.

Prior to starting her doctoral studies, Romina graduated as a lawyer at the University of Buenos Aires, and later got a Master’s degree in International Law from the Geneva Graduate Institute. Besides, she was an assistant to Mrs Conception Escobar Hernández at the UN International Law Commission, and an intern at the Eurasia Region in Geneva Call. Finally, during several years she law clerked at a federal criminal court in Argentina, and lectured public international law, international humanitarian law and international criminal law at the Law School of the University of Buenos Aires.
 

Academic Work experience
 

Teaching experience
 

• Lectured PIL, IHL and ICL for undergraduate students at the UBA.
• Teaching Assistant for the Applied Research Project Program (Environmental and Sustainable Track) assigned to the ‘Environmental and Sustainability Track’ of the Applied Research Projects Programme at the IHEID.

Research Interests
 

• The use of armed force and climate change
• IHL and climate change
• Environmental peacebuilding
• Transitional justice and the environment
• Ecocide
   

RELEVANT PUBLICATIONS AND WORKS
 

• ‘The silence of the lambs and the wartime GHGs emissions’, in Opinio Iuris, 26.03.2024, available at: http://opiniojuris.org/2024/03/26/the-silence-of-the-lambs-and-the-wartime-ghgs-emissions/
• ICRC Review, 105 (923), 1071–1091., “IHL in the era of climate change: The application of the UN climate change regime to belligerent occupations”. Available at: https://international-review.icrc.org/articles/ihl-in-the-era-of-climate-change-923
• “To report or not to report GHG emissions in occupied territories. A practical approach for having a more accurate world count of global GHG emissions.” In Ejil Talk!, 12.09. 2023, available at: https://www.ejiltalk.org/to-report-or-not-to-report-ghg-emissions-in-occupied-territories-a-practical-approach-for-having-a-more-accurate-world-count-of-global-ghg-emissions/ 
• Armed Groups and International Law Blog, “The respect and implementation of the right to the truth by armed non-state actors”, (2022) available at: https://www.armedgroups-internationallaw.org/2022/09/26/the-respect-and-implementation-of-the-right-to-truth-by-armed-non-state-actors/
   

OTHER WORK EXPERIENCES
 

• Teaching Assistant at the MINT Program, Geneva Graduate Institute. 
• Former Lecturer of public international law, International humanitarian law and international criminal law at the School of law of the University of Buenos Aires.