Professor Cameron Holley

Brief overview

Cameron is a Professor in the School of Law, Society and Criminology at UNSW Law & Justice. He is a former Head of School and is a current co-chair of the International Network of Environmental Compliance and Enforcement (INECE) Academic Committee, a member of the Taskforce on Earth System Law, a member of the Steering Committee for the Global Water Institute and a former Director of the Connected Waters Initiative, UNSW Sydney. He was also a member of The Australian Panel of Experts on Environmental Law (APEEL).

Cameron publishes widely in the areas of environmental law, natural resources law, energy law and water law, with a focus on regulation and governance. Within these fields, he has examined issues of regulatory technologies, compliance and enforcement, environmental security, resilience, adaptive management and collaborative governance. In addition to his various articles, book chapters, and policy submissions, Cameron's forthcoming book is entitled Intelligent Water Regulation: markets, compliance and technology (Earthscan, 2021). He is the author of The New Environmental Governance (with Neil Gunningham and Clifford Shearing, Routledge, 2012) and co-editor of Sustainable Groundwater Management (Springer 2020), Criminology and Climate (2021, Routledge), Reforming Water Law and Governance (Springer, 2018), Criminology and the Anthropocene (Routledge, 2017) and Trans-jurisdictional Water Law and Governance (Earthscan, 2016).

An empirical researcher, Cameron has worked closely with Australian and international government and non-government organisations on a range of environmental and natural resource management research projects. His current research agenda is centred on water law and energy governance, including unconventional gas, renewable energy, the energy-water-food climate nexus and compliance and enforcement. 

Cameron was awarded an International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Academy of Environmental Law Scholarship Award for his contribution to environmental law scholarship (2014) and he has been a French Embassy Scientific Mobilisation Laurette on water management (2016). 

He is an Editorial Board member on PLOS Water and the Environmental and Planning Law Journal, and an Associate Editor of the Asia Pacific Journal of Environmental Law. He has been a guest editor of special issues in the Environmental and Planning Law Journal on Rethinking Water Law and Governance and Governing Energy Transitions: Unconventional Gas, Renewables and their Environmental Nexus (2019), the American Bar Associations journal, Jurimetics: Journal of Law, Science and Technology on Rethinking Law in a Nexus Future: Governing Energy, Water, Food and Climate Change Challenges (2018/2019). He has been a guest editor of the Australasian Journal of Natural Resources Law and Policy (2014) and co-editor of the Macquarie Journal of International and Comparative Environmental Law (2011). 

He is a PluS Alliance Fellow, former UNSW Law International Student Support Advisor and was previously the Co-Director of Postgraduate Studies at UNSW Law & Justice and Deputy Convenor of the Human Research Ethics Advisory Panel B: Arts, Humanities and Law.

Areas of expertise

Environmental law, natural resources law, water law, food-energy-water nexus, energy governance, energy security, water security, compliance and enforcement, regulatory and governance theory, and collaborative governance.

Memberships

• Great Artesian Basin Stakeholder Advisory Committee. 

• Great Barrier Reef Scientific Consensus Statement 2022 Editorial Board

• Commonwealth Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources (DISER) Energy Business and Technical Services Panel 

• Commonwealth Environmental Water Services Panel

• International Network of Environmental Compliance and Enforcement (INECE) Academic Committee

• PLuS Alliance Fellow, Sustainability

• Taskforce Earth System Law 

• National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training

• Global Water Institute

• Connected Waters Initiative

• Global Risk Governance Programme

• The Australian Water Association Professional Development and Training Panel (2016-2017)

• Australian Panel of Experts on Environmental Law (2015-2018)

• Climate Futures and Centre for Legal Governance, Macquarie University (2011) Centre for International and Environment Law, Macquarie University (2011)

Research supervision

• Chris Kelly (PhD, Blended Finance and Low Carbon Shipping)

• Kathryn Jurd (PhD, Animal Welfare Law)

• Meredith Hagger (PhD, Law, Urban Waterways and the Role of the State)

• Carley Bartlett (Phd, PFAS Science and Law) 

• Alice Bleby (PhD, Nature Rights)

• Rena Hasimi (PhD completed 2024)

• Christopher McElwain (PhD, completed 2024)

• Caterina Guidi (PhD, completed 2023) 

• Patrick Martin (PhD, Completed 2020)

• Mark Hamilton (PhD, completed 2019)

• Gabriela Cuadrado-Quesada (PhD, completed 2017)

• Andrew Burke (PhD, completed 2016)

• Ekaterina Sofronova (PhD, completed 2016)

• Maureen Papas (PhD, completed 2015)

• Riyanti Djalante (PhD, completed, 2013)

Courses taught 

• Aspects of Environmental Policy and Law (LAWS9801)

• Environmental Law (LAWS3361)

• Law and Policy for Sustainable Development (LAWS8068)

• Food Law (LAWS3216)

• Natural Resources Law (LAWS8069)

• Administrative Law (LAWS1160)

• Legal Concepts, Research and Writing for Environmental Law (LAWS8167)