Emma Lees

Professor Emma Lees serves as Professor of Environmental and Property Law at the University of Cambridge, based in the Department of Land Economy with affiliation to the Law Faculty. She is a Fellow of Downing College and maintains connections with the Conservation Research Institute and Land Economy department at the David Attenborough Building, Cambridge.

Her educational background includes an undergraduate Law degree (with French Law) from Brasenose College, Oxford (2009), an LLM by Research from the University of Dundee, and a PhD in Land Economy from the University of Cambridge (2013) supervised by Professor Martin Dixon.

Lees' research spans environmental and property law with particular emphasis on biodiversity protection, contaminated land regulation, waste management, and planning law. Recent work explores the use of scientific information in environmental adjudication and transnational climate litigation. Her scholarship demonstrates a clear trend toward interdisciplinary analysis connecting legal theory with practical environmental governance challenges, especially regarding the precautionary principle and climate accountability.

• Richard Macrory Prize for Best Paper in the Journal of Environmental Law (2016)
• Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence Highly Commended (2016)

She actively supervises PhD candidates including Farhana Hamid Butt and Gonzalo Vial Forcade, with recent graduates Giulio Corsi and Douglas Maxwell. Her teaching portfolio covers Land Law, Contract Law, Landlord and Tenant Law, and Environmental Law. Lees contributes to research centers CEENRG (Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance) and CCPL (Cambridge Centre for Property Law), focusing on property rights in environmental contexts.