Professor Benoît Mayer was appointed Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law of the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2016. He is also a Research Associate at McGill University’s Hans & Tamar Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law, a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL), an Associate Member at the National University of Singapore’s Asia-Pacific Centre for Environmental Law, and a Research Fellow at the Earth System Governance project. He is the Managing Editor of the Chinese Journal of Environmental Law.

Professor Mayer holds degrees from the University Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne, Sciences Po Lyon, McGill University, and the National University of Singapore. From 2015 to 2016, he was an Associate Professor at the University of Wuhan.

His publications include three books and more than 60 journal articles and book chapters on the international governance of climate change. His critical outlook on the concept of climate migration and his analysis of the interactions between climate change and general international law have had a growing impact on the study of international climate change law.

His work can be consulted on his personal website, http://www.benoitmayer.com.

BOOKS (SELECTION)

• Benoît Mayer, The International Law on Climate Change (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming: under contract).
• Benoît Mayer, The Concept of Climate Migration: Advocacy and its Prospects (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2016), Elgar Studies in Climate Law series.
• Benoît Mayer & François Crépeau, eds., Research Handbook on Climate Change, Migration and the Law (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, forthcoming: in press).
• Prabhakar Singh & Benoît Mayer, eds., Critical International Law: Post-realism, Post-colonialism and Transnationalism (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014).

PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES (SELECTION)

• Benoît Mayer, “Climate Change Mitigation in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region” (2017) 7(2-3) Climate Law (forthcoming).
• Benoît Mayer, Mikko Rajavuori and Fang Meng, “The Contribution of State-Owned Enterprises to Climate Change Mitigation in China” (2017) 7(2-3) Climate Law (forthcoming).
• Benoît Mayer, “Construing International Climate Change Law as a Compliance Regime” Transnational Environmental Law (forthcoming).
• Benoît Mayer, “Less-than-full Reparation in International Law” Indian Journal of International Law (forthcoming).
• Benoît Mayer, “Human Rights in the Paris Agreement” (2016) 6 Climate Law 109-117.
• Benoît Mayer and Mikko Rajavuori, “National Fossil Fuel Companies and Climate Change Mitigation under International Law” (2016) 44 Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce 55-120.
• Benoît Mayer, “Migration in the UNFCCC Workstream on ‘Loss and Damage’: An Assessment of Alternative Framings and Conceivable Responses” (2017) 6(1) Transnational Environmental Law 107-129.
• Benoît Mayer, “The Relevance of the No-Harm Principle to Climate Change Law and Politics” (2016) 19 Asia-Pacific Journal of Environmental Law 79-104.
• Benoît Mayer, “Climate Change Reparations and the Law and Practice of State Responsibility” (2016) 7(1) Asian Journal of International Law 185-216.
• Benoît Mayer, “Climate Migration and the Politics of Causal Attribution: A Case Study in Mongolia” (2016) 5 Migration and Development 234.
• Benoît Mayer, “The Applicability of the Principle of Prevention to Climate Change: A Response to Zahar” (2015) 5(1) Climate Law 1-24.
• Benoît Mayer, “Conceiving the Rationale for International Climate Law” (2015) 130(3 Climatic Change 371-382.
• Yvonne Wong & Benoît Mayer, “The World Bank’s Inspection Panel: A Tool for Accountability?” (2014) 6 World Bank Legal Review.
• Benoît Mayer, “Whose ‘Loss and Damage’? Promoting the Agency of Beneficiary States” (2014) 4(3-4 Climate Law 267-300.
• Benoît Mayer, “State Responsibility and Climate Change Governance: A Light through the Storm” (2014) 13:3 Chinese Journal of International Law 539-575.
• Benoît Mayer, “The Rights of Mongolia’s Internal Migrants under International Law: Climatic, Domestic and Commercial Responsibilities” (2014) 7:1 Journal of East Asia and International Law 197-219.
• Benoît Mayer, “‘Environmental Migration’ as Advocacy: Is It Going to Work?” (2014) 29:2 Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees 27-41.
• Benoît Mayer, “Climate Change and International Law in the Grim Days” (2013) 24:3 European Journal of International Law 947-970.
• Benoît Mayer, “Constructing Climate Migration as a Global Governance Issue: Essential Flaws in the Contemporary Literature” (2013) 9:1 McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy 87-117.
• Benoît Mayer, Ingrid Boas, Jackson Ewing, Alice Baillat & Uttam Kumar Das: “Governing Environmentally-Related Migration in Bangladesh: Responsibilities, Security, and the Causality Problem” (2013) 22:2 Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 177-198.
• Benoît Mayer, “Environmental Migration: Prospects for a Regional Governance in the Asia-Pacific Region” (2013) 16:1 Asia-Pacific Journal of Environmental Law 77-103.
• Benoît Mayer, “Environmental Migration in the Asia-Pacific Region: Could We Hang Out Sometime?” (2013) 3:1 Asian Journal of International Law 101-135.
• Benoît Mayer, “Sustainable Development Law on Environmental Migration: The Story of an Obelisk, a Bag of Marbles and a Tapestry” (2012) 14:2 Environmental Law Review 111-133.
• Benoît Mayer, “Pour en finir avec la notion de ‘réfugiés environnementaux’: Critique d’une approche individualiste et homogène des déplacements causés par des changements environnementaux” (2011) 7:1 McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy 33-58.

BOOK CHAPTERS (SELECTION)

• Benoît Mayer, “Who are ‘climate refugees’? Academic engagement in the post-truth era” in Avidan Kent and Simon Behrman eds. Climate Refugees (forthcoming).
• Benoît Mayer, “Definitions and Concepts” in Robert McLeman and François Gemenne eds., Routledge Handbook on Environmental Displacement and Migration (forthcoming).
• Benoît Mayer, “Critical perspectives on the identification of ‘environmental refugees’ as a category of human rights concern” in Dimitra Manou, Andrew Baldwin, Dug Cubie, Anja Mihr and Teresa Thorp eds., Climate Change, Migration and Human Rights: Law and Policy Perspectives (Routledge, 2017) at 28-41.
• Frédéric Mégret and Benoît Mayer, “‘Climate Migration’ and the Security Council” in Shirley Scott and Charlotte Ku, Climate Change and the Security Council (Edward Elgar, forthcoming).
• Benoît Mayer, “La sécurisation du changement climatique comme stratégie politique,” in Nicolas Clinchamps et al. (eds), Sécurité et environnement (Bruylant, 2016), 239-258.
• Benoît Mayer, “Justifying Climate Cooperation: Competing Narratives in a Divided World,” in Usha Tandon (ed.), Climate Change: Law, Policy and Governance (Eastern Book Company, 2015), 1-15.
• Benoît Mayer, “Climate Change, Migration and International Law in Southeast Asia,” in Koh Kheng Lian et al. (eds.), Climate Change Adaptation: ASEAN and the World (World Scientific, 2015), 337-358.
• Benoît Mayer, “The Arbitrary Project of Protecting ‘Environmental Migrants’,” in Robert McLeman, Jeanette Schade and Thomas Faist (eds.), Environmental Migration and Social Inequalities (Springer, 2016), 189-200.
• Benoît Mayer & Christel Cournil, “Climate Change, Migration and Human Rights: Towards Group-Specific Protection?” in Ottavio Quirico and Mouloud Boumghar (eds.), Climate Change and Human Rights: an International Law Perspective (Routledge, 2015), 173-188.
• Christel Cournil & Benoît Mayer, “Oportunidades e Limites de uma Proteção por Categoria em Benefício dos Migrantes Ambientais,” in Liliana Lyra Jubilut and Fernando Cardozo Fernandes Rei (eds.), Direitos Humanos e Meio Ambiente: Minorias Ambientais (Catholic University of Santos, 2017) 65-86.
• Benoît Mayer, “Climate Migration Governance,” in Walter Leal, Harry Polo Diaz and Anirudh Singh (eds.), Handbook of Climate Change Adaptation, vol. 2: Policy and Climate Change (Berlin: Springer, 2015), 828-838.
• Benoît Mayer, “Managing ‘Climate Migration’ in Mongolia: The Importance of Development Policies,” in Walter Leal (ed.), Managing Climate Change in the Asia-Pacific Region (Berlin: Springer, 2015), 191-204.
• Benoît Mayer & François Crépeau, “Changement climatique et droits de l’homme des migrants,” in Christel Cournil & Chloé Vlassopoulou (eds.), Migrations Environnementales : Gouvernance Mondiale et Expériences Locales, Contribution à l’Étude des Mobilités Humaines (Quae, 2015).
• Benoît Mayer, “Les migrations internes en Mongolie: Le climat, oui, mais pas seulement !,” in Christel Cournil & Chloé Vlassopoulou (eds.), Migrations Environnementales : Gouvernance Mondiale et Expériences Locales, Contribution à l’Étude des Mobilités Humaines (Quae, 2015).
• Jae-Woon Lee, Joseph Wheeler & Benoît Mayer, “Aviation and Sustainable Development: Some Perspectives from the Asia-Pacific” in Armand de Mestral, Markus W. Gehring, & Paul Fitzgerald (eds.), Sustainable Development in International Aviation Law (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
• Prabhakar Singh & Benoît Mayer, “Thinking International Law Critically: One Attitude, Three Perspectives,” in Prabhakar Singh & Benoît Mayer (eds.), Critical International Law: Post-Realism, Post colonialism and Transnationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
• Benoît Mayer, “Universalism v. Magic Circles: Human Rights’ Outsiders,” in Prabhakar Singh & Benoît Mayer (eds.), Critical International Law: Post-Realism, Post colonialism and Transnationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
• Benoît Mayer, “Governing International Climate Change-Induced Migration,” in Lorraine Elliott (ed.), Climate Change, Migration and Human Security in Southeast Asia (Singapore: S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, RSIS monograph No. 24, 2012) 28-45.
• Benoît Mayer, “The International Legal Protection of Climate (or Environmental) Migrants: Fraternity, Responsibility and Sustainability”, in Michel Morin, Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger, Fabien Gélinas and Markus Gehring (eds.), Responsibility, Fraternity and Sustainability in Law: In Memory of the Honourable Charles Doherty Gonthier (Markham, ON:LexisNexis Canada, 2012) 723 and (2012) 56 Supreme Court Law Review 723.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• International & Comparative Law
  • Human Rights / Humanitarian Law
  • International Environmental Law
  • Public International Law
• Environmental Law
• Climate Law