Profile

Dr Tiago de Melo Cartaxo
Senior Lecturer in Environmental Law, Director of PGR for HaSS Cornwall
Tiago de Melo Cartaxo is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Law in the University of Exeter, where he has founded the Exeter Centre for Environmental Law (ExCEL), teaching and researching in the areas of environmental rights, climate and resilience justice, circular economy and the energy transition. He also is Director of Postgraduate Research for Humanities and Social Sciences, Cornwall. Previously, he was an invited professor in Environmental Law and Administrative Law at NOVA School of Law Lisbon, where he was awarded a European PhD in Law, with two national FCT fellowships and a Fulbright Scholarship for research in the University of Louisville. He has also received a Higher Education Teaching Certificate from Harvard University.
Holding a degree in Law from the University of Lisbon and an LLM in Environmental Law from the University of Coimbra, Tiago has founded and coordinated NOVA Law Green Lab and was a postdoctoral research assistant in the University of Surrey, working in transcontinental projects on governance and regulation of single-use plastics. He worked as an attorney for law firms in Lisbon and advised local and national governments in the field of Environmental Law and Planning. In the Portuguese National Government, he accompanied the implementation of the Economic and Financial Assistance Programme (2011-2014) in the areas of the Environment and Economy. Under the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union, Tiago chaired the WPIEI (Basel) and coordinated an academic partnership with the Portuguese Environment Agency to monitor and implement international Conventions in the areas of waste and environmental assessment. He is an affiliate to the Environment and Sustainability Institute and has been a member of the ILA Committee on Sustainable Development and the Green Economy in International Trade Law, as well as the ICC Commission on Environment and Energy and the Global Network for Human Rights and the Environment.
Research interests
Tiago is open to multidisciplinary research in the following areas:
- Environmental and Climate Law;
- Environmental Rights and Environmental Justice;
- Adaptive Mechanisms applied to Environmental Law;
- Law and Circular Economy;
- Regulation of Smart and Sustainable Cities; and
- Sustainable Development Goals.
Research supervision
Tiago welcomes research supervisions in the areas of Environmental & Climate Law.
Research students
Current PhD supervisions are:
- Thomas Baycock (Law);
- Faruk Divarci (Law); and
- Harry Rawlinson (second supervisor with Dr Joanie Willet, in Politics).
Modules taught
- LAW2016C - Environmental Regulation and Redress
- LAW2115C - Legal Foundations for Sustainable Business
- LAW3016C - Legal Response to Environmental Destruction