Global Affiliates

Ruby Moynihan is an Affiliate of the Academy. Ruby is a Lecturer/Irish Research Council Fellow at the School of Law, University College Cork, Ireland. She is also a Senior Research Fellow/Adjunct Lecturer at the New Zealand Centre for Public Law, Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington.

Ruby has over 12 years of experience researching, teaching and working as a lawyer for universities, research institutes, international organisations and private legal practice across diverse countries. Her work explores how international and comparative national law evolves to address complex environmental challenges in a changing geopolitical world. Her research and teaching focuses on the interactions between international legal regimes concerning freshwater and marine environments, biodiversity, climate change and human rights where she investigates questions of natural resources equity, justice and the interface between law, science and policy.

Her recent key publications include:

Transboundary Freshwater Ecosystems in International Law: The Role and Impact of the UNECE Environmental Regime (Cambridge University Press, 2021).

'The Role of International Regimes and Courts in Clarifying Prevention of Harm in Freshwater and Marine Environmental Protection', in International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics (2020).

The Right to Water for Food and Agriculture (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome, 2020).

'Prevention and Mitigation of Harmful Conditions and Emergency Situations' in L Boisson de Chazournes et al The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses. A Commentary (Oxford University Press, 2019).

'International law on protection of transboundary freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity' in J Razzaque and E Morgera Biodiversity and Nature Protection Law (Edward Elgar 2017).

Transboundary Water Governance and Climate Change Adaptation: International Law, Policy Guidelines and Best Practice Application (UNESCO, 2015).

Bionote

Ruby is the recipient of several prestigious research fellowships including from the Irish Research Council and the Scottish Government’s Hydro Nation fund. Ruby contributes to high-level collaborative projects on international water and environmental law for the UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO), UN Economic Commission for Europe, World Wide Fund for Nature, International Union for the Conservation of Nature, GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit), and Adelphi International. Ruby is an invited member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law, Specialist Group on Water and Wetlands, the Australia and New Zealand Society of International Law and the European Environmental Law Forum.

Ruby has 12 years' experience teaching international and comparative national water law and its interaction with other areas of international environmental law. She currently teaches courses at masters and undergraduate levels on 'International Environmental Law' and the 'Law of Freshwater Resources' at the Victoria University of Wellington, Faculty of Law, New Zealand. She has recently taught and designed new curriculums for the University College Cork – a National University of Ireland's LLM on Environmental & Natural Resources Law including on 'Climate Change Law and Policy' and 'International Biodiversity and Ecosystems Law and Policy'.

Previously, Ruby worked as a Research Associate at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Department of Environmental and Planning Law, Germany, and at the UNESCO Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science, University of Dundee, Scotland. Prior to that she was a Barrister and Solicitor in one of New Zealand's premier law firms and is currently an enrolled Barrister of the High Court of New Zealand. 

Ruby holds a PhD from the University of Edinburgh. An updated edition of her PhD thesis, titled 'Transboundary Freshwater Ecosystems in International Law: The Role and Impact of the UNECE Environmental Regime' will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2021.