Meet the Speakers: Lisa Oldring
The Alberta oil sands have long been described as ecocidal, given the scale of environmental devastation they cause.
At the International Conference on Ecocide, Human Rights and Environmental Justice, taking place tomorrow, 31 October, Lisa Oldring will share insights from her recent article co-authored with Kate Mackintosh, where they apply the proposed international legal definition of ecocide to the Alberta oil sands operations. While much has been written about the definition itself, far fewer attempts have been made to test it against real-world examples of environmental destruction.
This piece does just that, using the oil sands to both illustrate the ecological harm and to explore nuances in the definition, revealing areas which may need more thought. Kate and Lisa take issue with the characterisation of the international definition as anthropocentric, and raise questions of justice and exclusion in the balancing of benefits and harms.
Lisa Oldring is a Senior Fellow with the UCLA Law Promise Institute Europe and a doctoral candidate at the University of Amsterdam Faculty of Law, where her research focuses on ecocide through a human rights lens. She is also an international human rights lawyer with more than two decades of global experience, primarily with the United Nations Human Rights Office. From leading work on counter-terrorism, the use of force, and surveillance practices in Geneva, to advising UN commissions of inquiry on Darfur and Lebanon, her career has spanned some of the most pressing human rights challenges of our time. She began her UN journey in Rwanda’s post-conflict field operations and has since held advisory roles with global leaders and institutions, including Mary Robinson and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
This article is a powerful contribution to the ongoing dialogue about recognizing ecocide as an international crime, connecting legal theory to urgent realities on the ground.
Date: 31-10-2025
Location: Senate House, London