Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Sonya Cotton @sonyacotton.bsky.social · 10d

So excited for this event!

Property(In)Justice @property-injustice.bsky.social · 10d

We're hosting our final project event on 29 Sept.

Land, Property and Spatial [In]Justice: Towards a Legal Geography of International Law

W/ project team & stellar guest speakers who influenced us
@amandabyer.bsky.social @sonyacotton.bsky.social @sineadmercier.bsky.social @elaj-ucd.bsky.social

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Sharae Deckard @sharaerua.bsky.social · 20d

Please sign! "No academia as usual during Israeli occupation, apartheid and genocide in Palestine. Faculty and staff in European higher education and research call on our academic leaders to end bilateral agreements with Israeli institutions"

uppsaladeclaration.se/european-dec...

EUROPEAN DECLARATION OF CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION – Uppsala Declaration

uppsaladeclaration.se

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Property(In)Justice @property-injustice.bsky.social · 27d

Our first project PhD has officially graduated! Congratulations @sonyacotton.bsky.social for her research on the meaning of 'community' in international law, and its effects on legal standing + spatial justice in post-apartheid southern Africa! @amandabyer.bsky.social @sineadmercier.bsky.social

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Property(In)Justice @property-injustice.bsky.social · Aug 14

📣 New journal article by @amandabyer.bsky.social just published!

'Emparking Empire: Exclusionary Nature and Spatial Injustice in Commonwealth Caribbean Environmental Law', LEAD - Law, Environment and Development Journal, 21/2 (2025)

Open Access: lead-journal.org/content/a210...

lead-journal.org

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Environmental Law and Justice (ELAJ) @elaj-ucd.bsky.social · May 22

Dr. Patrick Toussaint considers the evolving approaches to the climate crisis, from loss and damage to reparations and draws on personal links to climate vulnerable regions in Africa and the diaspora to highlight what's at stake in the fight for climate justice elajucd.com/2025/05/05/f...

Blog Post: From Blue Zone to Courtroom: Some Reflections on Loss and Damage, Liability, and the Case for Climate Reparations

Patrick Toussaint Loss and damage from climate change is no longer a future scenario but the lived reality for millions around the world. And yet, despite over three decades of multilateral negotia…

elajucd.com

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A mysterious stranger (scary) @jetsenjoyer.bsky.social · May 21

Sinn Féin having more to say about the Norman invasion than they do about the British cultural invasion of transphobia into this country that’s happening right now rather than 1000 years ago is such a fucking own goal

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Kate 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 @itskateactually.bsky.social · Apr 30

Worthwhile read for cis people to understand what trans people have to go through in Ireland, if they want to access healthcare through the National Gender Service (derogatory).

The Journal @thejournal.ie · Apr 30

Transgender people have been asked about pornography and their sex lives when accessing healthcare from the National Gender Service.

They said this experience was traumatic and upsetting.

Experts said questions like these are “completely inappropriate”.

jrnl.ie/6690859

‘It left me traumatised’: The barriers to accessing transgender healthcare in Ireland

The HSE has admitted that transgender healthcare is ‘limited’ and is ‘not meeting people’s full range of needs’.

jrnl.ie

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Sonya Cotton @sonyacotton.bsky.social · May 2

It was wonderful to have the Property[in]Justice gals (including @sineadmercier.bsky.social and @amandabyer.bsky.social) together again. Thank you so much @owenmcintyre.bsky.social for this brilliant conference, very impressed that you even managed to make the weather amazing for the event.

Property(In)Justice @property-injustice.bsky.social · May 2

Thanks to @owenmcintyre.bsky.social and @ucc.ie Law for hosting another superb conference on Law and the Environment this year. We were delighted with the opportunity to present a project panel + discuss @property-injustice.bsky.social research with the other delegates. Go raibh maith agaibh go leir

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UNSW Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law @kaldorcentre.bsky.social · Apr 3

Who owns culture?
At #SydneyWritersFest, our own Sherine Al Shallah and
UNSW law professor Lucas Lixinski @heritagelaw.bsky.social will unpack the ethical & legal dilemmas of cultural objects.
Mark your calendar now for this free Curiosity Lecture
📅 22 May⏰ 2pm www.swf.org.au/program/seas...

Sherine Al Shallah and Lucas Lixinski on Cultural Objects

www.swf.org.au

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Christie Nicoson @cjnicoson.bsky.social · Apr 23

Building care-full futures requires ways of living that break the norms - "we need to practice these ways of being... not wait for them to appear at the end of the road"🌱Check out a chapter with the amazing @claradf.bsky.social 🐌 in Post-Growth Future(s) ipe.hr/wp-content/u...

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Katy Montgomerie 🦗 @katymontgomerie.com · Apr 22

This statement about the transphobic Supreme Court ruling by the UK's Crab Museum (yes a museum about crabs) is better than 99% of the statements I've seen on the topic

www.crabmuseum.org/visit

🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀

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Sonya Cotton @sonyacotton.bsky.social · Apr 23

Genuinely couldn't have predicted that these words would ever manifest inside me, but I sincerely think the GDPR is the most important piece of legislation to emerge from Europe and is doing the most at holding things together. Unexpected (and admittedly dry) addition to the anti-Fascism canon.

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Environmental Law and Justice (ELAJ) @elaj-ucd.bsky.social · Apr 10

"Climate change is a gender issue" writes @cjnicoson.bsky.social. Read more at elajucd.com/2025/03/01/b...

Blog Post: Gender Shaping Climate Change – Courts, Data, and Harm

Christie Nicoson There is a notable gender imbalance in climate decision-making, with only around 20% of countries sending women to the United Nations climate negotiations,[1] and court decisions h…

elajucd.com

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Prof Cathryn Costello @profccostello.bsky.social · Apr 8

This Thursday (10th April) at 6pm in Dublin! Asylum Under Pressure with
Professor Sean Rehaag (Osgoode Hall Law School, York University), Professor Rebecca Hamlin (UMass Amherst Migration Working Group), Hilkka Becker (Int Protection Appeals Ireland) and me! www.eventbrite.com/e/asylum-und...

Asylum Under Pressure: Public Lecture and Panel Discussion

Sean Rehaag (York University) w/ Rebecca Hamlin (UMass Amherst) Hilkka C. Becker (Int Protection Appeals Tribunal) & Cathryn Costello (UCD)

www.eventbrite.com

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Environmental Law and Justice (ELAJ) @elaj-ucd.bsky.social · Apr 9

In 2023, and despite lack of government opposition, a Bill to protect Ireland's environment and meet climate goals lapsed with the dissolution of the Dáil. Jamie McLoughlin explores this innovative and potentially transformative Bill in more detail: elajucd.com/2025/03/15/a...

An analysis of the Climate Action and Biodiversity (Mandates of Certain Organisations) Bill 2023

Jamie McLoughlin Introduction It has by now been well established that Ireland – like the rest of the world – is facing grave climate and biodiversity crises. Indeed, the Dáil declared a climate an…

elajucd.com

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Property(In)Justice @property-injustice.bsky.social · Apr 8

"The proposed mining application in the Sperrin mountains not only has serious implications for human and animal health across our island, but also for the natural and cultural heritage of one of our island’s most precious landscapes." Read EJNI @ejni.bsky.social report at: ejni.net/wp-content/u...

ejni.net

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Property(In)Justice @property-injustice.bsky.social · Apr 8

EJNI @ejni.bsky.social have published this helpful report on the gold mine application for the Sperrin Mountains (NI) & transboundary consultation with the south: ejni.net/wp-content/u...
@antaisce.bsky.social
@foeireland.bsky.social
@birdwatchireland.bsky.social
@peatlandconserve.bsky.social

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Sonya Cotton @sonyacotton.bsky.social · Apr 7

Well done to the incredible Dr Ng'etich for defending his Viva! I am so proud of you and so honoured to have been your colleague for the last four years.

Property(In)Justice @property-injustice.bsky.social · Apr 7

Huge congrats to Dr. Raphael Ng'etich who successfully defended his Viva at @ucdschooloflaw.bsky.social: "The Impact of Carbon Credit Schemes in Conservancies in Northern Kenya on the Governance of Unregistered Community Land". Thanks to Robert Kibugi, Joseph McMahon and @profccostello.bsky.social

Sonya Cotton @sonyacotton.bsky.social · Apr 7

There is no dignity watching universities, companies, grifters, countries scrambling to "embrace AI". Reminds me of other infamous geopolitical races to carve up continents. This famously does not end well.

The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · Apr 5

On hatred.

I hate all of this in almost every way a thing can be hated. I hate the factless waffle that surrounds Big AI’s every improbable goal. I hate how insipidly stupid, or just plain evil, those goals so often are, and the yawning chasm between them and any form of achievable reality. I hate that Big AI’s successes are inflated and its failures ignored — or are even categorised as hilarious mis-steps, like when AI chatbots tell people to eat poisonous mushrooms, put glue on pizza, or make air diffusers from chlorine gas.

I hate that Big AI consumes so much energy that every time you generate a six-fingered portrait of Anne Frank or a scene from the Vietnam war in the style of Studio Ghibli, you might as well just kill a polar bear with a crossbow. I hate that it can run roughshod over every copyright law and environmental protection on the planet in pursuit of the data it needs to continue failing, with no consequences save for the enrichment of the worst people on Earth, who have managed to make all of this magical bullshit seem sensible to an intellectual class comprised of people I wouldn’t trust to print an email.

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Jacob @tullamore-jew.bsky.social · Apr 6

Ending my social media hiatus cus we need bodies at this thing tomorrow

Protest graphic by Jews for Palestine Ireland.

Protest: Oppose Deportations. Solidarity with the #Berlin4

Monday April 7 1pm
Department of foriegn affairs
80 Stephen's Green

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Dr Charlie Gardner @charliejgardner.bsky.social · Mar 31

The 2023 biodiversity COP (COP15) received little media attention compared to climate COP27, and generated little public attention compared to Taylor Swift

Genuinely weird how little interest there is in maintaining life on Earth
www.nature.com/articles/s44...

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Sonya Cotton @sonyacotton.bsky.social · Apr 1

How

Marc Landen Brien @marc-landen-brien.bsky.social · Mar 31

Scientific American
“Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and an international banking group have quietly concluded that climate change will likely exceed the Paris Agreement's 2 degree goal and are examining how to maintain profits”

Morgan Stanley analysts
"We now expect a 3°C world”

tinyurl.com/rz698wsz

Big Banks Quietly Prepare for Catastrophic Warming

Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and an international banking group have quietly concluded that climate change will likely exceed the Paris Agreement's 2 degree goal and are examining how to maintain profits

tinyurl.com

Sonya Cotton @sonyacotton.bsky.social · Mar 26

Just as it's evil to privitise water (hi #Nestlé), Big Tech finds ways to monetise our most mammalian impulses to be in community with each other. I'm in the process of disengaging with #Meta (incl #Whatsapp). Hope to see you on the other side. It's greener and less complicit in war crimes

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Sonya Cotton @sonyacotton.bsky.social · Mar 26

well HELLO there. Incredible name btw

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