Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh is an Associate Professor of Sustainability Law at the University of Amsterdam and co-founder of SEVEN, the university’s climate institute. She is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Fiji and a Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.

Margaretha’s research and teaching focus on the role of law in transitioning to sustainable societies, with a special focus on human rights and social justice. She previously worked as an Assistant Professor of Public International Law at Leiden University (2018-22), coordinated the University of the South Pacific’s Environmental Law programme at the Emalus Campus in Vanuatu (2015-18) and was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Cambridge’s Lauterpacht Centre for International Law (2012-14).

Margaretha has published widely in the field of sustainability law. Her books include State Responsibility, Climate Change and Human Rights under International Law (Hart Publishing 2019) and Environmental Law and Governance in the Pacific: Climate Change, Biodiversity and Communities (ed. with Evan Hamman, Routledge 2020). She is currently working on ‘Mobilising Rights for Climate Justice’ (with Sébastien Jodoin, under contract with Cambridge University Press), following her NWO Veni project ‘Climate Justice through the Courts’ (2019-2023). She also edits the forthcoming Cambridge Handbook on Climate Litigation (with Sarah Mead) and co-authored the Maastricht Principles on the Rights of Future Generations. She sits on the Scientific Advisory Boards of the European Journal of International Law and the Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law, as well as the Editorial Board of the Asia Pacific Journal of Environmental Law. 

Margaretha’s research builds on two decades of involvement in international climate negotiations and related legal processes. She has advised and represented governments, NGOs, international organisations and UN agencies. She currently serves on the Human Rights Committee of the Netherlands Advisory Council on International Affairs and advises the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on the development of policies addressing environmental crime under the Rome Statute.

As an international lawyer, Margaretha is affiliated with Blue Ocean Law, a boutique firm based in Guam specialising in human rights and environmental law. She currently co-leads the legal team of the Republic of Vanuatu in the climate advisory proceedings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and represents the Organisation for African, Caribbean and Pacific States in the ICJ advisory proceedings on the right to strike. Further, she acted as counsel for the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law in the climate advisory proceedings before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

Margaretha holds a PhD from the European University Institute, a European Master’s in Human Rights and Democratisation (E.MA) from the European Inter-University Centre on Human Rights and Democratisation, a Graduate LLB from Nottingham Law School and a BA (Philosophy) and BSc (Cultural Anthropology & Development Studies) from the Radboud University. She received a Lord Justice Holker Award from the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn (London) and was called to the Bar of England and Wales (2014) and Vanuatu (2023).