Professor Amanda Kennedy
Faculty of Business & Law,
School of Law
Biography
Professor Amanda Kennedy (PhD, LLB (Hons 1), B.Com, Grad.Dip. Legal Practice, Grad. Cert. Law Teaching, Lawyer (NSW)) is Dean and Head of School of the School of Law. Since joining QUT as a Professor of Law in 2019, she has held a range of leadership roles in the School of Law, including Director of Engagement and Graduate Education, Deputy Head of School, Acting and Interim Head of School.An internationally recognised scholar in agri-environmental and natural resources law, Amanda's expertise spans environmental justice, land use conflict, mining and resources law, and sustainability governance. Her research is supported by competitive and commissioned funding including Australian Research Council Discovery and DECRA grants, and includes a monograph with Routledge, Environmental Justice and Land Use Conflict: The Governance of Mineral and Gas Resource Development, alongside publications across domestic and international journals and books.
Amanda currently serves as Chair of the Governing Board of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law and Deputy Co-Chair of the LAWASIA Environmental Law Committee. She previously served as Co-Chair of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law's Teaching and Capacity Building Committee (2017–2023), and has led international pedagogy workshops and capacity-building programs for environmental law educators and judicial officers across the Asia-Pacific, in partnership with international development organisations and regulatory bodies.
More recently, her research has expanded through interdisciplinary collaboration with environmental and health scientists, including through the THRIVE Indoor Air Quality program at QUT, contributing legal and regulatory expertise to multidisciplinary research on environmental health and regulatory governance.
Amanda's teaching spans undergraduate and postgraduate programs concerning environmental law and natural resource governance, mining and resources law, and animal law. She has contributed to a textbook on Environmental, Planning and Climate Law in Queensland, in addition to leading an edited monograph on teaching and learning in environmental law.
Her contributions to teaching have been recognised through the LexisNexis-Australasian Law Teachers Association Citation for Excellence and Innovation in the Teaching of Law (2014), the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law Emerging Scholar Education Award (2016), and appointment as Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK) (2019).
Amanda is also actively engaged with scholarship at the intersection of artificial intelligence, professional identity and the future of legal practice, with a particular interest in how law schools must respond to technological transformation in preparing graduates for a rapidly evolving profession.
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
Personal details
Positions
- Dean and Head of School, Law
Faculty of Business & Law,
School of Law
Keywords
Ecological Justice, Environmental Justice, Environmental Law, Agricultural Law
Research field
Environmental and resources law, Law in context, Other law and legal studies
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2020
Qualifications
- Doctor of Philosophy (University of New England)
Professional memberships and associations
- Chair of the Governing Board and Member (Oceania), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Academy of Environmental Law
- Deputy Co-Chair, LAWASIA Environmental Law Committee
- Fellow of the Asian Research Institute for Environmental Law
- Co-Chair, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Academy of Environmental Law Teaching and Capacity Building Committee (2017 - 2023)
- Council Member, National Rural Law and Justice Alliance (2013 - 2016)
- Co-Editor in Chief, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Academy of Environmental Law eJournal (2013 - 2016)
Publications
- Kennedy, A., Du Plessis, A., Fowler, R., Hamman, E. & Warnock, C. (2021). Teaching and Learning in Environmental Law: Pedagogy, Methodology and Best Practice. Edward Elgar Publishing. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/211567
- Kennedy, A. & Holley, C. (2021). A case for place in governing the energy-environment nexus. In R. Bartel & J. Carter (Eds.), Handbook on Space, Place and Law (pp. 268–280). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/210045
- Kennedy, A., Huggins, A., Nay, Z., Hamman, E. & Deane, F. (2021). Environmental Regulation of Agriculture in Federal Systems of Government: The Case of Australia. Agronomy, 11(8). https://eprints.qut.edu.au/212161
- Maguire, R., Hamman, E., Bell-James, J., Kennedy, A. & England, P. (2020). Environmental, Planning and Climate Law in Queensland. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/200854
- Holley, C. & Kennedy, A. (2019). Governing the energy-water-food nexus: Regulating unconventional gas development in Queensland, Australia. Jurimetrics: journal of law, science and technology, 59(2), 233–266. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/128823
- Holley, C., Mutongwizo, T., Shearing, C. & Kennedy, A. (2019). Shaping Unconventional Gas Regulation: Industry Influence and Risks of Agency Capture in Texas, Colorado and Queensland. Environmental and Planning Law Journal, 36(5), 510–530. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/133263
- Holley, C., Kennedy, A., Mutongwizo, T. & Shearing, C. (2019). Governing energy transitions: Unconventional gas, renewables and their environmental nexus. Environmental and Planning Law Journal, 36(5), 427–436.
- Preston, B., Martin, P. & Kennedy, A. (2018). Bridging the gap between aspiration and outcomes: the role of the court in ensuring ecologically sustainable development. In C. Voigt & Z. Makuch (Eds.), Courts and the environment (The IUCN Academy of Environmental Law series) (pp. 35–58). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/124257
- Holley, C., Shearing, C., Harrington, C., Kennedy, A. & Mutongwizo, T. (2018). Environmental security and the Anthropocene: Law, criminology, and international relations. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 14, 185–203. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/124254
- Kennedy, A., (2017). Environmental justice and land use conflict: The governance of mineral and gas resource development (Earthscan Studies in Natural Resource Management). Routledge. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/124249
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Amanda, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).
Filter publications:
A complete list of publications is available at: https://www.qut.edu.au/about/our-people/academic-profiles/amanda.kennedy
Awards
- Type
- Recipient of an Australia Council Grant or Australia Council Fellowship
- Reference year
- 2011
- Details
- Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - 'Effective Systems for Managing Intractable Natural Resource Conflict'
- Type
- Recipient of a Nationally Competitive Research Fellowship
- Reference year
- 2011
- Details
- Innovation Grant - 'Rethinking law curriculum: developing strategies to prepare law graduates for practice in rural and regional Australia'.
Selected research projects
- Title
- Water and Coal Seam Gas: Achieving Integrated Governance
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- DP170100281
- Start year
- 2017
- Keywords
Projects listed above are funded by Australian Competitive Grants. Projects funded from other sources are not listed due to confidentiality agreements.