Larissa Parker wins The Economist’s Open Future Essay Competition

The Faculty of Law is pleased to announce that second-year BCL/LLB student Larissa Parker has won The Economist’s Open Future Essay Competition. The competition asked people aged 16-25 to respond to the question “What fundamental economic and political change, if any, is needed for an effective response to climate change?” Parker’s essay, “Make a healthy climate a legal right that extends to future generations”, was chosen from among 2,400 submissions from 130 countries. Parker also had the opportunity to attend the UN Youth Climate Summit in New York on September 21, where young leaders from around the world convened to discuss and showcase climate solutions.

“The slow-onset nature of climate change, and the difficulties of establishing accountability from one generation to the next, make it necessary to develop and adopt new legal principles that articulate the rights and obligations underpinning intergenerational equity,” Parker writes. “Formal recognition of the rights of future generations would expand the scope of climate litigation and allow present-day litigants to sue on their behalf.”

Larissa Parker is a research associate at the McGill Law Governance and Society Lab and works with the Youth Climate Lab. She is also an activist through Climate Justice Montreal. She holds a BA in from the University of Toronto and an MSc in Environmental Governance from the University of Oxford.

“We are proud of Larissa for this extraordinary accomplishment,” said Dean Robert Leckey. “Her essay embodies the creativity, sensitivity to legal and social interaction, and critical engagement with legal boundaries characteristic of legal education at McGill.”

Please join us in extending our sincerest congratulations to Larissa Parker!