Room 6.23 - Kramer Law Building

Dr Annette Hübschle is a Chief Research Officer of the Global Risk Governance Programme within the Public Law Department at the University of Cape Town. She leads the Environmental and Planetary Futures research group, which focuses on the governance of environmental risks and harms, illegal markets, and transnational crimes.
Her group is currently involved in several international research projects, including:

• The TRANSFORM Project, a five-year European Research Council-funded study on the illegal flows of collectable wildlife.
• The  Safeguarding Succulents Project, funded by the UK’s DEFRA Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund, which focuses on safeguarding southern Africa’s succulents by analyzing demand and supply networks.
• Research into the impacts of COVID-19 on the wildlife economy of southern Africa (National Academy of Science COVID-19 grant).
• Investigations into transnational maritime environmental crimes (TMEC), focusing on the illegal exploitation of marine resources, trafficking, and governance challenges in ocean environments.
• Participation in a multidisciplinary consortium studying the intersection of wildlife trafficking and zoonotic pathogen biosafety.

Annette holds a PhD in Social Sciences and Economics from the University of Cologne and the International Max Planck Research School, as well as a Master of Philosophy in Criminology from the University of Cape Town. She has previously worked as a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, leading research into organized crime and money laundering across Africa. Annette is an expert advisor to the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime and serves on various advisory panels, including:

The South African Department of Environmental Affairs' task force against wildlife poisoning

Community Task Team linked to the National Response Strategy and Action Plan to address the illegal trade in South African succulent flora

The IUCN Green Criminology Specialist Group

The IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy

The IUCN Species Survival Commission’s Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Group

Teaching and Supervision

Annette supervises Master's and PhD students in the Faculty of Law and teaches seminars on 21st-century harmscapes and securities.

Research Interests

Annette’s research interests include the governance of safety and security, the functioning of illegal markets, the governance and regulation of Artificial Intelligence, ocean harmscapes, natural and mineral resource extraction, and the illegal wildlife trade. She focuses on the interface between licit and illicit economies, with a particular emphasis on the illegal wildlife trade and the socio-economic impacts on local communities in the Global South.

Publications (recent)

Annette and Clifford Shearing are co-authoring a book titled Governing Wildlife Security: Towards Pragmatic Conservation, which explores African rural communities' involvement in wildlife economies and strategies for building resilience against organized wildlife crimes. The book is forthcoming from Routledge in 2025.

Books

Dewey, Matías, C Dohmen, N Engwicht and A Hübschle, 2019. Schattenwirtschaft: Die Macht der illegalen Märkte. Berlin: Wagenbach. 176 pages.

Hübschle, Annette. 2016. A Game of Horns: Transnational Flows of Rhino Horn. Cologne: International Max Planck Research School on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy. 421 pages. https://doi.org/10.17617/2.2218357

Journal Articles

Hübschle, A. and Berg, J. (2024) Southern blue criminology: Rethinking ocean harmscapes in a global context. Frontiers in Conservation Science 5. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcosc.2024.1422829

Hübschle, A. and Margulies, J. (2024) The need for a socioecological harm reduction approach to reduce illegal wildlife trade. Conservation Biology. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14335

Yates, D., Mackenzie, S. and Hübschle, A. (2024) Irregularly regulated collecting markets: antiquities, fossils, and wildlife. Crime, Law and Social Change. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-024-10171-9

Hübschle, A., Kerina, K., Mogende, E. and Suping, K. (2024). Voices from the frontlines: Elite capture of environmental activism, International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy. https://doi.org/10.5204/ijcjsd.3317

Goyes, D.R., Hübschle, A.M, Okafor-Yarwood, I., South, N. (2024). Green Criminological Dialogues: Voices from Africa, International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy. https://doi.org/10.5204/ijcjsd.3244

Hübschle, A. and Gore, M. (2024). Lessons in resilience from the illegal wildlife trade during COVID-19 lockdowns. Science of the Total Environment, 916: 170365. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.170365

Magliocca, N.R., et al. 2021: Comparative Analysis of Illicit Supply Network Structure and Operations: Cocaine, Wildlife, and Sand. In: Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, 3 (1): 50-73. https://doi.org/10.31389/jied.76

Hübschle, A. et al. 2021. Focus on victims and the community: applying restorative justice principles to wildlife crime offences in South Africa. The International Journal of Restorative Justice 4 (1): 140-150. https://doi.org/10.5553/IJRJ.000030

Gore, M., Hübschle, A. et al. 2020. A conservation criminology-based desk assessment of vulture poisoning in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area. Global Ecology and Conservation: 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2020.e01076

Hübschle, A. 2017. Fluid interfaces between flows of rhino horn. Global Crime 18 (3): 198-217. https://doi.org/10.1080/17440572.2017.1345680

Hübschle, A. 2017. The social economy of rhino poaching: Of economic freedom fighters, professional hunters and marginalized local people. Current Sociology 65 (3): 427-447. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392116673210

Hübschle, A. 2016. Security coordination in an illegal market: The transnational trade in rhinoceros horn. Politikon 43 (2): 193-214. https://doi.org/10.1080/02589346.2016.1201377

Book Chapters

Dore, A.,  Hübschle, A., & Batley, M. 2022. Towards environmental restorative justice in South Africa: How to understand and address wildlife offences. In B. Pali, M. Forsyth, & F. Tepper (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Environmental Restorative Justice. London: Palgrave McMillan, pp. 333-360. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04223-2_14

Mackenzie, S., Hübschle, A and Yates, D. 2020. Global Trade in Stolen Culture and Nature as Neocolonial Hegemony, In J Blaustein, et al. (eds.), The Emerald Handbook of Crime, Justice and Sustainable Development. Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited, pp. 419-436.  https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78769-355-520201023

Hübschle, A. 2019. Fluid interfaces between flows of rhino horn. In: A. Amicelle, et al. (eds.), The Policing of Flows: Challenging Contemporary Criminology. London: Routledge, pp. 19-38. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429299193

Hübschle, A. 2017. Contested illegality: Processing the trade prohibition of rhino horn. The architecture of illegal markets, edited by Jens Beckert and Matías Dewey. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 177-197. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198794974.003.0010

 

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