Melanie Jean Murcott
Room 6.30 - Kramer Law Building
Melanie Jean Murcott is an associate professor of law in IMEL. She joined the Institute in 2023. She holds an LLB from the University of Cape Town and an LLM (Constitutional and Administrative Law) from the University of Pretoria (both with distinction). She obtained her LLD (Constitutional Law) from North-West University. Before joining academia in 2012, Melanie practised as an attorney, including at Hogan Lovells (South Africa) where she was a partner. From 2012 to 2023, Melanie taught and engaged in research at the University of Pretoria. Among other accomplishments, she authored Transformative Environmental Constitutionalism (Brill, 2022), a significant monograph which develops a novel approach to the adjudication of disputes concerning environmental protection, given that we face a planetary crisis with myriad justice implications. Melanie believes, as Maya Angelou says: “no one of us can be free until everybody is free”. Importantly for Melanie, a flourishing environment creates the necessary conditions for freedom since humans and the environment are fundamentally connected.