Owen McIntyre is Professor of Law at University College Cork (Ireland), Director of the LLM Environmental & Natural Resources Law and LLM Marine & Maritime Programmes, and Co-Director of the UCC Centre for Law and the Environment. He is a recognised expert in Environmental and Natural Resources Law, with a particular research focus on International and Comparative Water Resources Law. He is General Editor of the Journal of Water Law, Joint Editor of the Irish Yearbook of International Law and Series Editor of the Brill International Water Law Monograph Series. He has recently been appointed to the Compliance Committee of the Protocol on Water and Health (to the UN Water Convention) and serves as a member of the Water Law Working Group of the World Bank’s Global Forum on Law, Justice and Development (GFLJD). Among other roles, he has also served as inaugural chair of the IUCN Specialist Group on Water and Wetlands, as a member of the EBRD Project Complaints Mechanism, as a member of the European Environment Agency Scientific Committee, and as a member of the Irish Aquaculture Licensing Appeals Board. He holds visiting positions at the University of Dundee, Charles University Prague, Xiamen University and Wuhan University. He regularly acts as a consultant to governments and international organisations on matters of international water, environmental and natural resources law.

Prof McIntyre’s research interests lie within the broad area of environmental and natural resources law, and he is one of the most widely cited authorities globally in the specialist field of international water resources law, which is increasingly recognised as centrally important in addressing the challenges of climate change mitigation and adaptation and in responding to biodiversity loss and maintaining natural ecosystems and ecosystem services. This field of law also addresses the human rights-related aspects of access to water and related services and the environmental implications of water resources management. Generally, it explores how governance frameworks can promote the inter-State and inter-sectoral cooperation required to achieve equitable, sustainable and optimised use of water resources. Recent research projects have explored how international water law has benefited from the phenomenon of legal “convergence”, whereby this body of rules borrows from (and contributes to) related fields, such as international rules on environmental protection, human rights, the marine space and the use of force. Prof McIntyre’s research also explores diverse aspects of the dynamics of international interaction and cooperation over water resources, publishing recently, for example, on State responsibility for transboundary water-related harm and on the role of the principle of “solidarity” in international water law.

He is the author of several leading books in the field, including Advanced Introduction to International Water Law (Edward Elgar, 2024) and Environmental Protection of International Watercourses under International Law (Ashgate, 2007), which was translated into Mandarin and published in China (IPPH, 2014) and has published in leading international journals such as the Journal of Environmental Law, the International Community Law Review, the Review of European, Comparative and International Environmental Law, the Journal of Energy and Natural Resources Law, Natural Resources & Environment, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Frontiers in Climate, the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law, the Chinese Journal of Environmental Law, International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, the Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, Water International, and Environmental Policy and Law. Prof McIntyre has co-edited six collections covering, in addition to water and environmental law, such topics as environmental human rights, the environmental and social accountability of international financial institutions, the interaction between environmental science and policy, and the problem of sovereignty in the management of shared water resources. He has delivered research papers at conferences all over the world and has been invited to provide expert advice and testimony to a variety of international organisations, including UNECE, UNESCO, UNEP, UNDP, FAO, World Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Asian Development Bank, IUCN and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Key topics include:

• International water resources law, governance and cooperation;
• Transnational / global environmental governance;
• Biodiversity and ecosystems law;
• Climate and earth systems law;
• Environmental liability;
• Environmental rights;
• Environmental and natural resources diplomacy;
• and Environmental and social safeguards in international financial institutions.

• LW3371 Sources and Foundations of Environmental Law
• LW6581 Method in Environmental Law (LLM)
• LW6627 International Environmental Law (LLM)
• LW6625 Law of the Sea (Clinical) (LLM)
• LW6642 Environmental Law Clinic (LLM)