Dr Aubin Fred Nzaou

Research Fellow in Law and Energy Policy – University of Houston Law Center (US)

Research Fellow at the Center for European Studies and at the Research Group of Comparative, European and International Law – Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 (France)

Email address: fred.nzaou (at) gmail.com

Biography:

Aubin NZAOU is Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow in Law and Energy Policy at University of Houston Law Center (US) and Fellow of the Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources (EENR) Center. He is also Research Fellow at the Center for European Studies and at the Research Group of Comparative, European and International Law at Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 (France).

Prior to joining the University of Houston Law Center, he was a Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Economics and Management of the University of Nîmes (France), Fellow of the CHROME Research Group (Detection, Evaluation, Management of CHRONIC AND EMERGING Risks) as well as Faculty Member at the Department of Law, Economics and Management.

Aubin was previously a Lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the Lumière University Lyon 2 alongside with the University Jean Moulin University Lyon 3, where he was Fellow at the Center for International Law. He also served as a Visiting Researcher at Senghor University, Alexandria (Egypt), and at Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium), where he joined the Research Center for Environmental and Urban Planning Law (SERES).

Aubin received a Master of Laws from University of Limoges, a Master of Laws from University of Saint-Louis, a Master’s Degree from University Mercure, and a Ph.D. in International Law from Jean Moulin University Lyon 3.

Research interests:

Aubin is currently the principal researcher on the project “NGOs & Energy Transition Governance in Law” (TGL). This project is funded by the European Union’s Commission by means of the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme and through Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant n° 845118. The research focuses on the role of non-state actors, particularly NGOs, in the governance and the implementation, from both perspective global and local, of the transition to a low-carbon economy. The project intents to undertake this analysis from a combined reading of Energy, Environmental and Natural Resources Law and Energy Policy, and from a triple approach international, comparative and domestic. The project will highlight this role by begging the question, “What prospects for an active role of non-state actors in the energy transition governance?”

Beyond this obvious role of non-state actors, the project also begs the underlying question of Law, either international or domestic, as an instrument of governance and implementation of Energy Transition. This shows then how several pressures and trends, globally or locally, are mainstreaming and designing the Energy Law and Policy through a new paradigm.

Publications relevant to international energy law:

Energy Transition and Law. Essay on the Role of Non-State Actors in the Governance of a Sustainable Transition (forthcoming).

Oil and Gas Production and Environmental Stewardship. The Paradigm of a Challenging Interaction by the Yardstick of International Law (forthcoming).

“Les nouveaux aspects environnementaux dans les Codes des hydrocarbures des pays d’Afrique subsaharienne”, in Liber Amicorum Stéphane Doumbé-Billé, Larcier, 2019 (with B. Boumakani).

“International Prospects: Towards a Logical Reassessment of the Place of Fossil Fuel in National Economies”, TGL Project, Working Paper, 2019.

“The Sustainable Development: a Stepping Stone to Sustainable Transition?”, TGL Project, Working Paper, 2019.

“What Prospects for Energy Transition in International Law?”, TGL Project, Working Paper, 2019.

“Oil and Gas Production in the Era of Energy Transition. Is International Environmental Law Supporting the Necessary Transition?”, TGL Project, Working Paper, 2019.

“L’Ambivalence du droit de l’environnement en République du Congo”, Revue Juridique et Politique, n° 3, 2016.

“La Constitutionnalisation du droit de l’environnement en République du Congo”, Revue Droit de l’Environnement, n° 228, 2014.

Teaching in the field of energy law:

At University of Nîmes, Aubin has embedded case studies of European and Domestic Energy Law in the graduate level course of Administrative Economic Law (2018). At Lansana Conté University, he teaches the postgraduate course on the Necessary Interaction between Oil and Gas Production and Environmental Stewardship (2019). At University of Houston Law Center, Aubin is planning out postgraduate workshops on Energy Transition as a new paradigm of Energy Law (2019-2022). At Quebec Institute for International Affairs, he has set up two courses on Actors of Global Energy Law and Policy and African Energy and Climate Change Policies within the Certificate of African Energy and Natural Resources Policy (2020-2021).