Stepan Wood

Professor Stepan Wood’s research relates to sustainability, globalization, transnational governance, voluntary environmental standards, climate change, environmental law, corporate social responsibility and social justice. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Law, Society and Sustainability at the Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia, where he also directs the Centre for Law & the Environment. His current projects relate to the rights of nature, environmental rights, homelessness, the reception of English law in colonial British Columbia, and the future of the International Organization for Standardization.

From 2011 to 2020 he led the interdisciplinary Transnational Business Governance Interactions (TBGI) project, an international research network examining the drivers, dynamics, and impacts of competition, cooperation, coordination, and conflict among transnational initiatives to regulate global business. His most recent book (co-edited with Kenneth W Abbott and others) is Transnational Business Governance Interactions: Advancing Marginalized Actors and Enhancing Regulatory Quality (Elgar 2019). His earlier book on Canada and globalization co-authored with political economist Stephen Clarkson, A Perilous Imbalance (UBC Press, 2010), was shortlisted for the Donald Smiley award for best book on Canadian politics. Professor Wood is the founding co-chair of the Willms & Shier Moot, Canada’s leading environmental law moot court competition for law students. He is a long-time member of Canada’s national committee on environmental management standards and a Canadian negotiator of ISO 14001 and associated standards at the International Organization for Standardization.

Professor Wood holds an LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School and an SJD from Harvard Law School. He was a law clerk to the late Justice John Sopinka of the Supreme Court of Canada and practised law with White & Case in New York. Before joining the Allard School of Law in 2017, he was Professor and York Research Chair in Environmental Law and Justice at Osgoode Hall Law School, where he was also Editor-in-Chief of the Osgoode Hall Law Journal, Coordinator of the JD/Master in Environmental Studies joint degree program, acting director of the interdisciplinary Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability and founding co-director of Osgoode’s Environmental Justice and Sustainability Clinic. He has held visiting appointments around the world, including at the University of Melbourne, Monash University, University of Verona, Bar-Ilan University, the European University Institute, and Northwestern University.