Bridging research and legal practice on environmental and social justice

Anna Berti Suman is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy.

Besides being a researcher, she is a qualified lawyer under the Bar of Rome, and she was recently seconded at "Systasis - Centre for the Management of Environmental Conflicts", joining their legal team in Milan.

Anna earned her PhD from the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society, The Netherlands, with a project investigating how civic monitoring influences the governance of environmental health risk.

Earlier, she worked on young patients’ access to education in London, on an oil pollution litigation in Ecuador and on water conflicts in Chile.

At the JRC, Anna is leading the research project "Sensing for Justice" (SensJus), exploring civic monitoring as a source of evidence for environmental litigation and as a tool to foster environmental mediation.

Who inspired you to take up legal aid with an environmental aspect?

I have always been intrigued by ordinary people’s perception of environmental issues, even before I entered law school. I would spend time outdoors, exploring how people relate with the environment around them. I chose to study law as I felt a drive for justice, in a broad sense, encompassing not only environmental but also social justice.

When I was at university and I had the opportunity to perform research for my thesis abroad, I decided to go to Chile and explore water conflicts from the perspective of civil society on the field.

Recently graduated, I worked in the Ecuadorean Amazon rainforest on a famous oil contamination case. There, my role model was Pablo Fajardo, leading lawyer at the Union of Affected People by Chevron-Texaco, who was personally affected by the oil pollution disaster perpetrated in the Ecuadorean rainforest.

Pablo taught me how you can be a leading expert in your field, such as environmental law, yet remain approachable and close to the ordinary people you represent and whose claims you voice. I learned the importance of bringing legal aid to communities that are very knowledgeable on environmental matters but lack the legal competences to face a complex litigation and defend their rights.

[My mentor] taught me how you can be a leading expert in your field, such as environmental law, yet remain approachable and close to the ordinary people you represent and whose claims you voice.

What is the most fulfilling project you have been involved with as part of SensJus? Why?

I have always felt the need to inquire deeper into environmental stressors and shocks. This brought me to choose the south of my country, the oil-rich region of Basilicata in Italy, as site of fieldwork for SensJus.

It was a fulfilling experience as I could find "the South" that I had in a way left behind me in Ecuador back in the Global North. I had to learn again to observe my country with the lens that I had built over years spent abroad. I could perform "slow fieldwork" in Basilicata, following the "civic sentinels" in their daily activities at their pace.

Based on fieldwork notes, sketches and impressions, I decided to develop with an artist "Story of a civic sentinel", a graphic novel which recounts the achievements but also challenges encountered by civic sentinels facing oil pollution in the Global South (including the multiple "Souths" of the North).

This was the first step into art-based research as it served both as a communication tool for broader publics (for example in schools) and as a tool to elicit reactions from research participants that will relate to the story of civic sentinels.

SensJus is making the novel available in various languages (so far, English, Italian, Spanish and French) and as a Creative Commons resource. This was a great learning experience for me as I understood the power of bringing empathy and story-telling into complex research topics such as those that my project addresses.

Based on the field experience, I also curated an exhibition during the European Commission's JRC Science & Art week, Resonances IV, and a theatre monologue that is going around Europe including landing in our fieldwork site, Basilicata.

Bringing all this back to the field site was my biggest achievement, while performing an endless work of connecting small scale discourses with the overarching institutional debate, for example engaging in discussions at the European Environmental Agency and at the Aarhus Convention Meeting of the Parties.

What advice would you give to budding young researchers seeking to engage with citizens?

My first suggestion would be to meet the people and communities of interest where they are, daring to perform field research or at least to engage with those venues where ordinary people normally are, rather than expecting them to come to our research centres.

My second suggestion would be strive to bring research results where target communities are, no matter how hostile and hard to access these places may be.

I would also advise young researchers to be present in public spaces which can be both physical, such as festivals, squares, schools and libraries, and virtual, such as video talks, podcasts and popular magazines, exploring creative ways to recount science, for example through illustrating the research process, "sensorial walks" and jam sessions of drawing.

Through these approaches, emerging researchers will be able to communicate research results in creative ways and stimulate reactions, becoming ‘readable’ by different audiences, while still being rooted in sound science.

Meet the people and communities of interest where they are, dare to perform field research or at least to engage with those venues where ordinary people normally are, rather than expecting them to come to our research centres.

How have the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions supported your work?

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions has supported my work on multiple fronts.

First, MSCA enabled me to shape my research at a leading scientific hub for EU policies and decision-making, i.e. the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. It also gave me the possibility to perform a secondment period at a prestigious legal hub on climate and environmental litigation, Systasis, following real-world cases.

In addition, I could be continuously engaged in trainings offered by my hosting institution, by the secondment site and by external organisations such as the European Consortium for Political Research.

Moreover, with my research budget, I could attend key scientific events in my field such as the Citizen Science Association Conference, Berlin, and the Engaging Citizen Science Conference, Aarhus, to name a few examples in 2022.

Last but not least, with the project’s budget I could hire an artist working with the project on specific scientific illustration activities.

What research plans do you have for the future?

In the near future, I aim to refine the methods and approaches developed for SensJus, such as "slow ethnography", art-based research and story-telling methods to reach difficult and less visible publics such as (climate and environmental) migrants’ communities, that I consider promising sentinels. This will be in line with the expectations that come with SensJus being chosen as "Breakthrough of the Year" 2022, in the Science Engagement category of the "Falling Walls" contest, Berlin.

I also strive to perform more and more advocacy work to bridge the divide between the actors that gather potentially meaningful evidence to tackle complex environmental challenges, lawyers in the field and environmental enforcement authorities. I will keep working hard to pave the way for the recognition of civic evidence of environmental harm in multiple fora.

As a lawyer knowledgeable of the science behind environmental issues, I am aware of how difficult it is for ordinary people to navigate environmental science and to understand the law. I am also conscious of the challenges that practitioners in the field face. My mission is and will be to bridge my research to the legal practice, intersecting and addressing both fields.

I am aware of how difficult it is for ordinary people to navigate environmental science and to understand the law. [...] My mission is and will be to bridge my research to the legal practice, intersecting and addressing both fields.