MsAmanda Miller

Amanda Miller is a PhD researcher at the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, supervised by Karen Makuch and Dr. Zen Makuch. Her work sits at the intersection of environmental governance, law, and policy, drawing on professional experience in policy analysis and legislative advocacy focused on climate mitigation and adaptation, sustainable agriculture, and environmental justice across the United States, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.

Building on her policy background, research experience at the Climate Institute, and MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Governance from the University of Oxford, Amanda’s doctoral research examines Rights of Nature (RoN), more specifically assessing whether it can address the inadequacies of current regulatory structures in responding to the biodiversity and climate crises and how it may evolve into a governance approach. RoN is an emerging legal and political framework that grants forms of legal recognition to natural entities and ecosystems through mechanisms including standing, personhood, and guardianship. More broadly, the movement behind RoN seeks to challenge anthropocentric ideologies and create mechanisms through which nature can be represented directly in governance and law.

Her doctoral thesis, A Rights-Based Framework for Conservation and the Management of Nature: Integrating Human and Non-Human Stakeholders, explores the normative foundations of RoN; how it is understood and interpreted by key stakeholders, including government agencies and policymakers, private-sector actors, and local community; opportunities and challenges associated with RoN implementation and enforcement; the relationship between RoN and broader political-economic systems; and the ways in which RoN frameworks may be able to influence policy development, institutional decision-making, and environmental outcomes. Through this research, Amanda aims to