Preserve the ice memory for future generations

The Ice Memory initiative raises multiple legal issues, most of them unprecedented, and on which no clear answers can be given under existing international law.   

Questions arise in the area of heritage ice cores collected in different countries around the world, their long-term preservation in an Antarctic sanctuary, the protection of reference data and, more broadly, the international governance of the Ice Memory heritage. 

Specific topics must be addressed:

• What is the legal status of the glaciers from which the cores are extracted? 

• Who owns the ice cores drilled by the Ice Memory scientific teams? 

• Can the scientific heritage be comprised of ice cores as well as of its yielded data be given the status of common heritage of humanity?  

• How will the international Ice Memory initiative be governed in the long term?

The Ice Memory Law and Governance Chair aims to establish proposals for filling existing legal gaps and to propose a legal framework for the development of the Ice Memory heritage.

A contributive and international Chair to join

The Chair is coordinated by the Law Research Center (Centre de Recherches Juridiques) of Grenoble Alpes University and headed by Sabine Lavorel, Assistant Professor in International Law (UGA / CRJ), specialized in Environmental and Climate International Law. The Ice Memory Chair is supported by the Ice Memory Foundation for the 2023-2026 period, thanks to our major donors.

• Sabine Lavorel is (Full) Professor in Public Law at the University of Grenoble Alpes (UGA) and member of the Legal Research Center.

She is specialized in international public law and environmental law; her research interests include environmental heritage protection, environmental responsibility, polar law and climate justice. She has led several collaborative research projects, the latest of which focuses on the legal protection of carbon sinks. In addition to her publications on these topics, she created and currently supervises the Diploma in Environmental Law (DU de Droit de l'Environnement) at UGA's Faculty of Law, and has helped set up multidisciplinary training courses on ecological transitions. In 2022, she played an active role in the Grenoble-Alpes Métropole Citizens' Climate Convention, co-chairing the Convention's operational committee over the year. She is still very much involved in monitoring the implementation of the citizens' recommendations by local authorities. From 2020 to 2024, she was co-director of UGA's Doctoral School of Legal Sciences and, since 2024, she has also been Vice President of the university, in charge of its environmental transition.

• Théo Abadie has been recruited as a PhD student for the Ice Memory Chair. This PhD thesis is being co-supervised by the Université Grenoble Alpes as part of the PhD in public law and by the Università Ca'Foscari Venezia as part of the national PhD in polar science. Théo holds a master’s degree in International Law and a University diploma in Environmental Law. His PhD thesis deals with the status of scientific samples, including ice cores.

The Chair will coordinate a network of international researchers and legal experts in the protection of scientific heritage,  natural resources law, public international law, the Antarctic regime as well as diplomatic issues.

Scientific committee

The Chair is supervised by an international scientific committee, aiming at ensuring the scientific follow-up of the chair's work. This committee composed of:

• Marie Cornu is the Director of Research at the CNRS (France), attached to the Institut des sciences sociales du politique (ISP). She specializes in heritage and cultural law. She is a member of the French National Commission for UNESCO. She has also been awarded the CNRS Silver Medal in 2019.

• Peter Bille Larsen is Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Geneva (Switzerland) and a member of the Institute for Environmental Governance and Territorial Development (GEDT). His research focuses on the environmental spaces of civil society, heritage and cross-border conservation.He is also a member of the Swiss National Commission for UNESCO, the IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy and the World Commission on Protected Areas. 
  
  

• Fabrizio Marrella is Professor of International and European Law at Ca'Foscari University in Venice, Italy. He is an associate member of the Institut de Recherche en Droit International et Européen de la Sorbonne (IREDIES). His areas of specialization include international business and investment law, international arbitration and international human rights law. He is also a member of the Global Council of the World Campus for Human Rights.