Bio

Dr.Renaud Colson is Associate Professor in the Law & Political Science Faculty of the University of Nantes (France) and Honorary Lecturer at Cardiff University. He holds a Master’s degree in legal theory from the Université Saint-Louis Bruxelles, a Master’s degree in private law and a PhD in legal history from the University of Nantes. He was previously British Academy Visiting Fellow at Cardiff University (2008) and Marie Curie Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence (2011-2013) and he has held visiting positions at the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Advanced Study (New Delhi, 2016), the University Institute on Addiction in Montréal (2018), theMax Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law (2019) and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime,Security and Law (2021).His doctoral thesis on the history of the judicial function in France was published as a book: La fonction de juger: Etude historique et positive (LGDJ, 2006). Since then, he has published on a variety of subjects including comparative law, drug policy and criminology.



Research

Project: Environmental law and environmental rights in India

The projectaims to analyze 1/how the central government, the states’ institutions and the local authorities use the law to tackle the growing environmental challenges facing India, 2/ what cultural, social and political drivers shape this legal response, and 3/ how successful Indian environmental lawis in meeting itsassigned objectives. In a first phase, the research will map out the institutional structure and the normative content of Indian environmental law drawing on official sources (constitutional provisions and constitutional case-law, federal statutes, state laws and local regulations). Over a second phase, the research will contemplate the relevance and the feasibility of legal transplants in environmental policy from India to France(e.g. the National Green Tribunal, environmental public interest litigation…) and more generally from the Global South to the West. The project will also evaluate the potential contribution of Indian legal doctrine to the contemporary debate on global environmental governance.



Publications

Click here for list of publications.



Other Publications

BOOKS

- (with Henri Bergeron) Faut-il légaliser le cannabis ?, Foreword by Professor A. Benyamina, First Editions, 2021.

- (with S. Field), The Transformation of Criminal Justice: Comparing France with England and Wales / Les transformations de la justice pénale : Une comparaisonfranco-anglaise, (bilingual, Foreword by The Right Honourable The Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, Preface by Robert Badinter, L’Harmattan, 2011, 190 p.

- La fonction de juger. Étude historique et positive, Avant-propos by the Premier Président de la Cour de cassation G. Canivet, Preface by Professor L. Cadiet, coll. fondation Varenne, LGDJ, 2006, 348 p.

BOOKS & JOURNALS

- (with S. Field), Learning from Elsewhere: from cross-cultural explanations to transnational prescription in criminal justice?,Journal of Law and Society, 46, Special Issue 1, 2019, 135 p.

- (with Henri Bergeron) European Drug Policies: The Ways of Reform, Routledge, 2017, 305 p.

- (with S. Field), EU Criminal Justice and the Challenges of Diversity: Legal Cultures in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, Cambridge University Press, 2016, 275 p.

- (with Henri Bergeron) Les drogues face au droit,coll. La vie des idées.fr, Presses Universitaires de France, 2015, 110 p.

- La prohibition des drogues. Regards croisés sur un interdit juridique, Preface by H. Leclerc, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2005, 143 p.

JOURNAL ARTICLES

- (with S. Field), ‘Learning from Elsewhere: From Cross-Cultural Explanations to Transnational Prescriptions in Criminal Justice’,Journal of Law and Society, 46, Special Issue 1, 2019, 1-11.

- ‘Fixing Transnational Drug Policy: Drug Prohibition in the Eyes of Comparative Law’,Journal of Law and Society, Journal of Law and Society, 2019, 46, Special Issue 1, 73-94.

- (with S. Field), ‘Socio-legal Studies in France: Beyond the Law Faculty’,Journal of Law and Society, 2016, 285-311.

- ‘Criminology à la française. French Academic Exceptionalism’, The British Journal of Criminology, 2013, 53(4), 588-604.

CHAPTERS IN EDITED VOLUMES

- ‘Drug offence’, in V. Mitsilegas, P. Caeiro, S. Gless (dir.), Elgar Encyclopedia of Crime and Criminal Justice, 2022 (7500 words).

- (with S. Field) ‘EU Criminal Justice and the Diversity of Legal Cultures in Europe’, in R. Pereira, A. Engel, S. Miettinen (eds.), The Governance of Criminal Justice in the European Union: Transnationalism, Localism and Public Participation in an Evolving Constitutional Order, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020, 82-101.

- (with Henri Bergeron) ‘Western and Central Europe: towards a cohesive model for drug policies?’, in C. Hallam, D. R. Bewley Taylor, K. Tinasti (eds.), Research Handbook on International Drug Policy, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020, 94-112.

- ‘Punitive Rationales in Anti-drug Legislation in the Light of International Law’, in A. Stella, A. Coppel (eds), Living with Drugs, London, ISTE/Elsevier, 2019, 147-156.

- ‘Harmonizing NPS legislation across the European Union: An Utopia?’, in O. Corazza and A. Roman (eds.), New Psychoactive Substances: Policy, Economics and Drug Regulation, Springer, 2017, 143-153.

- (with S. Field) ‘Legal Cultures in Europe: Brakes, Motors and the Rise of EU Criminal Justice’, in R. Colson and S. Field (eds.), EU Criminal Justice and the Challenges of Diversity, Cambridge University Press, 1-25.

- ‘Domesticating the European Arrest Warrant: European Criminal Law between Fragmentation and Acculturation’, in R. Colson and S. Field (eds.), EU Criminal Justice and the Challenges of Diversity, Cambridge University Press, 199-220.

- (with T. Elholm), ‘The Symbolic Purpose of EU Criminal Law’, in R. Colson and S. Field (eds.), EU Criminal Justice and the Challenges of Diversity, Cambridge University Press, 48-64.