Chris Tollefson

Professor

Tel: 250-888-6074

Faculty of Law
吃瓜网
PO Box 1700, STN CSC
Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2
Map

Chris combines research, teaching and law reform with a law practice that focusses environmental, climate and resource governance issues for a broad range of clients including Indigenous governments and businesses, community and conservation organizations, and public interest advocates.

Chris co-authors (with his late friend and colleague Dr. Meinhard Doelle) Canada’s leading environmental law textbook . His scholarship and law reform work is wide-ranging and regularly cited by courts and tribunals. He is a pioneer of public interest environmental clinical education and experiential learning. He was founding executive director of the UVic Environmental Law Centre, and co-founded and serves as executive director of Canada’s newest public interest environmental law non-profit, the (“CELL”).

Throughout his career, Prof Tollefson has been closely involved in innovative and cutting-edge environmental and public law litigation. Early in his career, he served on the board of Ecojustice Canada, including terms as its national Chair and President. He has appeared before all levels of court, including the Supreme Court of Canada, and various regulatory boards and tribunals. Recent cases include La Rose v. Canada, 2020 FC 1008 and 2023 FCA 241 (youth-led climate case); Teal Cedar Products Ltd. v British Columbia, 2025 BCSC 595 (defence of constructive expropriation claim); McDonald v. Comox (Town), 2023 BCSC 18 and 2024 BCCA 180 (common law riparian rights); and Todsen v. Morse, 2022 BCSC 1341 (SLAPP dismissal motion). Chris was counsel to BC Nature and Nature Canada during the Enbridge Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline hearing processes and on judicial review. In 2014 he was the recipient of Nature Canada’s Conservation Partner Award for his work leading their pro bono legal team during the Northern Gateway hearings.

Selected publications
Books
Media
Courses
Education
Areas of Graduate Supervision

“Climate-Proofing Judicial Review after Paris: Judicial Competency, Capacity, and Courage” (2019) 31 Journal of Environmental Law and Practice 245 with Jason MacLean
“Polyjural and Polycentric Sustainability Assessment: A Once-in-a-Generation Law Reform Opportunity” (2016) 30 Journal of Environmental Law and Practice 35 with Meinhard Doelle and Jason MacLean
"Symposium Overview: Conceptualizing New Governance Arrangements" (2012) 90 Public Administration3, lead author and symposium editor with T. Zito and F. Gale
"Costs in Public Interest Litigation Revisited" (2012) 39 The Advocate's Quarterly197
"Charting a Course: Shellfish Aquaculture and Indigenous Rights in New Zealand and British Columbia" (2006) 150 B.C. Studies 3 with R.M. Scott
"Towards a Public Interest Costs Jurisprudence" (2004) 83 Canadian Bar Review, lead author with D. Gilliland and J. DeMarco
"Games without Frontiers: Investor Claims and Citizen Submissions under the NAFTA Regime" (2002) 27 Yale Journal of International Law 141
"Metalclad Corporation v. The United Mexican States Revisited: Judicial Oversight of the Investor-State Claim Process under NAFTA" (2002) 11 Minnesota Journal of Global Trade 182
"Aboriginal Rights and Cumulative Environmental Effects" (1998) 18 Environmental Impact Review 371 with Karen Wipond
"Contaminated Sites Liability in British Columbia" in Environmental Liability (1997) with Diana Belevsky

“Environmental Regulation and Regulatory Takings” in D. Williamson, G. Lynch-Wood and A. Prochorskaite, eds., Research Handbook on Environmental Regulation(London, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 2025) with Anthony Ho
Environmental Law: Cases and Materials, 4th ed. (Toronto: Thomson Reuters, 2023) with Meinhard Doelle
“Biodiversity Litigation in Canada” in G. Futhazar et.al., eds., Biodiversity Litigation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022) with F. Perron-Welch and J. Ginsberg
“Foreign Wrongs, Corporate Rights & the Arc of Transnational Law” in Corporate Citizen: New Perspectives on the Globalized Rule of Law by O. Fitzgerald (Toronto: Centre for International Governance Innovation, 2020) with Jason MacLean
“The Trials and Tribulations of the Precautionary Principle” in Environment in the Courtroom by A. Ingelson (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2020)
“From Old to New Governance in Canadian Forest Policy: Dynamics without Change?” in D.L. Van Nijnatten & R. Boardman, eds. , Canadian Environmental Policy, 3rd ed. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2009) with Jeremy Rayner and Michael Howlett
“Investor Rights and Sustainable Development” in Handbook on Trade and Environment by K. Gallagher (London, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 2009) with W.A.W. Neilson
Setting the Standard: Certification, Governance and the Forest Stewardship Council (Vancouver: UBC Press, Fall 2008), lead author with Fred Gale and David Haley (404pp)
“NAFTA’s Chapter Eleven: The Case for Reform” in J. Kirton and P. Hajnal, eds., Sustainability, Civil Society and Local Governance: Local, North American and Global Perspectives (Ashgate Publishing, 2006)
“Indigenous Rights and Forest Certification” in J. Kirton and V. MacLaren, eds., Hard Choices and Soft Law: Trade, Environment and Social Cohesion in Global Global Governance (Ashgate Publishing, 2004)
“Stormy Weather: a Reflection on the Recent History of the Citizen Submission Process under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation” in Kirton and V. MacLaren, eds., Linking Trade, Environment and Social Cohesion: North American Experiences, Global Challenges (Ashgate Publishing, 2001)
The Wealth of Forests: Markets, Regulation, and Sustainable Forestry (Vancouver: UBC Press,1998), editor and contributing author

Interviewed by
Interviewed by
Interviewed by
Interviewed by
Lesley Evans Ogden, “Canada's proposed natural-gas plant stirs more controversy” (2016) Nature (London)

BA Hon. with Distinction (Political Science and History), Queen's
LLB, 吃瓜网
LLM, Osgoode Hall

Professor Tollefson is interested in supervising LLM and PhD students in the areas of: environmental and climate litigation; new governance arrangements; public participation; resource co-management; joint and shared decision-making.