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Ontario Tech acknowledges the lands and people of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation.

We are thankful to be welcome on these lands in friendship. The lands we are situated on are covered by the Williams Treaties and are the traditional territory of the Mississaugas, a branch of the greater Anishinaabeg Nation, including Algonquin, Ojibway, Odawa and Pottawatomi. These lands remain home to many Indigenous nations and peoples.

We acknowledge this land out of respect for the Indigenous nations who have cared for Turtle Island, also called North America, from before the arrival of settler peoples until this day. Most importantly, we acknowledge that the history of these lands has been tainted by poor treatment and a lack of friendship with the First Nations who call them home.

This history is something we are all affected by because we are all treaty people in Canada. We all have a shared history to reflect on, and each of us is affected by this history in different ways. Our past defines our present, but if we move forward as friends and allies, then it does not have to define our future.

Learn more about Indigenous Education and Cultural Services

Peter Stoett
PhD

Dean and Professor

Faculty of Social Science and Humanities

Contact information

Charles Hall - Room 345
Downtown Oshawa
61 Charles Street
Oshawa, ON L1H 4X8

905.721.8668 ext. 5856

peter.stoett@ontariotechu.ca

Background

In early September 2023 the Conference of the Parties of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) approved the final draft of the IPBES Assessment on Invasive Alien Species and Their Control.  Dr. Stoett co-chaired this four-year assessment which involved over 150 experts from over 60 countries. Link to the Summary for Policymakers and Report: https://www.ipbes.net/ias

Dr. Peter Stoett's main areas of research expertise include international relations and law, global environmental politics, and human rights; he is especially interested in critical perspectives on the many nuanced intersections between these themes. Current research focuses on biodiversity conservation policy, transnational environmental crime, marine pollution prevention, climate justice, and Canadian-American environmental relations. He has also worked extensively on genocide and war crimes prevention and punishment.

Prior to joining Ontario Tech University, Dr. Stoett was Director of the Loyola Sustainability Research Centre, and Chair of the Department of Political Science, at Concordia University in Montreal, Québec. Currently, he is co-chairing the first global assessment on invasive alien species conducted by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). He has also worked with the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) as a Coordinating Lead Author on the sixth flagship Global Environmental Outlook report (which won the 2020 Association of American Publishers’ Prose Awards Category Excellence Winner for environmental science), and was a contributing expert on the 2020 IPBES Workshop Report on Biodiversity and Pandemics.

Dr. Stoett has written, co-written and co-edited more than 10 books and more than 55 peer reviewed articles, chapters in edited books, and occasional papers. He has conducted research in Europe (including the Balkans), eastern, southern and western Africa, central America and Asia, and has worked closely with many institutions including the United Nations (UN), the Canadian government, and the Hague Institute for Global Justice. Recent books include Spheres of Transnational Ecoviolence (Palgrave, 2020); Global Ecopolitics: Crisis, Governance, and Justice, 2nd edition (University of Toronto Press, 2019); and, with Owen Temby, the edited volume North American Transnational Networks and Governance: Towards Continental Environmental Policy? (SUNY Press, 2017). Dr. Stoett has published journal articles in Global Environmental Politics, Nature Sustainability, Marine Policy, The Lancet Planetary Health and The Lancet Global Health, Canadian Foreign Policy, Review of Policy Research, and other top journals.

From February to April 2017 he was a Provost Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Tasmania, Australia; from April to June 2016 he was a Leverhulme Visiting Scholar in Climate Justice at Reading University, U.K.; from April to July 2013 he was an Erasmus Fellow and taught at the International Institute for Social Studies at the Hague, Netherlands; and from January to June, 2012 he was the Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Canadian-American Relations at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars’ Canada Institute, in Washington, D.C. He is also a Senior Research Fellow with the Earth Systems Governance Project of the Future Earth research consortium and an Expert Member of the Commission on Education and Communication of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Dr. Stoett has also taught senior graduate courses at the UN-mandated University for Peace in San Jose, Costa Rica and the IMT Institute for Advanced Studies/Scuola di Dottorato, in Lucca, Tuscany, Italy.

Dr. Stoett has two daughters, one son, and one very young granddaughter, and is married to Cristina Romanelli, who works with the World Health Organization (Geneva) and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (Montreal).

Education

  • MA, Political Studies and International Development University of Guelph
  • PhD, Political Studies and International Relations Queen's University

Research and expertise

  • transnational environmental crime
  • climate and environmental justice
  • biodiversity conservation
  • genocide, war crimes, and international courts
  • marine pollution prevention
  • conceptualizing sustainable futures
  • Canadian-American environmental relations 

2016 to 2018: Co-applicant, SSHRC Community and College Social Innovation Fund, “Food justice and sustainability: mobilizing new technologies to transform cities and build communities of change.”

2016 to 2020: Co-applicant, SSHRC Insight Grant, “Botanic Gardens as Actors in Global Environmental Governance.”

2014 to 2016: Co-applicant, Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la nature et les technologies, Regroupement stratégique: “Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science.”

2016: Co-applicant, SSHRC Connections Grant, “Global Diplomacy in the Digital Age: Decoding How Technology is Transforming International Relations."

2016: SSHRC Connections Grant, “Avoiding Catastrophe: Linking Armed Conflict, Harm to Ecosystems, and Public Health.”

2008 to 2011: SSHRC Standard Research Grant: “Bioinvasion and Global Environmental Governance: the Transnational Policy Network on Invasive Alien Species.”

Involvement

  • Selected publications

    IPBES (2023). Thematic Assessment Report on Invasive Alien Species and their Control of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Roy, H. E., Pauchard, A., Stoett, P., and Renard Truong, T. (eds.). IPBES secretariat, Bonn, Germany.

    Pinto, E., Vaz, S., Honrado, J., Roy, H., Pauchard, A., Stoett, P., Shackleton, R., Richardson, D., Vicente, J. “Policy-Oriented Research in Invasion Science: Trends, Status, Gaps and Lessons.” BioScience biac079 (2022).

    P. Stoett, “Plastic Pollution: A Global Challenge in Need of Multi-level Justice-centred Solutions”, in One Earth 5:6 (2022):53-56.

    M. Petterson and P. Stoett, “Lessons Learnt in Global Biodiversity Governance”, in International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law, and Economics, Special 20th Anniversary Issue, 22:2 (2022), 333-352.

    P. Stoett and S. Dalby, “The Anthropocene: Rethinking Humanity’s Role in the Earth System”, in P. Harris, ed., Routledge Handbook of Global Environmental Politics (London: Routledge, 2022), 203-216.

    P. Stoett and D. Omrow, Spheres of Transnational Ecoviolence. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2020.

    P. Stoett, Global Ecopolitics: Crisis, Governance, and Justice. Second Edition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019. (1st edition published in 2012).

    P. Stoett and O. Temby, eds. North American Transnational Networks and Governance: Towards Continental Environmental Policy? Albany: SUNY Press, 2017.

    Gore, M. and Stoett, P. “Transnational Environmental Crime Threatens Sustainable Development”, in Nature Sustainability (2019) DOI: 10.1038/s41893-019-0363-6

    Gupta, J., F. Hurley, A. Grobicki, T. Keating, P. Stoett, E. Baker, A. Guhl, J. Davies, and P. Ekins. “Communicating the Health of the Planet and Its Links to Human Health”, in The Lancet Planetary Health 3:5 (2019).

    J. Davies and P. Stoett, Coordinating Lead Authors, “Biodiversity”, in Global Environmental Outlook 6: Healthy Planet, Healthy People, United Nations Environment Program (Cambridge University Press, 2019), 140-173.
    Also: Lead Author, “Biodiversity Policy”, pp 322-347.

    P. Stoett and J. Vince, “The Plastic-Climate Nexus: Linking Science, Policy, and Justice”, in P. Harris, ed., Climate Change and Ocean Governance: Politics and Policy for Threatened Seas (Cambridge University Press, 2019), 345-361.

    P. Stoett, “Fairweather Friends? Canada-United States Environmental Relations in the Days of Trump and the Era of Climate Change”, in D. Carment and C. Sands, eds., Canada Amongst Nations: Canada-U.S. Relations (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 105-123.

    P. Stoett, “Transnational Environmental Crime”, in A. Swain, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Environmental Conflict and Peacebuilding (London: Routledge, 2018), 29-41.

    P. Stoett, “Unearthing Under-Governed Territory: Transnational Environmental Crime.” In J. Larik, R. Ponzio, and W. Durch, eds., Just Security in an Undergoverned World (Oxford University Press, 2018), 238-263.

    P. Stoett, “Imperilled Majesty: North American Oceans and Coasts, Ecological Pressures, and the Policy Context.” In Gustavo S. Sosa-Núñez, ed., Widening the Scope of Environmental Policies in North America: Towards Blue Approaches (London: Palgrave, 2018), 13-24.

    P. Stoett and S. Malette, “International Relations Theory and Post-humanist Thought in Ecopolitics”, in E. Kavalski, ed., The Ashgate Research Companion to Posthuman Dialogies in International Relations (London: Ashgate, 2018), 109-127.

    Stoett, P., and J. Vince, eds. “Special Section: The Marine Plastic Peril.” Marine Policy: The International Journal of Ocean Affairs 96(2018):200-298.

    P. Stoett, “Substantive but Inconsistent: Canada’s Role in Global Environmental Governance, 1968-2016.” Canadian Foreign Policy Journal 24:3(2018): 316-328.

  • Selected recent conference publications

    “Exploring the Plastic-Climate-Biodiversity-Health Nexus Further.” Presented to the Annual Meeting of the Earth System Governance Project, Utrecht, Netherlands, November 6, 2018.

    “Unearthing Under-governed Territory: Transnational Environmental Crime.” Roundtable presentation “From Crisis to Renewal: Using ‘Just Security’ to Reinvigorate Global Governance, at the Annual Meeting of the Academic Council on the United Nations System, LUISS, Rome, July 13, 2018.

    With J. Vince, “Environmental Justice and Multi-level Plastic Governance: Linking Marine Debris to Climate Change, Biodiversity Conservation, and Human Health.” Presented to the International Studies Association Annual Conference, San Francisco, April 4, 2018.

    “Substantive but Inconsistent: Canada’s Role in Global Environmental Governance, 1968-2017.” Presented to Global Affairs Canada Conference on Canada and the Challenges of Globalization Since 1968, Lester B. Pearson Building, Ottawa, October 25, 2017.

    “Critical Reflections on Climate Change Adaptation: an Agenda for the Humanities.” Presented to the UNESCO World Humanities Conference: Challenges and Responsibilities for a World in Transition, Liege, Belgium, August 10, 2017.