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Overview

Dr Katalin Sulyok

Biography

Profile picture of Katalin Sulyok

Katalin Sulyok has an interdisciplinary expertise in the law – science interface in international environmental law and climate law, with a special focus on science-heavy adjudication and science-based policy-making. 

She holds a Ph.D. in International Law, a B.Sc. in Biology and an LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School, which she obtained as a Fulbright Scholar in 2016. Her English-language PhD dissertation regarding the use of scientific knowledge in international environmental adjudication was awarded the Wheaton Prize by the Institut de Droit international given to the best international environmental law PhD thesis written in English, French, Italian, German or Spanish. Her thesis was later published as a monograph by Cambridge University Press entitled “Science and Judicial Reasoning – The Legitimacy of International Environmental Adjudication” (2021).

Katalin Sulyok is currently an Associate Professor in International Law and Sustainability affiliated with the Center for Sustainable Development Law and Policy (CSDLP) and the Strategic Research Office delivering on the JustN0W project, the flagship project of CSDLP.

Katalin Sulyok has been actively involved in domestic and international climate litigation procedures. For three years, she has been the Chair of the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ENNHRI) Working Group on the Climate Crises and Human Rights, and has been a legal advisor to ENNHRI, which acted as the oral intervener in the landmark climate litigation proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights in the KlimaSeniroinnen and the Duarte Agistonho cases.

She has also been a rapporteur on three occasions for the Annual meetings of the judge members of the EU Forum of Judges for the Environment on topics related to the role of science in environmental adjudication, the human rights-based protection of the environment and EU air pollution law. 

Dr Sulyok has widely published in leading international journals, including the Leiden Journal of International Law, Transnational Environmental Law, and RECIEL as well as book chapters with leading publishing houses. She is a regular speaker at international conferences regarding subjects related to environmental law and climate law. She gave talks and lectures at the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Auckland.

Prior to joining Durham Law School, Katalin Sulyok has been working at ELTE University (Budapest), where she taught Public International Law and Environmental Law related subjects for several years. For more than 10 years, she worked as a Chief Legal Advisor to the Hungarian Ombudsman for Future Generations, which is a unique institution independent from the government, which is tasked by the Hungarian Parliament to safeguard the interests of future generations in policy-making processes and act as a watchdog over the implementation of the right to a healthy environment by governmental authorities. 

Dr Sulyok is also a Visiting Professor at Eötvös Loránd (ELTE) University (Hungary), University of Vienna (Austria) and University Católica Porto (Portugal), where she teaches courses on climate change law and litigation as well as the international law, EU law and domestic law related aspects of environmental and climate protection. 

She was a Visiting Scholar at the Lauterpacht Center and the C-EENRG Center at Cambridge University, a Visiting Leibniz Fellow in the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg, as well as at Aarhus University, Graz University and Sorbonne University. She held the prestigious Re:constitution postdoctoral fellowship in Democracy and the Rule of Law in Europe in 2021/2022 where she conducted research into the role of future generations in domestic and international climate litigation.

She earned her habilitation title in 2018 with a second monograph written in Hungarian (entitled ‘Do we have a rigth to live unsustainably?’ Orac, 2025) concerning the rising tide of future generations litigation in climate and environmental lawsuits.

She serves on the Editorial Board of the Yearbook of International Environmental Law (Brill) since 2025.

Awards

Dr Sulyok's scholarly works received numerous international and domestic awards, including the Oberman Memorial Award – Environmental Law Writing Prize given by the Dean of Harvard Law School, the Wheaton Prize of the Instute de Droit international, the Disserationes Iuridica Excellentissima Award given by the Hungarian Academy of Science, and the Judge Herczegh Memorial Award.

Her book on Science and Judicial Reasoning was also cited by Judge Serghides of the European Court of Human Rights in his dissent in the Cannavacciuolo and Others v Italy case in 2025.

 

Research experience

Her main research areas include environmental adjudication, science-law interface, inter-generational equity, future generations litigation, causation in law, human rights-based protection of the environment, climate litigation, and the international law-related questions of safeguarding a liveable climate system.

Katalin Sulyok is also a member of the SciLex Forum, an interdisciplinary network comprising climate scientists and international lawyers, dedicated to push forward the knowledge boundary in order to translate climate science for international law. 

Dr Sulyok has also served as a member of a SAPEA expert group, which is part of the EU Commission’s Scientific Advice Mechanism, advising the EU Commission on the physical science aspects and social science risks of Solar Radiation Modification and prepared an Evidence Review Report.

Katain Sulyok also has a sustained research interest and expertise in designing effective legal tools to protect the long-term interests of future generations on the domestic and international levels. She co-convened and hosted a workshop in Budapest in 2023 on future generations litigation, the written output of which has been published as a Symposium in Volume 38 of the most-prestigious Transnational Environmental Law journal. 

She has also been advising JESC, a Brussels-based organization in its campaign for establishing a spokesperson institution for future generations within the EU. Upon the appointment of a new EU commissioner responsible for intergenerational fairness, Dr Sulyok’s support with legal advice JESC’s new efforts to help raise the legal profile of future generations and intergenerational fairness within EU law and lawmaking procedures. 

Publications

Katalin Sulyok's English language publications: 

 Books: 

  •  Katalin Sulyok: Science and Judicial Reasoning – The Legitimacy of International Environmental Adjudication, Cambridge University Press, 2021
  • Katalin Sulyok: Van-e jogunk a fenntarthatatlansághoz? Perstratégiák a jövő nemzedékek környezeti és klímapereiben Orac, 2025 (In Hungarian) (Translation: Do we have a right to live unsustainably? Litigation strategies in future generations litigation in environmental and climate cases)

Journal articles:

Book chapters:

  •  Katalin Sulyok: Reasoning styles, the role of discretionary judicial choices and the limits of judicial review: the Hungarian courts’ experience with the Habitats and the Bird Directives. In Mariolina Eliantonio, Emma Lees and Tiina Paloniitty (eds): EU Environmental Principles and Scientific Uncertainty before National Courts, Hart Publishing, 2023
  •  Katalin Sulyok: Sustainable Development. In Nowak, M., Hofbauer, J., Janig, P. and Binder, C. (eds.) Elgar Encyclopedia of Human Rights. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022
  •  Katalin Sulyok: Intergenerational equity. In Nowak, M., Hofbauer, J., Janig, P. and Binder, C. (eds.) Elgar Encyclopedia of Human Rights. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022
  •  Katalin Sulyok: Science, Legitimacy and the Judicial Function – A Need for More Intrusive Standards of Review. In Gábor Kajtár – Başak Çali – Marko Milanovic (Eds.), Secondary Rules of Primary Importance – Attribution, Causality, Standard of Review and Evidentiary Rules in International Law. Oxford University Press, 2022 
  •  Katalin Sulyok: Scientific Uncertainty as a Key Obstacle to Efficient Legal Protection of the Environmental Interests of Future Generations In: Marie-Claire, Cordonier Segger; Marcel, Szabó; Alexandra, R. Harrington (eds): Intergenerational Justice in Sustainable Development Treaty Implementation: Advancing Future Generations Rights through National Institutions

Reports, working papers:

Blogs: