Dr Fanny Thornton

Dr Fanny Thornton leads the GeoClimRisk project at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). This Project concerns the shifting geopolitics arising with climate change risks and works with partner countries India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. The project is commissioned by the German Foreign Ministry (AA), funded by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) and implemented in cooperation with Germany's agency for international development, GIZ.

Previously, Dr Thornton led the B-EPICC project at PIK. This inter-disciplinary project concerned the co-creation of knowledge about regional climate phenomena and hydrological and biodiversity systems, as well as their impacts upon agriculture-based livelihoods, human mobility and security. The project worked with partners in Brazil, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Peru and India and was also funded by IKI.

Prior to joining PIK, Dr Thornton was Associate Professor in Law at the University of Canberra in Australia. In that capacity, she was engaged in collaborative, inter-disciplinary research concerning climate change-linked human migration, with a regional focus on the Pacific Islands. Her research was supported by a number of competitive external grants, including a substantial grant from the Australian Research Council. Dr Thornton has extensive experience teaching in the tertiary education sector, having convened and delivered courses at the undergraduate and post-graduate levels for approximately ten years, predominantly in the areas of public international law, environmental law and legal theory.

Dr Thornton completed her doctoral dissertation in the law faculty at the Australian National University in Canberra, supported by a prestigious Australian Postgraduate Award. Her doctoral research was published as a monograph – Climate Change and People on the Move: International Law and Justice - with Oxford University Press in 2018.

Dr Thornton has recently returned to her native Germany, after 25 years spent abroad in the United States, United Kingdom, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. She is passionate about climate justice and seeks to adjust how she leads her life to meet its demands. When not working, she can often be found in the great out-of-doors.

Select Publications:

Diogo Andreolla Serraglio, Fernanda de Salles Cavedon-Capdeville, Fanny Thornton, 'The Multi-Dimensional Emergence of Climate-Induced Migrants in Rights-Based Litigation in the Global South' (2024) 20 Journal of Human Rights Practice, 1-21. https://.doi.org/10.1093/jhuman/huad066.

Kira Vinke, Stephen M Gardiner, Juliana Gaertner, Fanny Thornton & John Schellnhuber, 'The Freedom to Move in Response to Uninhabitability': Enabling Climate Migration by a Nansen-Type Passport', in Ramanathan and van Braun (eds), Resilience of People and Ecosystems under Climate Stress (Pontifical Academy of Science, 2023), 229-241. Access here.

Fanny Thornton, 'The future is now: Climate displacement and human rights obligations—a note on recent developments in the UN Human Rights Committee' (2022) 4 Frontiers in Climate, Sec Climate Mob, https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2022.1061474.

Carol Farbotko, Fanny Thornton, Monika Mayrhofer, Elfriede Hermann, 'Climate Mobilities, Rights and Justice: Complexities and Particularities' (2022) 4 Frontiers in Climate, Sec Climate Mob, https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2022.1026486.

Fanny Thornton, Financing Planned Relocation and Human Mobility in the Context of Climate Change in the Pacific Region (Pacific Resilience Partnership, 2022).

Fanny Thornton, ‘The Absurdity of Relying on Human Rights Law to Counter Climate Change and Its Effects?’ in Benoit Mayer and Alexander Zahar (eds), Climate Law Debates. (Cambridge University Press, 2021) 159.

Fanny Thornton, Sharon James, Olivia Dun, Carol Farbotko, Karen E McNamara, Celia McMichael, Sabira Coelho, Frances Namoumou, ‘Policy Developments and Options to Address Human Mobility in the Context of Climate Risk in the Pacific Islands Region’ (International Organization for Migration, 2021).

Fanny Thornton, ‘Obtaining Corrective Justice for Climate Change Displacement’ (2021) 10(1) Transnational Environmental Law 13-33.

Carol Farbotko, Olivia Dun, Fanny Thornton, Karen E. McNamara, Celia McMichael, 'Relocation Planning Must Address Voluntary Immobility' (2020) 10 Nature Climate Change 702.

Fanny Thornton, Karen McNamara, Olivia Dun, Carol Farbotko, Celia McMichael, MerewalesiYee, Sabira Coelho, Tim Westbury, Sharon James, Frances Namoumou, ‘Multiple Mobilities and Immobility Amid Climate Risk in Pacific Islands Communities’ (2020) 64 Forced Migration Review 32.

Samid Suliman, Carol Farbotko, Hedda Ransan-Cooper, Karen McNamara, Fanny Thornton, Celia McMichael, and Taukiei Kitari, ‘Indigenous (Im)mobilities in the Anthropocene’ (2019) 14 Mobilities 298.

Fanny Thornton, Karen E McNamara, Carol Farbotko et al., ‘Human Mobility and Environmental Change: A Survey of Perceptions and Policy Direction’ (2019) 40 Population and Environment 239.

Fanny Thornton, Climate Change and People on the Move: International Law and Justice (Oxford University Press, 2018).