Dr Eleanor Godwin

Profile

Eleanor Godwin is a Lecturer in Law at Queen Mary University of London, where she has convened on a range of undergraduate and postgraduate modules including Climate Change Law, State Crime, and, most recently Green Finance. She also supervises dissertations and previously held a Teaching Fellowship at Queen Mary, convening on Global Criminology and contributing to teaching on Climate Justice and State Crime. Alongside her academic role, she is Outreach Coordinator for Violation Tracker UK, where she leads stakeholder engagement, contributes to research development, and produces policy-relevant analysis on environmental regulation and corporate misconduct.

Prior to this, she worked as a freelance consultant data analyst with Surfers Against Sewage, analysing water company data and contributing to reports on sewage pollution. She has also held teaching roles at the University of Liverpool and the University of Manchester. Her earlier professional experience includes legal practice as a property paralegal and legal apprentice at Addleshaw Goddard, providing her with a strong applied legal foundation that informs her teaching.

Undergraduate Teaching

• LAW6471 Green Finance (module convenor)
• LAW6173 Global Criminology (module convenor)
• LAW4006 Land Law

Eleanor has also taught on Climate Justice.

Postgraduate Teaching

• SOLM136 Climate Change Law (module convenor).

Eleanor has also taught on Climate Justice and State Crime.

Research

Eleanor is a socio-legal and critical legal scholar specialising in environmental harm, regulation, and corporate accountability. Her work sits at the intersection of criminology, environmental law, and political economy, with a particular focus on the structural failures of legal and regulatory systems in addressing environmental damage. Her doctoral research developed a critical framework for ecocide law, examining contradictions across domestic and international regimes and exploring pathways toward more effective global responses to environmental crime.

Her research combines empirical analysis with critical theory to examine issues such as regulatory decline in the UK, water and chemical pollution, and the role of corporate power and financialisation in environmental harm. She has published widely in academic and policy-oriented contexts, including work on environmental enforcement, investor-state dispute settlement, and the crisis of UK regulation, while also collaborating with NGOs and advocacy organisations to produce impactful, data-driven research that contributes to public and policy debates.

Funded research

• ESRC funded PhD.

Publications

Publications and reports

• Godwin, E. (Accepted 2026) ‘The Collapse of Environmental Regulation in the UK’, Environmental Politics, Special Issue.
• Godwin, E. (Under Review) ‘The Limits of Environmental Law: A Critical Legal Examination of Domestic and International Contradictions in Environmental Law and Regulation’, Critical Criminology.
• Godwin, E. (Under Review) ‘Investor-State Dispute Settlement System as a Barrier to Environmental Justice’, targeted publication: Capital and Class.
• Godwin, E., Kirby, M. and Shepherd, H. (2025) ‘The State of UK regulation in 2025’, Good Jobs First, Research Report.
• Godwin, E., MacFarlane, H. and Evans, H. (2025) ‘Silent Contamination: The UK’s Chemical Pollution Crisis’. Good Jobs First, Research Brief.
• Godwin, E. and McKelvey, A. (2024) Event Duration Monitoring 2023: Statistical Insights on Sewage Spills. St Agnes, Cornwall: Surfers Against Sewage.
• Godwin, E., Kirby, M. and Standaert, S. (2024) Protecting All We Care About: The Current State of UK Enforcement. Washington DC: Good Jobs First.
• Godwin, E., Kirby, M. and Standaert, S. (2024) A Comparison of Government Regulatory Enforcement in the United Kingdom and the United States. Washington DC: Good Jobs First.
• Whyte, D., Knox, R., Watterson, A., Godwin, E., Bettis, J. and Bernat, I. (2024) Response to the Ecocide (Prevention) Bill (Scotland), proposed by Monica Lennon MSP. Jointly published by the Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice, We Own It, Hazards Campaign, Scottish Hazards, Institute of Employment Rights and Violation Tracker. Pp.10.

Blogs and Media

• Godwin, E. (2025) ‘Thames Water Scandal Runs Deeper than Executive Bonus Bans’, Good Jobs First.
• Godwin, E. (2025) ‘Thames Water’s Bailout: The Public Cost of Corporate Failure’, Good Jobs First.
• Godwin, E. and Whyte, D. (2025) ‘Thames water and the failures of privatisation’, Red Pepper Magazine
• Godwin, E. (2025) ‘A Responsible Steward of Capital? SEPA’s Pension Fund Investments’, Good Jobs First.
• Godwin, E. (2024) Regulator and Investor: The EA’s Pension Fund Investing in Poor Acting Water Companies’, Good Jobs First.
• Godwin, E. and Kearney, M. (2024) ‘Environmental Regulation: Interview with Eleanor Godwin’, Extinction Rebellion Radio
• Godwin, E. (2024) ‘Taking the Environment Agency to Court: Holding Regulators to Account for Failing to Regulate’, Good Jobs First.
• Godwin, E. (2023) ‘The EA One Year On: How Low can Enforcement go?’, Good Jobs First.
• Godwin, E. (2023) ‘Who Really Owns Our Water? The Rise of Foreign Private Equity Ownership’, Good Jobs First.
• Godwin, E. (2022) ‘UK EA Prosecutions are 6% of the Level they were a Decade Ago’, Good Jobs First.

Further blogs by Dr E. Godwin available on Good Jobs First.

Public Engagement

Eleanor has previously worked closely with Violation Tracker UK as Environmental Outreach Coordinator. Eleanor has also worked with and for Surfers Against Sewage and Fidra, as well as having connections to numerous other NGOs and trade unions. Eleanor has built strong connections to the wider community and completed a number of public engagements.