Meganne Natali, Ph.D.

International Lawyer - Consultant on Wildlife Crime, Animal Welfare and Biodiversity Conservation

Meganne Natali is a lawyer, legal consultant, lecturer, and Visiting Fellow at the University of Portsmouth School of Law. Holding a Ph.D. in Law, her research has focused on the international response to wildlife trafficking.

As a legal consultant, she has worked across a broad range of international initiatives, providing strategic legal expertise to advance wildlife crime prevention, biodiversity protection, animal welfare, public health resilience, and environmental justice. She notably contributed to the development of legal frameworks at both European and international levels—drafting provisions for the inclusion of wildlife trade in the proposed European Convention on Environmental Protection through Criminal Law, supporting efforts toward a new additional protocol to the UNTOC on wildlife crime during the 12th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), and helped organize the side event “Strengthening the International Legal Framework Against Wildlife Trafficking” at the 77th meeting of the CITES Standing Committee.

Meganne also co-authored best practice guidance on regulatory reform to promote wildlife conservation and reduce zoonotic disease risks, and contributed to a cross-sectoral legal benchmarking study across multiple jurisdictions. Separately, she spearheaded efforts to address the root causes of zoonotic spillovers by conducting comparative legal analyses and developing regulatory strategies to mitigate risks, notably supporting advocacy for the adoption and implementation of the International Pandemic Agreement.

Alongside these professional assignments, she has pursued her own academic research agenda on wildlife crime, environmental law, and animal welfare, with articles published in leading international peer-reviewed journals. Her work is grounded in both primary evidence gathering and rigorous comparative legal analysis, informed by a deep understanding of the mechanisms driving legal reform and international cooperation.

Meganne also serves as a case manager at the International Human Rights Law Clinic in Aix-en-Provence, where she mentors postgraduate law students on real-world legal cases brought by NGOs and international organizations, equipping them to navigate complex transnational legal challenges with clarity and purpose.