Professor
Chair of Natural Resources Law
B.A., M.A. (Cantab.), LL.M., (Br.Col.).
Member of the Alberta Bar.
Office: MFH4367
Telephone: 403.220.7252
Email: ndbankes@ucalgary.ca
Nigel has been with the Faculty of Law since 1984 and is the current holder of the Chair of Natural Resources Law. He teaches or has taught courses in property law, aboriginal law, natural resources law, energy law, oil and gas law and international environmental law. He was seconded to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in Ottawa as Professor in Residence in the legal bureau in the 1999/2000 academic year.
In 2012/2013, Nigel is teaching Property Law and Energy Law.
Nigel's current work focuses on carbon capture and storage, indigenous property rights in settler states in the circumpolar arctic, and legal instruments for instream flow protection in Alberta. The latter work is part of an interdisciplinary collaborative project funded by Alberta Ingenuity. His earlier work in water law includes work on the Columbia River Treaty, aboriginal water rights, and the transfer of water rights under Alberta's Water Act. He is a member of the Water Initiatives Advisory Committee of the Columbia Basin Trust. He was the editor of the Journal of Energy and Natural Resources Law for 5 years, until the spring of 2011.
PhD students:
- Astrid Kalkbrenner (designing compensation funds for potentially environmentally harmful activities)
- Verónica Potes (plurinational approaches to decolonization)
- Elizabeth Whitsitt (Most Favoured Nation clauses as guarantees of procedural rights).
Thesis-based LLM students:
- Salimah Janmohamed
- Dave Poulton
In 2012/2013, Nigel will serve as a member of the Faculty's Academic Planning Committee and Graduate Studies Committee. He is also on the Board of Directors for the Canadian Institute of Resources Law.
Externally, Nigel is on the Board of the Alberta Law Reform Institute and Past-President and long-time Board member of Calgary Legal Guidance.
Nigel is a former chair of the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee and he has acted as an adviser to various Inuit organizations on land claim issues and constitutional reform. He was the lead author of the "Legal Systems" chapter of the Arctic Council's Arctic Human Development Report (2004), which is currently being updated.
He is currently serving as a member of the Steering Committee of the Province of Alberta's Regulatory Framework Assessment on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). He also serves as a member of the Water Initiatives Advisory Panel of the Columbia Basin Trust.
Nigel is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of World Energy Law & Business, the official publication of the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators published by Oxford University Press.
