M. (Monique) van Cauwenberghe, LLM MA

About

Monique is an interdisciplinary researcher and teacher in human rights and health (in the climate crisis). She has a diverse background in human rights and health with experience across academia, non-profit and diplomacy sectors. She primarily focuses on the right to (mental) health at the intersections of climate change, disasters and internal displacement. She engages with legal and social sciences methods and methodologies and has experience in both qualitative and quantitative research methods. She has conducted empirical research in Australia, Lebanon, Indonesia and the Netherlands.

Monique is coordinator of the Groningen Centre for Health Law (GCHL) and coordinator of the Working Group on Human Rights and the Climate Crisis of the Netherlands Network on Human Rights Research (NNHRR). She is coordinator of the Global Scientific Network on Law and Tobacco (GSNLT) (University of Groningen and University of Queensland), where she is also lead-organiser of the International Conference of the GSNLT. She was formerly (2024-2026) Chair of the Aletta's Talent Network of the Aletta Jacobs School for Public Health.

Monique holds an LLM International Human Rights Law from the University of Groningen and MA International Development Practice from Monash University. She holds a double BA in Arts and Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies from the Australian National University (having also studied for a period at Qatar University), and a Graduate Certificate in Health and Human Services from the University of Melbourne. Prior to entering academia, she held positions within the non-profit sector that address health literacy for migrant, refugee and asylum seeker communities in Australia, as well as the position of program officer at the General Delegation of Palestine to Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific.

Research interests and expertise

Monique is a member of the Health and Climate Change research team of the Groningen Centre for Health Law where her research focuses on rights-based climate litigation, particularly regarding physical, mental health and gender-based violence arguments related to displacement. She is involved in the development of a new indicator that tracks engagement on physical and mental health in climate litigation. This indicator has now been published in “The 2026 Europe report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: a narrowing window for decisive health action”, in the Lancet Public Health. In June 2026, she delivered an oral presentation: "Attributing mental health impacts of climate change: lessons from climate litigation" at the Second Conference on Attribution Science and Climate Law at Columbia University.

Monique's primary research focuses on conceptualising the right to mental health in climate disaster displacement, with a focus on sudden-onset disasters and internal displacement, including evacuations. Using doctrinal and empirical methods, she also explores how the right to mental health can be localised into national and sub-national contexts. This includes how the right to mental health can be applied to evacuations. She takes Australia’s legal and policy context as a case study. 

Her areas of interest and expertise include international human rights law (focus on socio-economic rights), international disaster law (focusing on climate related disasters), internal displacement law (including evacuations), global health law, and international environmental law (climate change and biodiversity law). She also explores women’s (public) health matters, such as gender-based violence and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), within the context of the right to (mental) health.      

Research projects and networks

Monique is currently involved in several ongoing research projects, including: right to health indicators in climate related extreme weather events, and delivering digital health applications for mental health (see here). Monique also researches how mental health can be understood through a planetary health lens within the Aletta Jacobs School for Public Health Theme on Planetary Health. She also provides research assistance to the Centre for Research Excellence on Achieving the Tobacco Endgame, University of Queensland.

She is an active member of networks within the Netherlands, Europe and internationally, including the EU COST Action CliMent (Climate and Mental Health Impacts), International Disaster, Emergency and Law Network (IDEAL), European Public Health Association (EUPHA) sections on ‘Law and Public Health’ and ‘Public Mental Health’, and the Planetary Health theme of Aletta Jacobs School for Public Health.

Monique has previously been involved in several legal and interdisciplinary research projects including: Planetary Health: An Interdisciplinary Exploration, Legal Epidemiology: Measuring Effects of Policy Interventions for Smoke- and Aerosol-Free Zones (see here), and Smoke- and Aerosol-Free Environments (SAFEs) Project to investigate the impact of smoke and aerosol policies on health behaviours.