Aysha Lotter

Aysha is an environmental and mineral law consultant and researcher focusing primarily on the Anglophone African countries. Her research focuses on Extended Producer Responsibility, Integrated Environmental Management, and Transformative Negotiations.

She completed her LLB in 2018 and she is currently pursuing an interdisciplinary PhD (Private Law & Chemical Engineering) at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Her doctorate focuses on product and material stewardship in South Africa, working towards establishing a circular economy of metals on the African continent. Her expert knowledge has guided the development of the South African e-waste policy and the national norms and standards in collaboration with the Sustainable Recycling Industries (SRI) Initiative. The SRI initiative is supported and funded by the World Resources Forum and the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Material Science and Technology Research.

She lectures ‘Negotiating the Just Energy Transition’ and other environmental and mineral law courses for the South African Research Chair: Mineral Law in Africa. She is also the project manager for the multidisciplinary Community of Practice: Waste to Value across three South African universities—UCT, the University of the Western Cape, and the University of KwaZulu-Natal—funded by the National Research Foundation.

Previously, Aysha was a researcher for the South African Research Chair: Mineral Law in Africa based in the Faculty of Law, and the Minerals to Metals Initiative based in the Chemical Engineering Department at UCT. Aysha chaired and coordinated the Cape Town branch of the social initiative ‘Students for Law and Social Justice,’ where her flagship project was a legal referral clinic in Khayelitsha.