See the symposium agenda below.  Please rsvp (via link on symposium webpage http://law.scu.edu/ai1ec_event/2014-journal-of-international-law-symposium-2/) if interested in attending.  It will be on the Santa Clara campus.

http://law.scu.edu/ai1ec_event/2014-journal-of-international-law-symposium-2/

The 2014 Santa Clara Journal of International Law Symposium

“Environment and Human Rights Law”

Register for the symposium here

   

Keynote Speaker: Dinah Shelton

Symposium Schedule

Speaker Biographies

Abstracts of Conference Papers

Randall S. Abate
Randall S. Abate is a Professor of Law, Director of the Center for International Law and Justice, and Project Director of the Environment, Development & Justice Program at Florida A&M University College of Law in Orlando, Florida. At Florida A&M, Professor Abate teaches Environmental Law, International Environmental Law, Environmental Justice: Domestic and International, Human Rights and the Environment Seminar, Advanced Topics in Environmental Law Seminar, Ocean and Coastal Law Seminar, and Constitutional Law I and II. Professor Abate joined the Florida A&M College of Law faculty in 2009 with fifteen years of full-time law teaching experience at Rutgers, Florida State, Florida Coastal, Widener, and Vermont.  He has taught international and comparative environmental law courses in study abroad programs in Nairobi, Vancouver, Northern India, Buenos Aires, and the Cayman Islands. Professor Abate has published and presented widely on environmental law topics, with a recent emphasis on climate change law and justice. He is the co-editor (with Professor Elizabeth Kronk of the University of Kansas School of Law) of Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples: The Search for Legal Remedies (Edward Elgar Publishing 2013).  In April 2013, he taught a climate change law and justice course in Odessa, Ukraine on a Fulbright Specialists grant. Early in his career, Professor Abate handled environmental law matters at two law firms in Manhattan. He holds a B.A. from the University of Rochester and a J.D. and M.S.E.L. (Environmental Law and Policy) from Vermont Law School.

Donald Anton
Donald Anton is an Associate Professor at Australian National University and is a recognized expert in international law. He has appeared as Counsel in the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and hasserved as Counsel and Attorney of Record for amicus briefs filed in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum (SCOTUS) and Chevron v. Donziger (2nd Cir.). Professor Anton consults regularly with government and international organizations on matters of international law. He is currently leading an international team of researchers, funded by the Australian Government, in a three-year project testing underlying assumptions surrounding deep seabed mining by developing countries in the Asia pacific. Professor Anton has served in a variety of international law leadership positions.  He is currently Co-Chair of the American Society of International Law International Environmental Law Interest Group. He was a Member of the International Law Association’s Committee on International Law on Sustainable Development, which produced the 2012 Sophia Guiding Statement on Judicial Elaboration of Sustainable Development. Professor Anton is a regular visiting professor at law schools and institutions around the world, including Michigan Law School, Yangon University Law Department, and the United Nations Institute of Training and Research.

Sumudu Atapattu
Sumudu Atapattu is the Associate Director of the Global Legal Studies Center at the University of Wisconsin Law School.  She teaches seminar courses on “International Environmental Law” and “Climate Change, Human Rights and the Environment.” She has LLM and PhD Degrees from University of Cambridge and is an Attorney-at-Law of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. She has published widely on issues relating to sustainable development, human rights and the environment, and climate change and her book entitled Emerging Principles of International Environmental Law was published by Transnational Publishers in 2006.  She is also the Lead Counsel for Human Rights at the Center for International Environmental Law, Montreal, Canada and is an Advisory Board Member of the McGill International Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy.  Before coming to the United States, she was an Associate Professor at University of Colombo Law School and a Consultant to the Law & Society Trust in Colombo, Sri Lanka  Her research interests include human rights and environment, climate change, environmental migration and sustainable development.

Rebecca Bratspies
Rebecca Bratspies is a Professor of Law at the CUNY School of Law where she is the founding director of the CUNY Center for Urban Environmental Reform. She has published widely on regulating under conditions of uncertainty—with a focus on environmental democracy, regulating new technologies and corporate responsibility. Her recent scholarship explores questions of sustainability, and the intersection of human rights and environmental regulation. She is a scholar with the Center for Progressive Reform, the Environmental Law Collective and has served as an appointed member of the ABA Standing Committee on Environmental Law, a member of the Executive Committee of the American Association of Law Schools Section on the Environment, and an advisor to the Consultative Group on Agricultural Research. Before entering academia, Professor Bratspies served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable C. Arlen Beam of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. As a Henry Luce Foundation Scholar, Professor Bratspies spent a year seconded to the Republic of China (Taiwan) Environmental Protection Administration. She has taught at the University of Idaho, Michigan State University and NYU. She holds a BA in Biology from Wesleyan University and a J.D. cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania.

Natalie Bridgeman Fields

Maxine Burkett
Maxine Burkett is a Professor of Law at the University of Hawaii, William S. Richardson School of Law who teaches Climate Change Law and Policy, Torts, Environmental Law, International Environmental Law, and International Development.  She has written extensively in the area of climate change law and policy from diverse perspectives with a particular focus on climate justice, exploring the disparate impact of climate change on vulnerable communities in the United States and globally.  Professor Burkett has presented her research on the law and policy of climate change throughout the United States and in West Africa, Asia, Europe and the Caribbean.  In 2010, she served as the Wayne Morse Chair of Law and Politics at the Wayne Morse Center, University of Oregon, becoming the youngest scholar to have held the position. Professor Burkett also served as the inaugural Director of the Center for Island Climate Adaptation and Policy (ICAP).  As the Director of ICAP, she led projects to address climate change law, policy, and planning for island communities in Hawaii, the Pacific region, and beyond. Prior to joining the University of Hawaii, Professor Burkett taught at the University of Colorado Law School. She studied at Oxford University, Exeter College and earned her B.A. from Williams College, and her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Robert T. Coulter
Robert Coulter is an attorney who practices in the fields of Indian law and international human rights. He is the founder and Executive Director of the Indian Law Resource Center, which provides legal assistance for indigenous peoples throughout the Americas. He is also an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and a Justice of the Supreme Court of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. With more than 35 years of legal experience in the field of Indian affairs and human rights, Mr. Coulter has published numerous articles in these and other fields of law.  Before starting the Indian Law Resoruce Center in 1978, he was Acting Executive Director of the Institute for the Development of Indian Law, staff attorney for the Native American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the United States Commission on Civil Rights.  In 2001 Mr. Coulter was awarded the Lawrence A. Wein Prize for Social Responsibility by Columbia University Law School and in 2002  the Bicentennial Medal by Williams College. He received his bachelor’s degree from Williams College and his law degree cum laude from Columbia University Law School.

Carmen G. Gonzalez
Carmen Gonzalez is a Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law. She has published widely in the areas of international environmental law, environmental justice, trade and the environment, and food security, and recently co-edited Presumed Incompetent, a book on the experiences of women faculty of color. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Earthjustice and on the Research Committee of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Academy of Environmental Law. She is also a member scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform, a non-profit research and educational organization that seeks to inform policy debates regarding environmental regulation. From 2011 to 2012, Professor Gonzalez chaired the Environmental Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools. She has served as member and Vice-Chair of the International Subcommittee of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (an advisory body to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on environmental justice issues), and has represented non-governmental organizations in multilateral environmental treaty negotiations. Professor Gonzalez received her B.A. in Political Science from Yale University and her J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Elizabeth A. Kronk Warner
Elizabeth Kronk Warner is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Kansas, School of Law where she teaches property, environmental and natural resources law and federal Indian law. She also serves as the director of the Tribal law and Government Center and as an Affiliated Professor of Indigenous Studies. Prior to joining the University of Kansas, she taught at Texas Tech University and the University of Montana. In 2010, Professor Kronk Warner was selected to serve as an Environmental Justice Young Fellow through the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and U.S.-China Partnership for Environmental Law at Vermont Law School. In addition to teaching, Professor Kronk Warner serves as an appellate judge for the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians Court of Appeals in Michigan. Before entering academia, Professor Kronk practiced environmental, Indian, and energy law as an associate in the Washington, D.C., offices of Latham & Watkins LLP and Troutman Sanders LLP.  She previously served as chair of the Federal Bar Association Indian Law Section and was elected to the Association’s national board of directors in 2011.  Professor Kronk Warner is a citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. She graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Science in Communication and received her law degree from the University of Michigan Law School.

Margarette May Macaulay
Margarette May Macaulay is a Jamaican attorney and former Judge at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.  Ms. Macaulay continues her practice as an Attorney-at-Law and women’s and children’s advocate, with her own Chambers in Jamaica. She has worked on several emblematic cases involving indigenous land rights.  She is also a Notary Public and a Supreme Court Mediator and Associate Arbitrator, devoting her time to addressing matters of Constitutional and Fundamental Human Rights Law, Property Rights Law and Conveyance, General Contract Law, Estates Law and Criminal Law. Ms. Macaulay chaired the Family Law Committee of the Jamaican Bar Association and is a member of the Law Reform Committee, the Publications Committee, and the Human Rights and Constitutional Committee. She is a long serving member of the Disciplinary Committee of the General Legal Council of Jamaica.  She is also a member of several human rights organizations nationally and internationally, including the

Damilola S. Olawuyi
Dr. Damilola S. Olawuyi, LL.M (Harvard), D.Phil (Oxford); is the Director (Research and Training) of the Institute for Oil, Gas, Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development (OGEES Institute) at Afe Babalola University, Nigeria. His research and published work cover the areas of International Environmental Law, Human Rights Law, Energy and Natural Resources Law. His current research explores the cross cutting linkages between global climate change and international human rights, particularly how climate change mitigation and adaptation projects could potentially affect the enjoyment of fundamental human rights. He has received several national and international awards including the Sloane Robinson Award, the World Energy Council’s Future Energy Leader’s Award, and the Alberta Law Foundation Scholarship Award.

Marcos A. Orellana
Dr. Marcos A. Orellana (LL.M., S.J.D.) is Director of CIEL’s Environmental Health Program and Adjunct Professor at the American University Washington College of Law.  At CIEL Dr Orellana has worked with NGOs and local communities worldwide to strengthen tools to protect the vital functions of the planet and secure global environmental justice, including with respect to chemicals and waste, oceans and biodiversity, and trade and investment. Prior to joining CIEL, Dr. Orellana was a Fellow to the Lauterpacht Research Centre for International Law of the University of Cambridge, UK. He also was a Visiting Scholar with the Environmental Law Institute in Washington DC and Instructor Professor of international law at the Universidad de Talca, Chile. Dr Orellana has acted as legal counsel to the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs on international environmental issues. In that capacity Dr Orellana has worked with MEAs and the Rio+20 process. Dr Orellana has also acted as consultant to several International Institutions, including the UN Environment Programme and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Francisco Rivera Juaristi
Prior to coming to Santa Clara University School of Law as founding director of the law school’s International Human Rights Clinic, Francisco was an adjunct professor of international law and human rights at the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico. He is a former senior staff attorney at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of the Organization of American States seated in Costa Rica, where he was also director of that court’s internship program. In the late 1990s, he also served as Executive Director of the Amnesty International Section in Puerto Rico. He has been a consultant for a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as well as for the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP), the International Labor Organization (ILO), and the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights (IIHR).

Dinah Shelton Dinah L. Shelton is the Manatt/Ahn professor of law (emeritus) at George Washington University Law School. Her extensive writing on international human rights has received many awards, including the 2005 New York Public Library Best Research Book Award, the 2000 Certificate of Merit from the American Society of International Law, and the 1982 Inter-American Bar Association Book Prize. In 2006, she was awarded the prestigious Elizabeth Haub Prize in Environmental Law and has also been awarded the Burhenne Prize in international environmental law (2012), the Riesenfeld award in international law (2013), the Goler T. Butcher Prize in human rights (2013), and the ASIL’s prominent woman in international law recognition.  In 2011 she receive the degree of doctor honoris causa from the University of Stockholm.

David TakacsProfessor David Takacs is an Associate Professor at UC Hastings College of the Law. He has been a consultant for international NGOs and U.S. government agencies, analyzing legal and policy issues pertaining to REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) and global climate change. His scholarly work lies at the intersection between international environmental and human rights law. He is the author of ”The Idea of Biodiversity” (Johns Hopkins U. Press). Before his legal career, Professor Takacswas a professor in Earth Systems Science & Policy at CSU Monterey Bay, a lecturer in the John S. Knight Writing Program at Cornell, and a Peace Corps Forestry Volunteer in Senegal. Professor Takacs holds a J.D. from Hastings, an LL.M. from the School of Oriental & African Studies at the University of London, and a B.S. in Biology, M.A., and Ph.D. in Science & Technology Studies from Cornell University.

Rebecca Tsosie
Rebecca Tsosie is a Regent’s Professor of Law at Arizona State University, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. She teaches in the areas of Indian law, Property, Bioethics, and Critical Race Theory, as well as seminars in International Indigenous Rights and in the College’s Tribal Policy, Law, and Government Master of Laws program. Professor Tsosie has written and published widely on doctrinal and theoretical issues related to tribal sovereignty, environmental policy, and cultural rights, and her current research deals with Native rights to genetic resources. Professor Tsosie, who is of Yaqui descent, has worked extensively with tribal governments and organizations and serves as a Supreme Court Justice for the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation. She annually speaks at several national conferences on tribal sovereignty, self-determination, and tribal rights to environmental and cultural resources. Professor Tsosie holds a bachelor’s degree and J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Martin WagnerMartin Wagner is the director of Earthjustice’s International Program, which promotes the protection of human rights to a clean and healthy environment through application of trade measures, international human rights and U.S. law. His work includes litigation against corporations before U.S. courts and international institutions for environmental practices that violate international human rights, including the the human right to a healthy environment. Mr. Wagner also teaches international environmental law and international trade and the environment at the Golden Gate University School of Law. Before coming to Earthjustice in 1996, Mr. Wagner was a law clerk for Judge Robert Beezer of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and spent five years litigating environmental citizen suits in U.S. courts and representing victims of human rights violations in international institutions. Mr. Wagner graduated from Whitman College with a degree in geology and then became a community development volunteer with the Peace Corps in Senegal, West Africa. He attended the University of Virginia Law School, where he was executive editor of the Virginia Journal of International Law and graduated in the top ten percent of his class.

Emily J. Yozell

I have been meaning to follow up on my earlier note about the Minamata Convention, but too many things going on, which I will post separately about.

First, here’s an interesting early comment on the US acceptance of the Minamata Convention, http://opiniojuris.org/2013/11/12/doesnt-u-s-senate-care-mercury/.   The blog post raises the possibility of the US joining the Convention as a Congressional-Executive or as a sole executive agreement.  Based on my understanding and also some conversations with folks in EPA and at State, the intention is to go at this as a sole executive agreement.  As far as I know, this thinking is not being advertised anywhere.  But given that there were consultations with Congress (at least the Senate, presumably), as I was told, such thinking must have been communicated (since that would be the first question any lawyer would ask), and the Senate (or some key senators) appears to be OK with this.

This is of course highly unusual.  While the use of the sole executive power itself is not at all uncommon with respect to participation in international treaties, it is arguably unprecedented with respect to a major multilateral environmental agreement (though the US has used this device with respect to a subsidiary protocol to a major MEA).  With MEAs, Congress has virtually always been involved, which would make especially great sense since these treaties oftentimes overlap and complement domestic environmental legislation.

On the other hand, most, if not all, of the treaty can already be implemented by EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act (guess where all of the concepts/provisions about BAT came from . . . ) and TSCA, as well as the authority of other agencies.  So, if one sees Congress’ role just as providing implementing tools, as opposed to giving its “approval” for US participation in the Minamata Convention, the Administration’s approach makes sense.

What’s curious is that there has not been more coverage of this.  But I suppose that this is sufficiently technical that it would escape most journalists.