December 06, 2017

Alumni Influence International Environmental Law and Policy

Two international environmental policy conferences find many Lewis & Clark alums participating.

Alumni from Lewis & Clark Law are working around the globe in high-level positions, influencing environmental policy for nations and large regions of the world. Two recent international conferences brought many of them together.

At an annual meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, which manages the world’s largest and most valuable tuna fishery, four alums attended:

Brad Wiley, ’01, is a Policy Specialist/Field Office Supervisor at the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission in La Jolla, California. He supervises the Commission’s six Latin American offices, among other things.

Viv Fernandes, LLM ’15, is the Compliance Policy Adviser for the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA). The FFA, based in the Solomon Islands, strengthens national capacity and regional coordination among the 17 Pacific island members regarding the management, control, and development of tuna fisheries.

Bubba Cook, ’03, is based in New Zealand where he directs the World Wildlife Fund’s Western and Central Pacific Tuna Program.

Law professor and alum Chris Wold ’90, founder and director of the International Environmental Law Project at Lewis & Clark, also attended and noted the meeting in his update.

Meanwhile, law professor and alum Erica Lyman,’05 and Staff Attorney for IELP, just returned from a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Geneva. While there, she worked with four other Lewis & Clark alums: Tanya Sanerib, ’02, a senior attorney with the international program of the Center for Biological Diversity; Alice Stroud, LLM ’01, who runs the Africa Policy and Capacity Program of the Born Free Foundation; Mandy Rude, ’13, a legal analyst with the Legal Atlas, and Olivier Jamin, ’16, a law fellow with the International Environmental Law Project.

Other alums (amongst many) working in international environmental law include Carl Bruch, ’96, who directs the International Law Program of the Environmental Law Institute, and Sarah Uhlemann, ’05, who directs the International Program of the Center for Biological Diversity.

The International Environmental Law Project (IELP) at Lewis & Clark Law School works with governments, non-governmental organizations, and international institutions to develop, implement, and enforce international environmental law to tackle some of today’s most challenging global issues, including climate changebiodiversity conservationoceans and fisheries and trade and the environment. As the only on-campus legal clinic at a U.S. law school focusing solely on international environmental law, IELP also educates and trains Lewis & Clark Law School students to become effective international lawyers. Through classroom instruction, representation of clients, and hands-on participation at international environmental treaty negotiations, students learn the fundamentals of international environmental law and policy.