Attorneys Matthew Cohen and Jun Jin from the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of the General Counsel will provide an overview of operational and legal challenges involved in delivering humanitarian and development assistance abroad, and will also offer their perspectives on careers in international development.
Trade and investment disputes frequently concern environmental issues. Because both the WTO dispute settlement process and investment arbitration produce decisions that are binding, they can effectively make determinations about environmental issues. Drawing on my experience in both trade and investment disputes dealing with environmental issues, I will explore some of the advantages and disadvantages of the treatment of environmental issues in these dispute settlement processes. Also, the processes are under current criticism and questions arise whether reforms to them will have a positive or negative effect on the way environmental issues are dealt with. Finally, on the basis of my own experience I will look at other types of dispute settlement mechanisms that also deal with environmental matters, specifically negotiation and conciliation.
Prof. John H. Knox of Wake Forest University School of Law will speak on the intersection of human rights and climate change at Lewis & Clark Law School. Climate change has been called the greatest threat to human rights in the twenty-first century. The rapidly warming climate is already contributing to floods in India, droughts in southern Africa, and typhoons in the Philippines, and is threatening to displace communities from the Arctic to the South Pacific. How can a human rights perspective help to combat its worst effects? The title of his talk is “The Implications of Human Rights Law for Addressing Climate Change.”