Global Climate Change and Sustainable Development: Challenges and Opportunities for International Law

Date:  March 6, 2009 Time:  8:15 AM - 5:15 PM Location:  Room 2260, UW-Madison Law School Phone:  617-515-5313 Email:  machado@wisc.edu Web Address:  http://hosted.law.wisc.edu/wilj/ Contact:  Ana A. Machado Sponsor:  Wisconsin International Law Journal Co-Sponsor:  Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE), Global Legal Studies Center, Institute for Legal Studies, Division of International Studies, Global Studies, Center for South Asia, Environmental Law Section of the WI State Bar, UW School of Business, Center for European Studies, UW Lectures Committee, Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment, East Asian Legal Studies Center, Certificate on Humans and the Global Environment, Associated Students of Madison Cost:  Free; Registration is requested.

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This is the first WILJ Symposium to address international environmental legal issues in at least ten years and it will focus on climate change in a truly global sense, including the particular effects it will have on different regions and populations, as well as specific areas of the law.

We have confirmed a great variety of well-respected scholars and practitioners from around the world to present different aspects of the issue of climate change and the effects it is having and will have on the global environment and international law.  Additionally, each speaker will prepare a correlating publication for the Symposium issue of WILJ.  Our confirmed keynote speaker is the former Vice-President and Justice of the International Court of Justice, as well as the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, the Honorable Christopher Gregory Weeramantry. 

Keynote
The Honorable Christopher Gregory Weeramantry (Sri Lanka)
Justice Weeramantry is a world-renowned legal scholar and a former Justice and Vice-President of the International Court of Justice, who has played a crucial role in strengthening and expanding the rule of international law. His work demonstrates how international law can be used to address current global challenges such as the continued threat of nuclear weapons, the protection of human rights and the protection of the environment. In his well-known separate opinion in the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros Project (Hungary v. Slovakia), one of the most important environmental law cases to date, Justice Weeramantry gave much strength to the concept of sustainable development, a central facet of the mitigation of global climate change.

Agenda
8:15 am –Registration & Breakfast
8:45 am –Welcome
9:00 am –10:30 am: Panel I-Scientific,
Legal & Policy Issues

10:30 am –Break

10:45 am –12:15 pm: Panel II-Challenges
for International Law & Human Rights:
Environmental Justice, Migration and
Security Issues

12:15 pm –Lunch

1:00 pm –3:15 pm: Panel III-Climate
Change & Business: Social and
Corporate Responsibility, Risk
Management, and Energy

3:15 pm –Break

3:30 pm –5:15 pm: Panel IV-Looking to
the Future: Post-Kyoto Legal Regime
and Implications of Local Action for
International Environmental Governance
5:15 pm –Closing Remarks

Panelists
Dan Anderson (United States-UWMadison)
Mr. Anderson is a professor of actuarial science, risk management, and insurance at the University of Wisconsin School of Business.  He has done significant research in the areas of environmental risk management, and especially pertaining to the sustainability risks involved with global climate change.
     
Sumudu Atapattu (United States-UW Madison/Sri Lanka)
Professor Atapattu teaches International Environmental Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School. She is also a visiting scholar at the Law School's Institute for Legal Studies, where she is working on a book titled Emerging Principles on International Environmental Law for Transnational Publishers, New York.  Ms. Atapattu holds an LL.M. (Public International Law) and a Ph.D. (International Environmental Law) from the University of Cambridge, U.K., and is an Attorney-at-Law of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka.

Gabriel Eckstein (United States)
Professor Eckstein is a faculty and director of the Center for Water and Policy at Texas Tech University School of Law.  Professor Eckstein has significant experience in international environmental law, especially in the area of freshwater resources. He currently serves as an advisor to the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization and Ambassador Chusei Yamada of the U.N. International Law Commission in the development of an international convention on transboundary ground water resources. Professor Eckstein also directs the International Water Law Project, an Internet-based project designed to compile and disseminate information on international water law and policy issues.

David Hunter (United States)
Mr. Hunter is assistant professor and director of the Program on International and Comparative Environmental Law at WCL. He is the former executive director of the Center for International Environmental Law and was previously an Associate with the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom. He currently serves on the Boards of Directors of the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide-US, EarthRights International, the Project on Government Oversight, the Bank Information Center, and Greenpeace-US. Professor Hunter also co-authored the textbook International Environmental Law and Policy 3d. ed., Foundation Press 2006).

Konstantia Koutouki (Canada)
Ms. Konstantia Koutouki is a professor of law at the Université de Montréal Faculty of Law and a full researcher at the Centre de Recherche en Droit Public (CRDP). She is also currently researching the adaptation of Inuit land claim agreements to climate change as part of the Center for International Sustainable Development Law’s Arctic Climate Law Project. Ms. Koutouki’s research interests include international intellectual property, international environmental law and Indigenous Peoples law.
     
Luis Martinez (United States)     
Mr. Martinez is an attorney in the Energy division of the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York, NY.  He is also an adjunct professor of environmental law at Fordham University Law School.  He was formerly a Special Aide to the President and Legislative Director at the Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board.  Mr. Martinez has been very involved in the development of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a compact of Northeastern states to create a regional cap and trade system for carbon emissions.
     
Tia Nelson (United States)
Ms. Nelson is the Executive Secretary, Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, for the state of Wisconsin. She is also co-chair, along with fellow speaker Roy Thilly, of the Governor’s Task Force on Global Warming and the past director of the Nature Conservancy’s Climate Change Program.  Ms. Nelson has been a zealous advocate for climate change mitigation for many years.
     
Greg Nemet (United States-UW Madison)
Mr. Nemet is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin in the La Follette School of Public Affairs and the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. He is also a member of the university's Energy Sources and Policy Cluster and a senior fellow at the university's Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy. His research and teaching focus on improving understanding of the environmental, social, economic, and technical dynamics of the global energy system.
     
Benjamin Richardson (Canada)
Professor Richardson currently serves as the Director of the Graduate Program in Law at the York University, Osgoode Hall Law School.  Professor Richardson has recently finished a major book entitled Socially Responsible Investment Law (Oxford University Press, 2008), and earlier co-edited and authored the book Environmental Law for Sustainability (Hart Publishing, 2006). Presently, he is the co-chair of the Research Committee of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law, and is Director of Graduate Studies at Osgoode Hall.
     
Stephanie Tai (United States-UW Madison)
Ms. Tai is an assistant professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School. She focuses her scholarly research on the interactions between environmental and health sciences and administrative law. She has written on the consideration of scientific studies and environmental justice concerns by administrative agencies, and is currently studying the role of scientific dialogues before the judicial system. Ms. Tai co-wrote a Supreme Court amicus brief for a group of scientists in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 05-1120.
     
Daniel Taillant (Argentina)
Jorge Daniel Taillant is currently Executive Director of the Center for Human Rights and Environment, a non-profit group in Argentina. He is responsible for overall institutional programming and strategy and heads CEDHA's work on International Financial Institutions, Global Governance, Corporate Accountability and Human Rights. CEDHA recently received the Sierra Club's Earth Care Award, its highest international distinction for innovative advocacy in protection of the global environment.

Roy Thilly (United States)
Mr. Thilly holds a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Law School and is the President of Wisconsin Public Power, Inc., as well as the President of the American Public Power Association.  He is also co-chair, along with fellow speaker Tia Nelson, of the Governor’s Task Force on Global Warming.

CLE credits for Wisconsin attorneys pending.

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