Excellence in environmental legal education for more than 25 years

Dawn–Storm King by John Hulsey

IN THIS ISSUE

ref lect ions 1–3

• Clean Energy and Sustainable Development

the student experience 4–5

• Off-Broadway Star Shines as Aspiring Lawyer • Fighting the Good Fight • Harkin Awarded Bosch Fellowship• Clinic Experience Leads to Career

Opportunities

pol icy & pract ice 6–9

• Pace Honored by the American Bar Association

• Energy Project Update• Land Use Law Center Update • Dean Emeritus Ottinger Briefs UN

Diplomats on Energy Issues• From the Forest to the Meeting Room:

Comparative Brazilian Environmental Law • On the International Front

research & discovery 10–13

• Pace Law School and the New York StateJudicial Institute Host the First North American Symposium on the Judiciary and Environmental Law

• Environmental Leaders Explore New Tools for Environmental Management

• Pace Hosts the 2005 NAELS Conference• Sunstein Calls for Narrowing of

Precautionary Principle • Esty Demands Legitimacy of International

Policy Processes • Van Rossum Receives Inaugural Robinson

Environmental Award• State Attorneys General as Environmental

Watchdogs

prof i les 13–14

• Visiting Scholars at the Center forEnvironmental Legal Studies

• How It All Began: A Profile of Nicholas A. Robinson

accomplishments 15

scholarly currents 16

• Pace and Yale Inaugurate New UNEnvironmental Diplomacy Practicum

J O U R N A L O F T H E P A C E E N V I R O N M E N T A L L A W P R O G R A M

PACE LAW SCHOOL

Printed on Recycled Paper with Soy Inks.

FALL 2005

(Delivered as the acceptance speech at the ElizabethHaub Environmental Diplomacy Award Ceremony atPace Law School on March 8, 2005)

Pursuing a more sustainable global future isless a matter of cost than of conscience,commitment, and cooperation. Humanity,

greater in number and more economically activewith each passing day, is increasingly playinghavoc with Earth’s natural systems. Our actionsare giving rise to a multitude of critical threats:the degradation of soils, water, and the marine resources essential to food production; health-endangering air and water pollution; global climate change that is likely to disrupt weatherpatterns and raise sea levels everywhere; the lossof habitats, species, and genetic resources thatare damaging ecosystems and theservices they provide; and thedepletion of the ozone layer.

The sorry state of the planetand of sustainable development is not because of lack of interna-tional attention. In fact, since 1992,the response of the internationalcommunity to the challenges of environment and sustainabledevelopment included four inter-national summits, four ministerialconferences, four international environmental conventions, two protocols, adop-tion of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)and promises for additional finance to help achievethem, and establishing a new financial entity—theGlobal Environment Facility (GEF).

On the face of it, these are remarkable achiev-ements. But despite all the high-powered gather-ings, agreements, and commitments, littleprogress has been achieved in improving theenvironment and in pursuing sustainable devel-opment. Global environmental trends continueto be negative and the promise of significant finan-cial resources to address the challenges of environ-

ment and devel-opment has notmaterialized. Thegap between richand poor withinand betweencountries contin-ues to widen; 90million peopleare added to ourglobal village every year, mostly in developingcountries; one person in three still lacks ade-quate fresh water; greenhouse gases are steadilyincreasing; ecosystems that are critical forhuman survival continue to be undermined; andland degradation threatens food security and

livelihoods in many regions,especially Africa. It is ironicthat as the evidence for envi-ronmental degradation be-comes more convincing, thepolitical will for action be-comes weaker or lacking.

The gap between rich andpoor and the inequality of ourworld can also be gleanedfrom a satellite photo of theEarth at night. It reveals aworld of light and darkness, of

haves and have-nots—an illustration of the factthat almost two billion people still do not haveaccess to modern energy services. This energypoverty, combined with the negative environ-mental and health impacts of conventional energysources, has also attracted international attentionand debate for almost two decades with littleprogress as well.

Since Rio, there has been an international con-sensus that energy is essential to achieving theeconomic, social, and environmental pillars ofsustainable development, but experience has

Clean Energy and SustainableDevelopmentby Mohamed T. El-Ashry, Senior Fellow, UN Foundation

Volume 9, Number 1

The gap between

rich and poor

and the inequality

of our world can

also be gleaned

from a satellite photo

of the Earth at night.

Mohamed T. El-Ashryreceives the Haub Award.

continued on page 2

2 G R E E N L A W

shown that the kind of energy and the way it isused are important determinants of the degreeof sustainability achieved.

Last month, in its report “Energy and Sustain-able Development,” the International EnergyAgency (IEA) said: “No matter how we definesustainable development, current systems of en-ergy supply and use are clearly not sustainablein economic, environmental, or social terms.” Inthe “business as usual” scenario, the IEA showsthat, in the absence of new policies by govern-ments and international financial institutions,the world’s energy needs will be almost 60 per-cent higher in 2030 than they are now. And asyou might have guessed, CO2 emissions willalso increase at about the same rate.

Clearly, continuing along the current path ofenergy development is not only incompatiblewith sustainable development objectives, but italso means that the world’s vulnerability to sup-ply disruptions will increase as internationaltrade and competition expands.

Recognizing that decisions taken now willbe decisive for a transition towards a sustain-able energy future, world leaders gathering inJohannesburg for the World Summit on Sustain-able Development (WSSD) concluded thateradicating poverty is an indispensable require-ment for sustainable development and called

for a substantial increase “with a sense of ur-gency” of the global share of renewable energyin the total energy supply.

There is a broad consensus that the substan-tial expansion of renewable energy is a win-winproposition for developed and developing coun-tries alike; it provides opportunities for povertyeradication and for satisfying the energy needsin rural and remote regions; it helps generateemployment and local economic developmentopportunities; it helps curb global warming andcontributes to the protection of human healthcaused by air pollution; and it enhances energysecurity through reliance on domestic energysources such as biomass, hydro, wind, solar, andgeothermal.

At the same time, clean energy is one of thekey elements for simultaneously achieving theMillennium Development Goals for eradicatingpoverty and hunger, achieving universal primaryeducation, promoting gender equality, improv-ing health, combating communicable diseases,and ensuring environmental sustainability.

In this regard, the IEA’s “business as usual”scenario shows that the number of people with-out modern energy services in 2015 will be onlyfractionally smaller than in 2002. Alternatively,in a scenario where the MDGs’ poverty target isassumed to be met, modern energy services areprovided to an additional one-half billion peo-ple in 2015. That is estimated to cost about $200billion, which suggests that, at current policyand financial commitments, the poverty reduc-tion target is highly unlikely to be met.

It is clear that current energy policies by gov-ernments and international institutions have notcontributed in a significant way to sustainableenergy or to improving access to energy services.At the same time, the gap between financialneeds and available resources for energy devel-opment has widened since the commitments of Rio in 1992. Both ODA and Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) have declined in the last decade.

Last year, as a follow-up to Johannesburg’sPlan of Implementation, and in anticipation ofCSD 14/15 deliberations on energy in 2006 and2007, two major international conferences onclean energy and development were convenedin Europe. In June, Germany convened Renew-able Energies 2004, which I had the honor tofacilitate, and in December, the Netherlandsconvened Energy for Development 2004. Bothconferences, which included ministers and

high-level representatives from governments,international institutions, the private sector, andcivil society, agreed on a number of policy rec-ommendations for advancing the transition tosustainable energy systems and to increasingaccess to energy services.

Allow me to highlight some key policy rec-ommendations based on the experience of theGEF in funding renewable energy projects indeveloping countries, as well as from the twoEuropean conferences. These policy recommen-dations recognize the diversity among countriesand regions and the fact that no single policyinstrument can ensure solutions for every appli-cation, sector or subsector, sociopolitical situa-tion, or country. They include: (1) developingcoherent policies that support the developmentof markets for clean energy technologies; (2) re-moving barriers and leveling the playing fieldfor clean energy and renewables by internaliz-ing external costs and by phasing out energysubsidies that distort markets; (3) establishingregulatory and legal frameworks in developingcountries and reducing regulatory uncertainty inorder to encourage private investment; (4)strengthening the human and institutional ca-pacity required to transform energy markets indeveloping countries and establishing the con-ditions for attracting private investment for cleanenergy; (5) developing ways for channeling mi-crofinance to support the extension of access toclean energy for the rural poor; and (6) estab-lishing clear objectives and targets for clean en-ergy, especially renewables, in the portfolios ofinternational financial institutions like the WorldBank and the Regional Development Banks.

re f lect ions

G R E E N L A WJournal of the Pace

Environmental Law ProgramVolume 9, Number 1, Fall 2005

EditorsLee Paddock,

Director of Environmental Law ProgramMarcia Fargnoli, Graduate Assistant

Contributing WriterEmily Masalski ’05

ProofreaderJack McNeill

Associate Director, Pace Law LibraryProgram Coordinator

Leslie CrincoliGraphic DesignSergio Girgenti

Pace Law School78 North Broadway

White Plains, NY 10603Phone: (914) 422-4209

Fax: (914) 422-4261

Cite as: 9 J. Pace Ctr. Envtl.Leg. Stud. (Fall 2005)

E-mail: lpaddock@law.pace.eduOn the Web: www.law.pace.edu/

environment/9-1.pdf©2005 Pace Law School, All Rights Reserved.

GreenLaw is published biannually. To minimize our use of paper, and for easier access for our readers,GreenLaw is also available in an electronic version (pdf format). To add your name to our electronic distribution list, please contact lpaddock@law.pace.edu.

The Dawn–Storm King painting by artist JohnHulsey, featured on the front cover, commem-orates the 1965 court decision inauguratingthe field of environmental law.

continued from page 1

G R E E N L A W 3

Besides the need for a substantial increase inthe use of clean and renewable energy tech-nologies, the technical and economic potentialsof improving energy efficiency are enormous. Ina number of countries, energy efficiency can bethe most economic way to meet the growingdemand for energy services. The IEA estimatesthe overall potential of cost-effective energy effi-ciency gains in developing countries at 30–45percent, which could result in major economicand developmental benefits.

I would be remiss if I did not mention theGEF in the context of building markets and re-moving barriers to renewable energy, and incontributing to improving the lives of the poorin rural areas of the developing world.

The GEF, which I have had the honor to chairsince its establishment in 1991,is playing a leading role inpartnership with governments,international institutions, theprivate sector, and NGOs inexpanding the introduction ofrenewable and clean energytechnologies in developingcountries. Its clean energyportfolio has grown to morethan $1.8 billion in grants thathas leveraged more than $9billion in public and private finance in 50 countries.

From the beginning, werecognized the importance of renewable en-ergy for sustainable development, particularlyin rural areas that are not and will not in theforeseeable future be connected to a grid. Theproductive use of renewable energy in ruralareas helps raise incomes and improve health.Pumping water for irrigation, power for dryingcrops, energy for cottage industries, and light-ing in schools and hospitals are some of theimportant applications of renewable energy forrural and remote areas.

Through more than 110 projects, the GEFdeals with problems hampering the transforma-tion of markets for renewable energy, i.e., thelack of supportive policy frameworks, inade-quate financing for installations or supportingbusinesses, lack of technical capacity, and lackof awareness and trust in the technologies byusers and utility companies.

Over the past 14 years, the GEF has been anequity owner, has loaned money on commercialand sub-commercial terms, has initiated microfi-nance schemes, has provided contingent financ-ing for project preparation and investment, hasmitigated renewables-specific project risks, andhas ventured into the area of credit guarantees.

But GEF resources, even with the cofinancing itleverages, are too small relative to the size ofthe investments we are discussing here. TheGEF can only help demonstrate new thinkingand new ways for advancing the agenda ofclean energy, and hopefully, through large pub-lic and private investments, GEF efforts will bescaled up and replicated many times over.

In closing, let me say that the global transitionto renewable and other clean energy technolo-gies is inevitable, not because fossil fuel supplieswill run out, but because the costs and risks asso-ciated with the use of these supplies will con-tinue to increase relative to those of renewableenergy. Costs will increase as the environmentaleffects of fossil fuel use are incorporated into thecosts of energy and as the cheapest reserves are

depleted. Costs will also in-crease as a result of politicalinstability as we have wit-nessed in the last year or so.In addition, in the case of oil,as supply remains the same orshrinks and demand continuesto grow, the price of oil canonly go in one direction—up.

I am not naive enough,however, to believe that re-newables will become thedominant source of energy inthe next decade or two. I be-lieve fossil fuels will remain at

the core of world energy supply through mostof the first half of this century. So the challengeis to change course towards a sustainable en-ergy future—one that simultaneously meets theenergy needs of a growing global population,enhances people’s quality of life, and addressesenvironmental concerns, especially climatechange. In such a carbon-limited energy future,the only hope of satisfying basic human needsof the “power-less” in the developing world andfor sustaining the standard of living in the devel-oped world is to accelerate the pace of develop-ment and dissemination of clean energy sources,especially renewables. In my view, large in-creases in renewable energy use, combined withhigher levels of energy efficiency and the devel-opment of carbon sequestration technologies,can go a long way towards a more secure andglobally sustainable energy path.

However, we need to act now on the inter-connected fronts of clean energy and climatechange—not in a draconian way but through aframework, a strategy, if you will. There is noshortage of good ideas—there is a shortage,however, in political will. We need to act nowbecause developing new ideas and major shifts

in our technological world requires time scaleson the order of 20 years or more.

Sustainability also means that we get seriousabout dealing effectively with climate change.New measurements released last month, based onnine million temperature and salinity readingsfrom the world’s oceans, provide the most com-pelling evidence yet that man-made climatechange is underway and point to a more dramaticand sudden climate change in the future. TheKyoto Protocol was only intended as a first stepand, by itself, will not materially alter the state ofgreenhouse gases in the atmosphere. We must actdecisively to cut emissions in the short-term whilenew research and development help improve theefficiency and cost of renewable energy and car-bon sequestration technologies. Also no long-termsolution can be achieved without the active par-ticipation of the United States and major develop-ing countries like China, India, and Brazil.

Finally, let me say that, with a gross worldproduct exceeding $30 trillion and growing, theworld can pursue sustainability to great advan-tage if it wants to. And the main driver of sus-tainable economic development as we all knowis sustainable energy. Achieving such a secureand sustainable energy future, however, requiresbold policy actions, enhanced investments, andgenuine cooperation at the national and globallevels. And above all, it requires a longer-termview and political will. n

Mohamed T. El-Ashry is a senior fellow with the UN

Foundation. He served as chief executive officer

and chairman of the Global Environment

Facility (GEF) from 1994 to 2003. He also served as

chairman of the GEF during its Pilot Phase

(1991–1994). Prior to joining the GEF, he served as

the chief environmental adviser to the president

and director of the Environment Department at the

World Bank, as senior vice president of the World

Resources Institute (WRI), and as director of Envi-

ronmental Quality with the Tennessee Valley

Authority. He has held teaching and research posi-

tions at Cairo University, Pan-American-U.A.R. Oil

Company, Illinois Geological Survey, Wilkes Univer-

sity, and the Environmental Defense Fund.

El-Ashry received his BS with honors in 1959 from

the University of Cairo and PhD in geology in 1966

from the University of Illinois. This March

El-Ashry received the Elizabeth Haub Prize for Envi-

ronmental Diplomacy. The prize was established by

the International Council of Environmental Law

(ICEL) and Pace University in 1998. It is awarded

for a particular practical accomplishment in a spe-

cific instance or a new idea or diplomatic initiative,

leading to progress in the field of international envi-

ronmental law and policy.

re f lect ions

I am not naive enough,

however, to believe that

renewables will become the

dominant source of energy

in the next decade or two.

I believe fossil fuels will

remain at the core of world

energy supply through most

of the first half of this century.

4 G R E E N L A W

the s tudent exper ience

Today students have offices in the Envi-ronmental House, located a few hundredfeet from the main campus of Pace Law

School, but when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. foundedthe clinic in 1987, only a few desks in the base-ment of Preston served as home. The clinic hasundergone several changes since then, namelythe addition of codirector Karl Coplan in 1994.What has not changed is the role of the clinic asan educational tool at Pace as well as its impor-tance to local public interest groups, primarilyHudson Riverkeeper, Inc.

The Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic, Inc.serves as a law firm to nonprofit environmentalorganizations that are seeking representation inpublic citizen lawsuits and state actions. Underthe direction of Kennedy and Coplan, the clinictakes on federal and state claims as well as localproceedings, allowing the students to obtain a va-riety of legal experiences. All clients must sign awaiver acknowledging that a law student, under astudent work order, will tender their legal serv-ices. Coplan describes the clinic as a firm; how-ever, he points out that rather than being partnersdictating the work to associates, Kennedy andCoplan expect students to take responsibility fortheir own cases and their development. Each stu-dent plays an integral role in the handling of thelawsuits that the clinic is litigating.

Each week Coplan, Kennedy, and studentsmeet for a three-hour case review, with Hudson

Riverkeeper usually inattendance. AlexMatthiessen, River-keeper’s executive di-rector, can be foundsitting in the basementof the E-house with Riverkeeper’s investigator,Basil Segos, and other members of the Riverkeeperteam. During these three hours the Riverkeepercases that students are responsible for are devel-oped and reviewed. (Hudson Riverkeeper also em-ploys its own team of attorneys who work on theirown cases as well as supervise students on certainmatters.) It is during these sessions that other or-ganizations can request help from the litigationclinic; taking the client confidentiality rules seri-ously, Riverkeeper leaves when discussing poten-tial or actual cases involving other clients.

Every semester, 10 students enroll in theclinic, which involves a class element as well asthe clinical experience. The class is a two-semesterprogram consisting of a pre-trial during thespring semester and trial preparation during thefall semester. The conclusion of the class is a trialin December of each year, based on an old cliniccase, where students have five weeks to prepare,file papers, and argue.

Clinic students have won major victoriesagainst New York City and lost long drawn-outbattles against Suffolk County. Along the way, itturns out these memorable experiences are more

about the experience than the outcome. AsCoplan points out, part of his job is to help thestudents understand that their job is to “fight thegood fight” and by doing their job that they aremaking public the important environmental is-sues of our time.

Being a part of the clinic is a badge of honor atPace, and it is recognized among lawyers aroundthe country as a program that prepares its studentsfor the practice of law because its students are infact practicing law. It is a safe place for students to learn the law and use the skills that they are developing to be active in the legal community.Students who graduated years ago and studentsparticipating in the program today can always findsomething to talk about, be it cases that have beenongoing since 1987, the fear of the first brief orcourt experience, the frequent all-nighters, or whatpizza toppings are favored during case review.

Theodore Roosevelt said, “I recognize the rightand duty of this generation to develop and useour natural resources, but I do not recognize theright to waste them, or to rob by wasteful use thegeneration that comes after us.” The clinic em-braces the job of protecting our resources fromwaste to ensure a safe future for generations tocome. In the spirit of walking the walk, Kennedydrives a Toyota Prius, and, in good weather,Coplan’s commute consists of kayaking across theHudson River and biking to and from White Plainseach day. n

Off-Broadway Star Shines as Aspiring Lawyer by Emily N. Masalski ’05

Laura Bucher’s (3L) outstanding perform-ance at the Legal Aid variety show revealedher natural talent and enthusiasm for Pace

Law School. Performing in front of large audi-ences is not something that comes easy for manystudents; Bucher is the exception. Prior to lawschool, she studied drama and religion at VassarCollege. She moved from Kentucky to Brooklyn,New York, where she waited tables, bartended,and taught yoga while also performing in severaloff-Broadway plays. She starred in Hamlet, An

Elizabethan Salon, Gaslight, and The Criminals.

A devoted vegetarian, Bucher joined severalenvironmental groups at Pace, sparking her in-terest in environmental law. “I am not really a‘granola person,’ but I enjoy the outdoors, hik-ing, and eating organic food,” says Bucher, whospent seven years pursuing acting and eventu-ally realized she wanted to do more to help the

environment. Shecame across anLSAT book at alocal bookstoreand began to lookinto a legal career.Bucher decidedthat law schoolwould be the per-fect place to learnthe skills needed

to effectuate environmental change.Pace campus life enabled Bucher to become

an active student leader in the EnvironmentalLaw Society (ELS) and Public Interest Legal Schol-arship Organization (PILSO). “The student bodyand the environmental program foster a close-knit supportive environment,” says Bucher. As the rules and baliffing vice chair of the National

Environmental Law Moot Court Competitionboard, Bucher coordinated the student bailiff pro-gram and answered competitors’ questions. Shewas also selected to serve as articles editor for the2005–2006 Pace Environmental Law Review.

In just two short years, Bucher has gained awide variety of hands-on legal experience andexplored several environmental courses. “I reallyenjoyed my Animal Law and Energy Lawclasses, which keep my course load interesting,”she says. Last summer, Bucher participated inPace’s Washington, D.C. Externship Programworking as a legal intern at the National WildlifeFoundation. Throughout the spring term,Bucher participated in the Federal Judicial Extern Honors Program clerking for Judge JanetHall in the District of Connecticut, Bridgeport.This summer she is serving as a legal clerk atthe Conservation Law Foundation in Vermont. n

Laura Bucher

Fighting the Good Fight by Elana Roffman ’05

Elana Roffman

G R E E N L A W 5

the s tudent exper ience

After spending a year as a Fulbrightscholar in Germany, Nicole Harkin ’05returned to the United States, ready to

embark on her final year at Pace. During herFulbright experience, she traveled, studied, andinterned with the Ministry of Justice where shedealt with the extradition of criminals to andfrom Germany.

“Germany is full of energy and excitement. I enjoyed my time in Berlin so much that I knewI wanted to return upon graduation,” saysHarkin. She applied for the Robert Bosch Foun-dation Fellowship, whose purpose is to buildtransatlantic relations and promote understand-ing between Americans and Germans. Eachyear, the Bosch Foundation in Stuttgart selects20 Americans between the ages of 23 and 34 tospend nine months in Germany.

The fellowship committee interviewed 44candidates for 20 positions. “All of the candi-dates spent an entire day interviewing in NewYork City,” says Harkin. “It was interesting because the interview was set up like a panel in which each candidate could hear what theothers had to say.”

The toughest questionHarkin had to answer involvedwhether the swastika should beoutlawed in Europe. She ex-plained to the committee that“outlawing a symbol gives theopposition a symbol to rallyaround.” Having recently visitedthe new Native American Mu-seum, she related her surprise atseeing the swastika on NativeAmerica museum pieces. “Ban-ning the symbol will not changepeople’s attitudes,” she says.

Harkin will have an opportu-nity to gain in-depth knowledge of a differentpolitical, economic, and cultural environmentwhile examining the proposed German Free-dom of Information Act as a senior fellow atthe German Bundestag, or parliament. Shehopes to also work at a law firm lobbying onthis issue. Germany and Luxembourg are theonly countries in the EU without a FOIA law.

She will also attend three intensive seminarsthat provide fellows with opportunities to meet

and talk with representatives of government,international businesses, cultural organizations,and universities.

“I am excited to see where this next adventurewill take me in my legal career and in life,”Harkin says. “Initially, I wanted to become a pale-ontologist but calculus got the best of me. MyPace Law legal education definitely provided mewith the tools necessary to achieve my dreams.” n

You look pretty smart and you’re notinto trouble,” the character and fit-ness examiner said. After her inter-

view, Stephanie Haggerty ’04 walked away witha sense of relief. The character and fitness inter-view was the last hurdle to becoming a practic-ing attorney in New York. Haggerty is admittedin New York and New Jersey.

Haggerty is currently working as an associateat Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson GrahamLLP on a wide range of environmental matters.“I have jumped feet first into my career andwork with very hardworking and intelligentpeople,” says Haggerty, who drafts complaints,environmental permits, motions, and briefs per-taining to CERCLA and New Jersey state statutesand regulations.

In 1997, Haggerty graduated cum laude witha BS in environmental and forest biology fromthe State University of New York College of En-vironmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse.

While pursuing her master’s degree in ento-mology at the University of Georgia, Haggertycompiled and analyzed data regarding the im-pact of the logging industry on macroinverte-brates, amphibians, and stream geomorphologyin the Pacific Northwest. After graduating

summa cumlaude, Haggertydecided to pursuea law degree andenv i ronmen ta lcertificate at Pace.“I was attracted tothe broad curricu-lum and variety ofopportunities out-side of the envi-ronmental law

field,” says Haggerty. “The flexibility of pro-grams would enable me to market myself to awide range of employers. The outstandingscholarship program was also an important fac-tor in choosing to attend Pace.”

Haggerty attributes much of her recent suc-cess to the Pace Environmental LitigationClinic experience. “When I first started theclinic, I decided to take a lighter course loadin order to focus on my case assignments,”says Haggerty. “I found that the two semesterswere extremely worthwhile.” As a clinic stu-dent, Haggerty handled the Daskammer Powerplant case and filed a suit to compel the NewYork State Department of Environmental Con-

servation to review their permit. She alsodrafted and filed a complaint regarding im-proper sewage treatment plant discharge. “Theclinic helped me truly understand the interplaybetween clients, the law, and the courts,” Hag-gerty says. “The clinic definitely prepared mefor fast-paced law firm life.”

Haggerty emphasized the importance ofPace environmental faculty and summer em-ployment experiences. “Students should takeadvantage of every opportunity that they canat Pace. The environmental faculty are alwayswilling to offer career advice,” Haggerty said.During her 1L summer, Haggerty participatedin the Washington, D.C. Environmental Extern-ship Program as a legal intern for the NaturalResources Defense Counsel. As a 2L, she was a law clerk at the U.S. Department of Justice,Region 2, Environmental Enforcement Divisionin Washington, D.C.

Haggerty dedicated her free time as an Envi-ronmental Law Society executive board memberand vice chair of the National EnvironmentalLaw Moot Court Competition board. She alsoserved as a research and writing editor for Pace

Environmental Law Review and graduated cumlaude in 2004. n

Harkin Awarded Bosch Fellowshipby Emily N. Masalski ’05

Clinic Experience Leads to Career Opportunitiesby Emily N. Masalski ’05

Stephanie Haggerty

Nicole Harkin ’05 and friend Nicole Simmons ’04

‘‘

6 G R E E N L A W

pol i cy & pract i ce

The Environment, Energy, and ResourcesSection of the American Bar Associa-tion (ABA) honored Pace with its an-

nual Distinguished Environmental AchievementAward at the annual ABA Meeting in Chicago,August 5–7. The award recognizes individuals,organizations, or programs that have distin-

guished themselves by contributing significantleadership in improving the substance,process, or understanding of environmentallaw or policy. At the ABA Awards ceremony,John Quarles received the individual lawyeraward, and Pace Law School received the insti-tutional award. n

Pace Honored by the American Bar AssociationFor Distinguished Achievement in Environmental Law and Policy

Environmental Law Programs1978–2005

1978 Environmental law program created • Environmental Law Societychartered

1982 Pace Environmental Law Review established • Center forEnvironmental Legal Studies founded by Nicholas Robinson, formerCongressman Richard L. Ottinger, and Donald Stever • Pacebecame one of 14 universities to join the IUCN • LLM program inenvironmental law approved by the American Bar Association

1987 Energy Project founded by Richard L. Ottinger • EnvironmentalLitigation Clinic created • Clinic directors included Robert F.Kennedy Jr., Steven Solow, and Karl Coplan

1989 First National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition launched

1993 Land Use Law Center founded by John Nolon

1994 Land Use Law Center establishes model program with PresidentClinton’s Council on Sustainable Development

1996 SJD program in environmental law approved by the American BarAssociation

1997 Washington, D.C. Externship Program established

1998 First issue of Journal of the Pace Center for Environmental Legal Studiespublished • Comparative Environmental Law course with NationalUniversity of Singapore launched

1999 First Elizabeth Haub Award for Environmental Diplomacy presented

2000 The David Sive environmental litigation files donated to the Pace Law library • Comparative Brazilian Law course developed • Jointdegree program launched with Yale University’s School of Forestry& Environmental Studies (JD/Master of Environmental Management)

2002 Joint degree program launched with Bard College (JD/Master ofScience in Environmental Policy) • Pace signs MOU with Rio deJaneiro Attorney General’s Office to jointly sponsor the BrazilComparative Law course • Pace cosponsored the first meeting of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law in Shanghai • Land UseLaw Center developed National Land Use Law Library • FIPSEexchange program with Brazilian law students established

2003 Pace Law School opened David Sive Manuscript Collection • Pacecosponsored North American Conference on the Judiciary andEnvironmental Law • Land Use Law Center launched “Nation onEdge Project”

2005 Pace edited “UNEP Training Manual on Environmental Law” • Pacehosted National Association of Environmental Law Societies (NAELS)conference: “Mixing Zones—Where Law School Meets the RealWorld” • UN Environmental Diplomacy course created • Pace honored by the ABA for Distinguished Achievement inEnvironmental Law and Policy

Rural areas throughout New York offer some of the best wind re-sources in the northeast. Encouraged by state and federal financialincentives, developers are actively prospecting for sites on which

to erect wind turbines that convert wind into electricity. In order to tapthese resources, wind developers must enter into legal arrangements withowners of the property underlying proposed wind turbines and associatedinfrastructure (e.g., access roads, substations, etc.). These legal arrange-ments typically take the form of easements and land leases rather thanoutright purchase of property.

Many rural landowners view wind energy as a potential new “cash crop”that affords them the opportunity to supplement and diversify farm income.However, private landowners approached by wind developers may be reti-cent to enter into long-term lease agreements out of concern that they lackthe knowledge or bargaining power to adequately protect their interests.

In order to reduce this hurdle to wind development, the Energy Projectpublished Harvesting the Wind. Written from the vantage point of thelandowner, the guide covers the issues that most frequently arise in the contextof a long-term lease or easement associated with a wind development site.

The guide highlights the many issues that the landowner should be cog-nizant of before entering into suchan arrangement, including:

• Agreements applicable to various

stages of project development;

• Royalty payment amounts

and structure;

• Preserving the right to farm

and other compatible uses;

• Impact of leases on farm conser-

vation program subsidies and

tax consequences;

• Legal liability; and

• Contract term and termination.

The guide also provides a num-ber of helpful contracting tips andresource information. n

Energy Project Update

Harvesting Wind Energyas a Potential Cash Cropfor Rural Landowners by Fred Zalcman

G R E E N L A W 7

pol i cy & pract i ce

Land Use Law Center Update by Jessica Bacher

New Real Estate Law InstituteLaunched The Land Use Law Center recently created theReal Estate Law Institute to study and advance therole that real estate law and lawyers play in urbanrevitalization, affordable housing, job creation,and the development of livable communities. Theinstitute conducts research, sponsors training, andleads public-issues discussions in the area of realestate transactions, finance, regulation, and devel-opment. Attorneys, developers, property man-agers, title insurance executives, brokers, andother industry leaders advise the institute.

PublicationsOne goal of the Land Use Law Center is to pro-duce articles that students publish in law reviewsand legal journals. In January 2005, third year lawstudent Susan Huot had her article “BreakingDown the Barriers to Statewide Land Use Re-forms: A Case Study of Political Leadership andCitizen Participation in Wisconsin and Illinois”published in the ABA Zoning and Planning Re-

port. Kathryn Plunkett ’03 had her article “TheCommon Law of Nuisance in New York Environ-mental Litigation” published in Environmental

Law in New York. Second year law student NoelleCrisalli was chosen by the Pace Environmental

Law Review as one of two students that will bepublished in their next edition. Her work is titled“Civil Liberties for Urban Believers v. City ofChicago: A Defining Case for the Substantial Bur-den Test under the Religious Land Use and Insti-tutionalized Persons Act.”

Nation on EdgeThe Land Use Law Center initiated its Nation onEdge project in 2004 to test methods of encour-aging land use innovation in communities lo-cated in areas prone to natural disasters: hurri-canes, floods, and fire. In conjunction withseveral of its partner institutions, the center ishosting six panel presentations on both coasts toexamine America’s tendency to build and rebuildin areas vulnerable to disasters. The distinguishedspeakers will discuss trends, current policies,tools, and techniques for mitigating disasterlosses, and make recommendations for improv-ing private sector and governmental responses tothis critical and growing problem.

Conflict Resolution

The center conducts a nationally recognizedfour-day course that teaches local land use lead-ers how to use land use law, conflict resolution,and community decision-making techniques to

accomplish sustainable communitydevelopment. Participants includelocal elected and appointed offi-cials, developers, private sectorleaders, environmentalists, and oth-ers with a stake in how local landis used and conserved. After con-ducting 20 rounds of training, thecenter is franchising organizations in other re-gions and states to conduct the program. Thefirst out-of-state programs were held in Con-necticut this spring.

Land Use Law DatabaseThe center maintains an extensive GainingGround Information Database (www.landuse.law.pace.edu) of federal, state, and local laws and bestmanagement practices in the field of land use law.This library is intended to be easily accessible byacademics, practitioners, and laypeople. It allowsusers to search by topic, geographical area, local-ity, and type of information.

International Land Use WorkThe center is working with partners in six LatinAmerican nations to assist them in creating alegal system capable of promoting sustainable

development. The center set out to iden-tify and work with partner institutions inMexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Brazil, Chile,and Argentina. Each partner in turn identi-fies a network of change agents in itscountry and develops a program for in-volving this network in learning about anddisseminating best management practices

primarily to land use leaders at the communitylevel. The program’s priority is to work withcommunities experiencing crises or challengesregarding the sustainable use of the land. n

Jessica Bacher graduated from the University of

Florida with highest honors in 1999 with her BS in

marketing and a minor in environmental studies.

She received her JD summa cum laude from Pace

Law School in 2003 along with a certificate in

environmental law. She graduated first in her class

in both institutions. While in law school, she pub-

lished two scholarly articles in professional law

journals on the topic of using land use law to pre-

serve barrier islands. Bacher was one of the first

graduate fellows at the Land Use Law Center and is

currently a staff attorney there in charge of inno-

vation and research. She coauthors a regular land

use feature in the New York Law Journal.

On May 12 atUnited Nationsheadquarters in

New York, world-renowned experts in sus-tainable development andenergy law, Richard Ottinger, Pace Law deanemeritus; Mohamed El-Ashry, UN Foundation;

and Adrian Bradbrook, University of Adelaide,Australia, discussed key energy and climate is-sues and briefed UN correspondents. El-Ashrydelivered his presentation on “Energy, Sustain-able Development and MDGs.” Adrian Brad-brook and Richard Ottinger introduced the Cam-bridge University Press’s leading publication The

Law of Energy for Sustainable Development

(2005), which they coauthored and coedited. AUN representative made closing remarks and dis-cussed plans for “Parliamentarian Forum on En-ergy Legislation and Sustainable Development.”

Each speaker outlined key issues for energy andclimate law that should be featured in the forth-coming deliberations of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD 14 & 15).

The complex challenge of sustainable energydevelopment was highlighted at the UnitedNations Conference on Environment andDevelopment in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and isdiscussed throughout Agenda 21. Agenda 21highlights the fact that current levels of energyconsumption and production are not sustain-able, especially if demand continues to increase.It stresses the importance of using energyresources in a way that is consistent with theaims of protecting human health, the atmos-phere, and the natural environment. Countriesagreed at both CSD-9 and the World Summit onSustainable Development (WSSD) that strongeremphasis must be placed on the development,implementation, and transfer of cleaner, moreefficient technologies along with the expansionof the role of alternative energy sources. n

Richard Ottinger

Dean Emeritus Ottinger Briefs UNDiplomats on Energy Issues

Jessica Bacher

8 G R E E N L A W

pol i cy & pract i ce

As I peeredout fromthe airplane

window, I saw amassive expanse ofuntouched lush for-est. Just as I thoughtto myself how re-markable it is thatsuch large areas offorest still exist inthis world, we started

to fly over an area that had been completelyclear-cut, with barely a tree standing. I lookedback towards the forest and it looked like agreen island standing in an agricultural desert.It occurred to me that the only reason that for-est was still standing was because of environ-mental law. At this moment, I realized that Ihad not helped to organize a typical lawcourse. I knew that the law students weregoing to be given the rare opportunity to be onthe ground surrounded by the problems thatlaw is supposed to fix.

After we disembarked from the plane andtook a bus across the border into Argentina, wemet our friends from the forest. Nearly 50 butter-flies gathered to welcome our group of 18 lawstudents and professors to an area that is underurgent threat of further destruction—the Argen-tinean subtropical forest. Once we boarded ourprestigious means of transportation—a verylarge jungle truck—we took a two-and-a-half-hour drive down a dirt road through Iguazu Na-tional Park to Yacutinga Jungle Lodge, whichmaintains a private 570-hectare reserve of sub-tropical forest. I couldn’t help but smile in admi-ration of the natural wonders surrounding us.We traveled for an hour and a half throughdense forest. Suddenly the forest disappeared,just as our guides Corino and Marcella told usthat we were exiting the park; the forest was al-most entirely clear-cut for farmland. We traveledanother 45 minutes until we came upon an-other area of lush forest—the private reserve atYacutinga Lodge. That night the local indige-nous children from the Guarani tribe sang spiri-tual songs for the Earth, welcoming us to theirhomeland. Over the three days we spent in Ya-cutinga, we hiked through the forest and saw600-year-old trees and marvelous wildlife, ate in-credible homegrown food, planted endangeredtrees, and viewed the Milky Way each night be-fore we sat down to our campfire. We lived

without electricity or phones and we all bondedand made lasting friendships from the experi-ence. Our lives were touched personally frombeing there.

From Forest Destruction towardForest Restoration and Sustainability

Beyond the personal experience, we weregiven the rare opportunity to learn about this re-gion firsthand. The Iguacu Falls region harborsmore than 400 species of birds, 420 butterflyspecies, 2,000 species of plants, and an immeas-urable amount of insects, mammals, and rep-tiles. According to the World Wildlife Fund, thelargest threat to biodiversity in the region is for-est fragmentation and degradation due to ex-pansion of large- and small-scale agriculture.Poverty remains a major struggle as the nativeforest is being converted into large-scale pineplantations, pasture for cattle ranching, andsmall-scale tobacco and yerba mate plantations.Unsustainable and illegal exploitation of wildlife

and native forest is a major problem. The localindigenous tribe, the Guarani, are also facing asilent genocide with poverty and malnutritionrising as forestry companies have reduced theirland by 10 percent a year with less than 5 per-cent of their original territory remaining.

Yacutinga has been evaluating differenttechniques to restore degraded jungle. Forty ofthe 570 hectares that compose the Yacutingareserve were cleared and used for cattle activi-ties in the past. Nonnative plants also becameinvasive species, affecting the rest of the flora.The rosewood tree has been highly soughtafter in foreign markets and it is now endan-gered and protected under CITIES. Because it

is one of the few remaining trees that eaglescan perch on to hunt, the eagles have virtuallydisappeared and the monkeys have begun tooverpopulate. Yacutinga has been working ona reforestation project with guests plantingtrees and other flora native to the area. As well,Yacutinga is also working on sustainable devel-opment initiatives involving yerba mate planta-tions, capybaras, the local rural population, andindigenous tribes.

Where Reality Meets the LawFrom the red dirt roads of Yacutinga, we

flew to São Paulo for the Law for a GreenPlanet Institute conference, “Landscape, Nature,and Law.” As we each filed through the confer-ence doors with red mud from the jungle stillon our shoes, we walked in to the first panel,which featured Dinah Shelton from GeorgeWashington University. She began her discus-sion on “Global Legal Instruments and Jurispru-dence on Landscape, Nature, and Culture.” Shediscussed the need for environmental andhuman rights instruments to address the inter-play between lands, nature, and culture as ameans of directly impacting the conservation oflandscapes. For example, she discussed UNESCO’sWorld Heritage Convention, which recognizesboth cultural and natural heritage of outstand-ing universal value. I remembered that roughly270,000 hectares (667,185 acres) of the UpperParana Atlantic Forest of the Iguazu Falls re-gion was protected by UNESCO. Because UN-ESCO sought to protect the landscape, it didnot recognize the borders between Brazil, Ar-gentina, and Paraguay. To preserve the fallsand the subtropical rainforest surroundingthem, UNESCO declared Iguazu National Park(Argentina) and Foz do Iguaçu National Park(Brazil) Natural Heritage of Humanity in 1984and 1986, respectively.

Without UNESCO, the green island I sawfrom the plane would have disappeared amidstthe rest of the agricultural desert. It preventedthe massive destruction of some of the last re-maining forest. However, protecting a landscapeby declaring a park is only one step in theprocess. It does not deal with the other pressingissues of the local community, such as poverty.When we were on the ground, I saw the needfor local land use planning and sustainable de-velopment initiatives as other important steps inthe process that must be used together to halt

From the Forest to the Meeting Room: Comparative Brazilian Environmental Law by Marcia Fargnoli ’05, Graduate Fellow, Center for Environmental Legal Studies

Marcia Fargnoli at Fozdo Iguaçu, Brazil

Argentina forest clear-cut for farming, just outside of park boundaries

continued on page 9

G R E E N L A W 9

and prevent environmental degradationand poverty. As I sit in my office, I lookdown to the red dirt on my shoes and Ifeel like they are covered in the warpaint of environmental lawyers; I amhonored to be entrusted with the dutyto fight for justice in these preciouslandscapes and the countless speciesand cultures that live within them. n

This 2-credit Comparative Environ-

mental Law course analyzes and com-

pares the environmental law regimes

of the United States and Brazil. This

course is mainly conducted in Brazil

over a two-week period from late May

to early June. It builds the capacity of students

to assess environmental laws of both countries

and encourages them to consider national poli-

cies that place or fail to place particular impor-

tance on environmental quality. Each year, the

Rio de Janeiro City Attorney’s Office hosts the

course and students attend seminars conducted

by prominent scholars and attorneys in Brazil.

Students also participate in field trips to witness

for themselves the fragile yet crucial ecosystems

of Brazil. Students are required to write a re-

search paper comparing some aspect of the en-

vironmental laws in both Brazil and the United

States and is taught by David Cassuto from

Pace Law and Arlindo Daibert from the Rio

City Attorney General’s Office.

pol i cy & pract i ce–on the internat ional f ront

The IUCN Academy of EnvironmentalLaw, chaired by Pace Law ProfessorNicholas Robinson, convened its sec-

ond annual Colloquium on October 4, 2004, inpartnership with the University of Nairobi. Athree-page special feature about the collo-quium in the Daily Nation welcomed the 150participants, including 112 law professors rep-resenting 57 law faculties in 40 different na-tions. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan sent awritten message to the colloquium, in whichhe noted that “environmental law has a specialrole to play” in addressing how urban andrural land uses can foster sustainable develop-ment, and urged the law professors to “helpnational and local authorities devise legalregimes that enhance sustainable developmentinstead of hindering it.” Wangari Maathai,founder of the Green Belt Movement andKenya’s assistant minister of the environment,formally opened the colloquium. She spokeeloquently of the need to protect forests andto secure watersheds, without which cities likeNairobi would lack adequate water.

Akio Morishima of Japan delivered the collo-quium’s hallmark Distinguished Lecture on Envi-ronmental Law, reflecting upon the fundamentalchallenges still to be resolved in the maturationof the field of environmental law. Over the fourdays of the colloquium, scholars, legal expertsfrom UN-HABITAT, and other specialists pre-sented 54 original papers examining legal meas-ures to integrate environmental and social factorsinto spatial development planning—to improveenvironmental impact assessment; to reform de-sign and planning of human settlements of allsorts (including refugee camps, the urban slums

that are home to two billion people worldwide,and rural, suburban and city centers); to em-power local authorities to better cope with landuse and natural resources management; to en-sure access to justice in land use disputes, and tostrengthen the judiciary.

On a one-day field trip to Kitengela, all par-ticipants examined land use disputes involvingcustomary law and legal claims of a Masaicommunity living and tending their livestockwithin an 8,600-acre area of land that fallsalong a migration corridor for wildlife that livea part of the year in Nairobi National Park. Ad-jacent urban and industrial development, in-cluding attempts to sell part of the community’straditional lands for housing, prompted theMasai to take up arms to defend their lands.Disputes were settled peacefully, through inno-vative public and transparent “leases” with 117family units, each being compensated for serv-ices for migratory species crossing over theirunfenced lands. The threatened subdivisionssales were cancelled, and other new legaltools, such as easements in gross, are in prepa-ration to further protect both community landsand wildlife corridors. The Wildlife Foundation,Kenya Wildlife Services, and environmental lawspecialists from Nairobi cooperated to sustainthe Masai community’s livelihood, protectwildlife, and shift land use development tomore appropriate sites.

The colloquium proceedings, edited byNathalie Chalifour, University of Ottawa, Canada;Patricia Kameri-Mbote, University of Nairobi; LyeLin Heng, National University of Singapore; andJohn R. Nolon, Pace University, will be publishedby the Cambridge University Press.

Pace students, professors, and staff at Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil

Brazilian Environmental Law continued from page 8

MoroccoLee Paddock, along with Marcia Mulkey ofTemple University Law School, organized aworkshop on “Compliance and EnforcementDesign Theories” for the International Networkfor Environmental Compliance and Enforce-ment Seventh International Conference in April2005 in Marrakech, Morocco. Almost 200 envi-ronmental enforcement officials from 60 coun-tries attended the triannual conference.

ThailandNicholas Robinson, Richard Ottinger, and LeePaddock participated as members of the Inter-national Union for the Conservation of Nature’sCommission on Environmental Law at theIUCN World Conservation Congress inBangkok, Thailand, in November 2004.

AustraliaLee Paddock presented a “Resource Guide onEnvironmental Compliance and Enforcement” atthe Australasian Environmental Law EnforcementConference, “Making the Pointy End Work,” inNovember 2004 in Melbourne, Australia. n

Marrakech, Morocco

KenyaThe Second Colloquium of the IUCN Academy Environmental Law and Related Meetings

1 0 G R E E N L A W

Judges from across Canada, Mexico, andthe United States gathered at the NewYork State Judicial Institute on the Pace

Law School campus, December 6–8, 2004, todiscuss critical environmental law issues affect-ing the courts in North America. Chief Judge forthe State of New York, the Honorable JudithKaye, joined Dean Stephen Friedman in open-ing the North American Symposium on the Ju-diciary and Environmental Law.

The issues addressed by leading experts andjudges included the evolution of the “publictrust” doctrine, the question of scientific uncer-tainty and the role of the “precautionary princi-ple,” the use of international norms in domesticcourts, the impact of decisions rendered by in-ternational trade arbitration panels on state andprovincial courts, the judicial response to con-cerns about environmental justice, develop-ments in the law involving biotechnology, andsentencing in environmental criminal cases.More than 40 judges along with representativesof Environment Canada, Mexico’s national envi-ronmental agency, and the Commission on En-vironmental Cooperation compared how theseand other issues are handled in Australia, Bel-

gium, Canada, Egypt, England, Mexico, as wellas several of the states in the United States.

Nicholas A. Robinson, who recently chaired asimilar symposium in Bangkok, Thailand, in No-vember, said, “It is one more sign of globaliza-tion that national judges are meeting together forthe first time in each region. The growing vol-ume of environmental problems worldwide hasmagnified the role that courts must play in ad-dressing the environmental rights of the public.

This is the first time state and federal judgesfrom Canada, Mexico, and the United Stateshave met together on this topic. We share thesame air pollution, weather patterns, migratoryspecies, and patterns of water pollution. NAFTAhas made North America one free-trade zone.We cannot afford to have inconsistent judicialpractices in the courts of North America. Thissymposium will identify ways courts can harmo-nize their practices in the complex and growingfield of environmental law.”

Among the many highlights of the programwere: a discussion by Judge Abner Mikva, for-mer Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals forthe D.C. Circuit, on one of the key NAFTA tradepanel decisions involving environmental issuesfor which he served as a member of the three-person arbitration panel; remarks by Sir RobertCarnwath, Lord Justice of Appeal for Englandand Wales and a founding member of the newEuropean Union Forum of Judges for the Envi-ronment, on the judiciary as a key arbiter in theprocess of defining what constitutes “sustainabledevelopment;” and a challenge to judges fromJustice Paul Stein from the New South Wales,Australia, Court of Appeals and Chair of the In-ternational Union for the Conservation of Na-ture’s Commission on Environmental Law (CEL)Specialist Group on the Judiciary, that what isdemanded of them “is the capacity and the will… to ensure that the Rule of Law prevails andour fragile environment is better protected.”

Proceedings from the Symposium are avail-able at www.law.pace.edu/environment andseveral of the presentations will be published as articles in an upcoming edition of the Pace

Environmental Law Review. n

research & d i scover y

Pace Law School and the New York State JudicialInstitute Host the First North American Symposiumon the Judiciary and Environmental Law

(from left to right) Chief Justice Mamdouh Marie (Supreme Court of Egypt), Lal Kurukulasuriya (Chief,Division of Policy Development and Law, UN Environment Programme), Honorable Judith Kaye (ChiefJudge of the State of New York), Justice Adel Omar Sherif (Deputy Chief Justice, Supreme ConstitutionalCourt, Egypt), Justice Paul Stein (Chair, IUCN Specialist Group on the Judiciary ) and Nicholas A. Robinson(Professor, Pace Law School, and Chair, IUCN Academy of Environmental Law).

In February 2005, Pace Law School hosted a

meeting of the Multi-State Working Group

(MSWG) on Environmental Performance that

focused on how to choose the best tools to

solve environmental problems. More than 40

participants attended the program that fea-

tured presentations from the EPA, nonprofit

organizations, and several businesses. Lee

Paddock was recently named to the Board of

Regents for the MSWG’s Policy Academy on

Environmental Management Tools. The Policy

Academy’s mission—through education, dia-

logue, and research—is to develop and pro-

vide information on credible and effective en-

vironmental management systems and other

public policy tools that can be used in the

pursuit of improved environmental perform-

ance and sustainability. n

Environmental Leaders Explore New Tools for Environmental Management

G R E E N L A W 1 1

research & d i scover y

Every year, the National Association of Law Societies (NAELS) holds a con-ference to bring together students and

professionals from the environmental law andpolicy communities to learn, network, collabo-rate, and share information. This year, I servedas chair of the Pace Organizing Committee forthe conference. Recognizing that parlaying ourenvironmental law educations into successfulcareers is where the rubber hits the road, wethemed the conference, “Mixing Zone: WhereLaw School Meets the Real World.” Eric Schaef-fer, Director of the Environmental Integrity Pro-ject, delivered the opening keynote address.Schaeffer famously resigned from his positionas Director of the EPA’s Office of RegulatoryEnforcement by authoring a widely read articlecalled “Clearing the Air: Why I Quit Bush’s EPA.”Shaeffer’s energy and inspiring tenacity set thetone for the conference.

The conference showcased panels that hailedfrom Yale, Georgetown, Cornell, Bard, Vermont,Widener, the New York Attorney General’s Office, the ABA, NRDC, Environmental Law In-stitute, and other private and nonprofit organiza-tions. Pace Law Professors Jeffrey Miller, KarlCoplan, Sean Nolon, Richard Ottinger, andNicholas A. Robinson lead inspiring and stimulat-ing discussions on key issues in environmentallaw including: the evolving role of environmentallitigation clinics; the role of law, lawyers and lawstudents in creating a climate friendly energypolicy; the growing role of local environmentallaw and its role in stimulating more sustainable

land use patterns; and globalization, trade,poverty and the environment. Professors AnnPowers and David Cassuto were also integral tothe conference’s success by hosting and intro-ducing speakers.

One of the most exciting elements of theconference was the diverse group of students inattendance. The conference drew close to 100participants from over 20 law schools. Studentscame all the way from Louisiana, Arkansas,Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Texas, California, andTennessee. For those of us stuck in a regionalenvironmental mind-set, the conference was awonderful opportunity to gain first hand knowl-edge of the nature and impact of environmentalproblems on people inother parts of the coun-try. Moreover, we hadthe opportunity to spendtime with law students ofdifferent backgroundswhile allowing them toexperience our great city.

The conference con-cluded with a green bustour in the Hudson Valleylead by John Cronin, di-rector of the Academy forthe Environment at PaceUniversity and the nation’sfirst full-time riverkeeper.The tour stopped at envi-ronmental law landmarksand Cronin talked about

the environmental battles waged (and won!) fromhis personal experience. The tour ended at thehistoric Hotel Thayer for a banquet dinner and alecture by Richard Lazarus. The exciting talk wasbased on his forward-looking new book, The

Making of Environmental Law, and earned astanding ovation.

As an organizer and attendee, I think theconference achieved its multifaceted and ambi-tious goals. The conference inspired and moti-vated the newer faces in environmental law andthe dynamic pioneers who blazed trails for us;and it provided a platform to educate, connectand mobilize the next generation of environ-mental lawyers. n

Pace Hosts the 2005 NAELS Conferenceby Patricia Maher ’05

The NAELS Organizing Committee

Sunstein Calls for Narrowing of Precautionary Principle

Cass R. Sunstein,the Karl N.Llewellyn Dis-

tinguished Service Pro-fessor of Jurisprudenceat The University ofChicago Law School,presented “Irreversibleand Catastrophic: GlobalWarming, Terrorism andOther Problems” as part

of the 11th Annual Lloyd K. Garrison Lecture onEnvironmental Law on April 25. His presentationaddressed the Precautionary Principle and theproblem of global warming in the context of theCatastrophic Harm Precautionary Principle.

Sunstein eloquently articulated the idea thatbecause risks are on all sides of social situations,it is not possible to be globally “precautionary.”In order to build a margin of safety in all deci-sion making, any precautions will themselvescreate hazards of one or another kind. Somerisks are potentially irreversible and catastrophic,and for such risks, it seems sensible to take extraprecautions.

Sunstein recommended that the PrecautionaryPrinciple might be refined as the IrreversibleHarm Precautionary Principle or the Cata-strophic Harm Precautionary Principle. When aharm is irreversible, and when government lacksinformation about its size and likelihood, itmakes sense to purchase an “option” to prevent

the harm at a later date. The idea results in theIrreversible Harm Precautionary Principle. Andwhen probabilities cannot be assigned to cata-strophic outcomes, it is sensible to avoid theworst-case scenario. This idea produces the Catastrophic Harm Precautionary Principle.

A member of the University of Chicago’s De-partment of Political Science, Sunstein graduatedmagna cum laude from Harvard Law School in1975. After graduation, he clerked for Justice Ben-jamin Kaplan of the Massachusetts Supreme Courtand Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United StatesSupreme Court. Before joining the faculty of TheUniversity of Chicago Law School, he worked asan attorney-adviser in the Office of Legal Counselof the U.S. Department of Justice. n

Cass Sunstein

research & d i scover y

Van Rossum Receives Inaugural RobinsonEnvironmental Award

1 2 G R E E N L A W

Pace Law School environmental alumni,faculty, staff, and students joined in hon-oring Nicholas Robinson in the establish-

ment of a new award in his name on March 17.The Nicholas A. Robinson Environmental Awardwill be presented annually in honor of Robin-son’s tremendous achievements as the Gilbertand Sarah Kerlin Distinguished Professor of En-vironmental Law, founder of the Pace LawSchool’s environmental law program, and chairof the Commission on Environmental Law of theInternational Union for the Conservation of Na-ture (IUCN). The award was established to rec-ognize significant contributions to environmentallaw by a Pace Law School graduate.

Maya K. van Rossum ’92 was the inauguralrecipient of the award. Van Rossum received herJD with a certificate in environmental law, cumlaude, from Pace Law School. She also holds aBS from La Salle University and a master of lawdegree in corporate finance from Widener Uni-versity School of Law. She worked at DelawareRiverkeeper since 1994, when she began as as-sistant director. In 1996 she was appointed tothe position of riverkeeper. Under van Rossum’sleadership, Delaware Riverkeeper’s has becomestricter at enforcing environmental laws and de-

feating projects that threaten waterways andtheir communities. Van Rossum serves on anumber of the region’s committees, includingthe Delaware River Basin Commission’s ToxicAdvisory Committee and Water Quality AdvisoryCommittee and the Lower Delaware River Wild& Scenic Management Plan Committee and Ad-visory Committee. She has also served on Penn-sylvania’s CitizenVolunteer MonitoringPanel, as well asNew Jersey’sStormwater FocusGroup. Van Rossumwas invited to testifybefore the U.S.House Committee onResources concern-ing Wild and Scenicdesignation for theLower DelawareRiver in 2000, andhas published arti-cles on environmen-tal law in the Ver-

mont Environmental

Law Review and the

Virginia Environmental Law Journal. She has re-ceived a number of other awards for her workincluding the Advocacy Award from the Associa-tion of New Jersey Environmental Commissions,the Touchstone Award, the Water Bearer Awardfor Environmental Excellence, and the Robert P.Doherty Ribbon of Green Award. n

It is a big mistake for us to grant any valid-ity to international law, even when it mayseem in our short term interests to do so.

Because over the long term, the goal of thosewho think that international law means anything,are those who want to constrict the UnitedStates.”—John Bolton, U.S. State Department.

Daniel C. Esty began his Kerlin Lecture pres-entation with this quote, emphasizing that samecriticisms of lack of effect and legitimacy comefrom both sides of the political spectrum. Estyteaches environmental law and policy at YaleUniversity, holds faculty appointments in bothYale’s Environment and Law Schools, and alsoserves as the Director of the Yale World FellowsProgram. The lecture, “Bringing AdministrativeLaw to Bear in Global Environmental Gover-nance,” took place on November 4, 2004.

Esty examined how a number of environ-mental problems from climate change to biodi-versity loss to depletion of the fisheries in theworld’s oceans are inescapably international inscope. Pollution does not stop at borders; there

are tremendous issuesof internationalspillovers of interna-tional harms of trans-boundary externali-ties. He commentedthat the well-estab-lished logic of publicgoods provision ar-gues for a policy re-

sponse to these issues that is global in scale.Esty focused on the great deal of hesitancy

about “global governance” and explained thatwe need to bring administrative law to the in-ternational domain. He argued that in additionto doubts about the political accountability ofdecision makers at the global scale, the legiti-macy of international policy processes is un-dermined by the lack of basic elements of ad-ministrative law. Esty suggested that thewell-established elements of good governanceand public decision making that have emergedon the domestic scene—including trans-

parency, disclosure of financial interests on thepart of decision makers, the identification ofthose engaged in lobbying, creation of an “ad-ministrative record,” a structured process ofidentifying policy alternatives—need to beadopted as the foundation for legitimate global-scale governance in the environmental realmand more broadly.

“We need a system that produces outcomesat relatively low costs, with minimal burdens,in a timely way. We should ask our institutionsof an international scale the same of what weask the bureaucracies at the national scale.When those standards of performance, accu-racy, and timeliness are not being met, weshould step in and improve the efficiency ofthe system,” Esty concluded.

Esty is the author or editor of eight booksand numerous articles on environmental pol-icy issues and the relationships between theenvironment and trade, competitiveness, glob-alization, security, international institutions,and development. n

Esty Demands Legitimacy of International Policy Processes

Daniel Esty

‘‘

Maya van Rossum and Nicholas Robinson

Visiting Scholars at the Center for Environmental Legal Studies

State Attorneys General as Environmental Watchdogs

G R E E N L A W 1 3

Pace’s Center for Environmental Legal Stud-ies presented the Seventh Annual Profes-sors Workshop, held in conjunction with

the National Environmental Law Moot Court Com-petition, on February 25. Designed for environ-mental law professors who accompany theirteams to the competition, this year’s workshop,“The Role of Attorneys General in Protecting theEnvironment,” was a dialogue with two promi-nent officials, Connecticut Attorney GeneralRichard Blumenthal and New York Attorney Gen-eral Eliot Spitzer. The wide-ranging discussionsexplored the role of state attorneys general in pur-suing environmental litigation, especially in amulti-state context.

Attorney General Blumenthal, the longest-serving attorney general in Connecticut history,had brought important antitrust and consumerprotection cases prior to joining forces withSpitzer and other Northeast attorneys generals inlawsuits against Midwest power plants to reduce

the air pollution responsiblefor acid rain and smog in theNortheast. In a similar vein,Spitzer has gained nationalprominence for his investiga-tions of conflicts of interest onWall Street that have been thecatalyst for dramatic reform inthe nation’s financial servicesindustry. But for the environ-mental community, his cham-pioning of laws to regulate airpollution has been his mostnotable activity. Two of thelatest suits brought by thestate attorneys general challenge the failure of theEnvironmental Protection Agency to adequatelyenforce air pollution laws. The first takes theagency to task for allowing power plants to re-place themselves on a piecemeal basis withouthaving to comply with regulations governing

new sources. The most recentseeks to force the Bush adminis-tration to regulate the dischargeof carbon dioxide, a greenhousegas that contributes to global cli-mate change, from power plants.Both are crucial enforcement ef-forts, which could lead to sub-stantial reductions in air pollutionand adverse health effects. Dis-cussion focused not only on thesuits, but on the extent to whichfailure to enforce the laws causesthe costs of pollution to be bornnot by the polluter, but by the

public at large. Also participating in the dialogue with the

professors was Peter Lehner, chief of the NewYork Attorney General’s Environmental Protec-tion Bureau and one of the chief architects of thestate’s litigation strategy. n

Eliot Spitzer speaking at Pace

R amesh Mysore, is a professor at the Na-tional Law School of India in Bangalore,where he teaches environmental and in-

ternational law. Mysore received a FulbrightPost-Doctoral Fellowship and hopes to establisha National Environmental Law Academy at hisuniversity upon his return. He holds an LLM ininternational law and has taught for 23 years.

Nguyen Phuc Thuy Hien is a lecturer atHCMC University of Law in Ho Chi Minh City.Hien received a Fulbright Visiting Scholarshipand intends to study “Legal Protection of theWorld Heritage [areas] in the Context ofTourism Protection in Vietnam.” Hien holds aBA in English from Hanoi University of ForeignLanguage Studies, an LLB in Economic Lawsfrom HCMC University of Law, and an LLMfrom the University of Groningen.

Cao Mingde holds an SJD and is a professorat Southwest University of Political Science andLaw in China, director of the university’s envi-ronmental law center, and associate editor-in-chief of the university’s law journal. He receiveda one-year scholarship from the China Scholar-ship Council to research comparative environ-mental law between the United States and China.

Razim J. Isayev holds a BA and MA fromBaku State University and is currently a doc-

toral candidate from Baku StateUniversity. He came to Pace LawSchool in 2004 on a Junior Fac-ulty Development Program(JFDP) Fellowship funded by theState Department. He is a visit-ing scholar and is conducting re-search on energy law at Pace’sEnergy Project. Prior to his ar-rival at Pace, he had been teach-ing international law at BakuState University and was an in-structor at University of Azerbaijan. In Azerbai-jan, Isayev is also a lawyer with the pharma-

ceutical company OdlarYurdu-95 Ltd. He alsoworked for the Ministryof Education of the Azer-baijan Republic, Depart-ment of Control, LegalStandards on the Educa-tional System from 1995until 1998. His areas ofconcentration are interna-tional law, law of oil andgas, conflict law, and

business transactions, comparative law, andenvironmental law. n

Razim Isayev

research & d i scover y

prof i le s

In the cover article “Pace Law School Opens Sive Manuscript Collection,” the story failed to clar-

ify the role of David Sive in the Scenic Hudson case. The lawyers to be credited with the Scenic

Hudson I decision are Lloyd Garrison and Albert Butzel. Sive was the attorney for the Sierra Club

and a number of other environmental groups in the second round of hearings before the Federal

Power Commission, as well as the appeal to the Second Circuit in Scenic Hudson II, where the

court affirmed the granting of the permit by a 2-1 decision with Judge Oakes dissenting. n

Clarification from GreenLaw 8, No. 1

1 4 G R E E N L A W

prof i le s

How It All Began: A Profile of Nicholas A. Robinsonby Emily N. Masalski ’05

Stepping into the environmental suite(i.e., the E-Suite) for

the first time can be a remarkable experience fora first-year law student. Itis the one inspiring placeon campus where each ofthe environmental lawfaculty members has hadan amazing idea or envi-ronmental thought. TheE-Suite is also where stu-dents meet with NicholasRobinson, one of thefounding faculty membersof the Law School.Throughout the past 25years, Robinson has builta strong foundation forPace’s nationally recog-nized environmental law program.

Robinson attended Brown University, wherehe studied history and international relations.During his free time, he enjoyed the outdoors,camping, and chaired the conservation committeeof the Brown-Pembroke Outing Club. Robinsonhad a strong interest in government and decidedto pursue a legal education at Columbia Univer-sity School of Law. As a 2L, he was an activemember of the Sierra Club and worked forDavid Sive, Esq., who was litigating to stop thedevelopment of a highway in the Hudson Val-ley. As a 3L student, he attended the first na-tional conference on environmental law duringEarth Year and became the first student ap-pointed to the Legal Advisory Committee of thePresident’s Council on Environmental Quality.Upon graduation, Robinson clerked for Honor-able Morris E. Lasker (SDNY). He worked at thePark Avenue law firm of Marshall, Bratter,Green, Allison, and Tucker from 1974 to 1983and wrote a monthly environmental law columnpublished in the New York Law Journal. Hismonthly column eventually drew the attentionof Dean Fleming, Pace Law School’s first dean.

In 1977, Dean Fleming contacted Robinsonbecause Pace students had requested an envi-ronmental law course and he needed an adjunctor full-time faculty member to teach it. At thetime, there were only 10 faculty members atPace Law. Robinson agreed to come to Pace onthe condition that he could develop an environ-mental law program. In January of 1978, Robin-son and Jay Carlisle joined the faculty, in theschool’s third semester of operations.

Once Robinsonwas a member of thefaculty, he developeda proposal for an en-vironmental law pro-gram. Pace facultysupported the pro-gram proposal; how-ever, funding wasneeded to make ithappen. Robinson re-cruited a second pro-fessor, Donald Stever,to teach property andenvironmental lawcourses. Students alsojoined the push foran environmentalprogram by charter-ing the second stu-dent organization on

campus, the Environmental Law Society. ELS’first bash was an Earth Day party to bringawareness of environmental issues to the Pacecommunity.

In 1982 there was a strong need for a presti-gious publication that solely addressed environ-mental legal issues, which resulted in the estab-lishment of the Pace Environmental Law Review

(PELR). Initially, the publishing funds for PELR

were raised outside of the law school, due tobudgetary constraints. Robinson met with a pub-lisher that initially funded the publication. Astime passed, Pace bought back the rights fromthe publisher and now all PELR publications aredone in-house. PELR ’s readership continues togrow as it has developed a national reputation.

As the demand for environmental law con-tinued to grow, Robinson recruited formerCongressman Richard L. Ottinger to join the fac-ulty as the third environmental law professor.Ottinger’s passion for clean energy developedinto the Pace Energy Project. Several students,consultants, attorneys, and economists werehired to help the Energy Project publishEnvironmental Costs of Electricity (OCEANA) in1990. Today, the project is at the cutting edge ofenergy law reform.

Around the same time that CERCLA waspassed by Congress, Pace approved a Master’sin Environmental Law Program. More than 50 attorneys immediately enrolled in the LLM program. Robinson recruited William Slye fromTexaco to coordinate the LLM program and alsoteach property and torts. In 1982, Robinson, Ottinger, and Stever also founded the Center for

Environmental Legal Studies, the first specializedcenter in the law school, which secures grantsfor research and assists in the development ofvarious environmental publications. An environ-mental externship program, which places stu-dents at various state environmental agencies,was also incorporated into the environmentallaw curriculum.

In 1983, Robinson took a leave of absencefrom the Pace faculty to become deputy com-missioner and general counsel for the New YorkState Department of Environmental Conservationin Albany under the Cuomo administration.Robinson returned to Pace in 1985 and em-barked on the next great Pace accomplishment.He met with John Cronin and one of Pace’s LLMstudents, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to develop plansfor the Environmental Litigation Clinic. Initially,the clinic had begun as a rotation of environ-mental law faculty members supervising studentattorneys. However, the faculty quickly realizedthat running a clinic was a full-time job. In 1987,the clinic opened for business in the basementof Preston Hall with Kennedy and Steven Solowserving as full-time clinic directors.

Robinson recruited Stever and Jeffrey G.Miller to the environmental law faculty. In 1989,Miller became the adviser to the first student-runNational Environmental Law Moot Court Com-petition (NELMCC). Robinson and Miller wantedto incorporate a historic nature appreciationcomponent into the competition and contactedJohn Hulsey, a contemporary Hudson RiverSchool landscape painter, to design the award.Each year, the NELMCC winner receives a printof Hulsey’s “Storm King Mountain” painting andthe original resides at the winning law schoolfor the year it won the competition.

As Stever left Pace to resume life at a lawfirm, Robinson returned to the “recruitmentbusiness.” Pace also needed another propertylaw professor and John Nolon was a primecandidate. Initially, Nolon ran the Land UseLaw Center right out of his office. Robinsonsaid, “The center was run the same way the en-vironmental program started out of mine tenyears before.” Eventually, a house on CraneAvenue opened up and the Land Use Law Cen-ter had a new home. Nolon kept the centeralive by establishing an outside stream of fund-ing through various foundations and served asdirector until 2003.

When Nancy Long left Pace to care for herfamily, Miller and Robinson recruited AnnPowers to succeed her. In 1996, Pace estab-

Nicholas Robinson

continued on page 15

G R E E N L A W 1 5

accompl i shments

James Hyer ’05 had his article “Stewardshipof New York State Cemeteries” published in 31Westchester Bar Journal 38 (fall/winter 2004).His work covers law not yet evaluated in anysecondary legal reference, and makes a usefulcontribution to the understanding of historicpreservation law in New York. Hyer preparedhis paper in Robinson’s Historic PreservationLaw seminar.

Jeffrey Miller had his article “Theme and Vari-ations in Statutory Preclusions against SuccessiveEnvironmental Enforcement Actions by EPA andCitizens” published in two parts: “Statutory Barsin Citizen Suit Provisions,” 28 Harvard Environ-

mental Law Review 402; and “Statutory Preclu-sions on EPA Enforcement,” 29 Harvard Envi-

ronmental Law Review 1.

John Nolon gave the speech “The FragmentedNature of International, National, State and LocalAuthorities Dealing with Some EnvironmentalProblems” at Nation on Edge, Natural DisasterMitigation Reflections on Reordering Responseswithin the Federal System, Yale UniversitySchool of Forestry and Environmental Studies,New Haven, on April 19, 2005. Nolon has thefollowing books forthcoming: two, byCambridge University Press, will be the firstbooks published on comparative land use lawof any breadth; Nation on Edge; Losing Ground

will be published by the Environmental LawInstitute on our Nation on Edge project; Nutshell

on Land Use Law will be published by West. Healso wrote the following chapters, which wereaccepted for publication: “Historical Overviewof the American Land Use System; A DiagnosticApproach to Evaluating Governmental Land UseControl,” for inclusion in the comparative landuse law volume by Cambridge University Press;

“Political Leadership in Planning Statute Reform”in a book on the New Century by the AmericanPlanning Association on Planning Reform. Hehad the following articles, cowritten with JessicaBacher, published: “Reinventing RedevelopmentLaw,” New York Zoning Law and Practice Report

and Newsletter, April/May 2005; “ZoningExemptions: Granting Immunity to PrivateWireless Providers,” New York Law Journal,

April 20, 2005; “Court Reviews: The TakingsDoctrine and Exactions,” New York Law Journal,

Febuary 16, 2005; “Redevelopment Tools:Creating and Recreating Urban Centers,” New

York Law Journal, December 15, 2004; “Religionand Land Use—Constraints on Local Boards’Decisionmaking,” New York Law Journal,

October 20, 2004; “Shielding Board Members:Municipalities Should Protect Them From Suits,”New York Law Journal, August 18, 2004. Nolonalso coauthored a research report published asa monograph by Yale University on the GainingGround Information Database.

Dean Emeritus Richard Ottinger coau-thed and coedited The Law of Energy for Sus-

tainable Development (Cambridge UniversityPress, 2005); coedited Compendium of Laws

for Sustainable Energy (Cambridge UniversityPress, 2005); and wrote Energy Efficiency: The

Best Option for Secure, Clean, Healthy Future

for ABA’s Natural Resources and Environment.

Lee Paddock had his article “Strategies and Design Principles for Compliance andEnforcement” published as part of the SeventhInternational Conference on EnvironmentalCompliance and Enforcement in Marrakech,Morroco, in 1 International Network for

Environmental Compliance and Enforcement 67(2005).

Ann Powers was a panelist at the Fifth God-dard Forum at Pennsylvania State University onApril 5, 2005. The forum, “Putting the Market toWork for Conservation: An In-Depth Examinationof Traditional and Nontraditional Market-BasedMechanisms for Achieving Environmental Im-provement,” brought together national experts inlaw and economics to examine the use of marketmechanisms in a variety of environmental con-texts. Mechanisms such as air and water pollutanttrading, wetlands and habitat banking, and trans-ferable development rights have been employedto address pollution, land and biodiversity con-servation and enhancement, and global warming.There are, however, limitations on such ap-proaches, and more traditional regulatory effortsmay sometimes be preferable. Powers analyzedthe water pollutant trading program establishedby Connecticut to address nitrogen pollution inLong Island Sound, discussing the unusual legalsteps employed by the state to comply with fed-eral law, the factors that have so far contributedto the success of the program, and those whichmight present difficulties in the future or preventthe program from serving as a national model.The presentation drew on her scholarship in thearea of pollutant trading. See The Current Contro-versy Regarding TMDLs: Contemporary Perspec-tives—“TMDLs and Pollutant Trading” online atwww.vje.org/articles/Powers.html, 4 Vermont

Journal of Environmental Law 1 (2003);www.vje.org/ articles/Powers.html; “Reducing Ni-trogen Pollution on Long Island Sound: Is Therea Place for Pollutant Trading?,” 23 Columbia Jour-

nal of Environmental Law. 137 (1998),www.law.pace. edu/environment/envpublica-tions.html. She has observed the Connecticut pro-gram since its inception when she served on theLong Island Sound Ad Hoc Nitrogen TradingTask Force. n

lished the first SJD program in the nation.Robert Goldstein was the first SJD candidateand eventually became Director of Pace’s En-vironmental Programs. Pace has publishedthree books based on SJD candidate research.Each SJD student continues to be very suc-cessful. Today, Marco Olsen serves as dean at Universidade Federal do Espirito Santo De-partamento de Direito in Brazil; Goldstein is General Counsel to Riverkeeper; and NadaAl-Duaij is a professor of law at Kuwait Uni-

versity. Several Fulbright scholars, among oth-ers, pursue their research doctrine at Pace.

Pace University began to restructure theWhite Plains campus and eventually moved allundergraduate students to the Pleasantvillecampus. The transition opened up an entirebuilding—the E-House, which is now thehome of the Pace Energy Project and the PaceEnvironmental Litigation Clinic, as well as amuseum of the environmental law and historyof the Hudson River.

Robinson may travel around the world fromKuwait to Cairo to Sydney, but he alwaysmakes time available to supervise student inde-pendent research, edit scholarly papers, andoffer career advice to students. The Pace envi-ronmental law program has made great stridesin the last 25 years. There is much room forgrowth and resources to sustain the growth.Perhaps in a few years the E-Suite and E-Housewill be named after a generous benefactor. n

A Profile of Nicholas Robinsoncontinued from page 14

NON-PROFIT ORG.U.S. POSTAGE

PPAAIIDD PACE UNIVERSITY

PACE LAWSCHOOL

Pace Law SchoolCenter for EnvironmentalLegal Studies78 North BroadwayWhite Plains, NY 10603

During the fall 2005 semester, Pace Law School, in conjunction with the Yale

School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, will offer a new course in

environmental diplomacy. The course will be taught by adjunct professor

Roy S. Lee, PhD, a senior official in the office of the UN, Legal Advisor, and expert in

international public law.

The course will address various aspects of environmental diplomacy including

the negotiation of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), decisions under

or related to the MEAs, and multilateral decisions in international organizations.

Students will attend intergovernmental meetings on environmental issues at the

United Nations headquarters one day each week. Lee will also conduct a weekly

seminar in which students will learn about multilateral decision-making, evaluate

the negotiation processes, and assess the substantive environmental issues under

debate or negotiation. Lastly, each student will prepare a research project analyz-

ing the substantive scientific and legal issues in an agenda item, debate, or negotia-

tion, as a briefing for possible use as an aide memoir for the diplomats involved in

the negotiations being observed. n

scholar ly currents

Pace and Yale Inaugurate New UN Environmental Diplomacy Practicum

United Nations headquarters