In May, President Gilles Patry welcomed members of the Governing Council of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law to the University of Ottawa. The academy is an initiative of the Commission on Environmental Law of the IUCN – the World Conservation Union.
The academy’s three-member secretariat has been operating within the University’s Faculty of Law since the beginning of the year. It is funded by Environment Canada and Health Canada, with supporting grants from Hydro Québec and the International Development Research Centre. Professor Jamie Benidickson of uOttawa’s Faculty of Law and Professor Ben Boer of the Australian Centre for Environmental Law, University of Sydney, are co-directors of the academy.
Professor Boer, who recently arrived in Ottawa, is a visiting professor in the Civil Law and Common Law sections of the Faculty of Law for a two-year period. He will promote the work of the secretariat in its global outreach. Boer has published widely in the areas of sustainable development law, heritage law and international environmental law, focusing especially on developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
Jamie Benidickson teaches Canadian and international environmental law, water law, and legal history. He is the founding executive director of the Council of Canadian Law Deans and held the same position with the Council of Canadian Administrative Tribunals.
The third member of the secretariat is Maria Laura Barreto, program coordinator of the academy. She has worked on environmental law with emphasis on extractive industries and sustainable development strategies in Africa, Latin America and North America.
To date, the academy has hosted three major international colloquia on environmental law, in Shanghai, Nairobi and Sydney. The next colloquium will be held at Pace University Law School, New York, in October 2006, focusing on compliance and enforcement in environmental law.
Over the next several years, the academy plans to establish research, and teaching and capacity building programs on a collaborative basis with its world-wide member institutions. Important elements of this work, as is typical of IUCN initiatives, involve researchers from a range of disciplines. The academy hopes to build on existing support within the Faculty of Law and collaborate with researchers in all faculties of the University of Ottawa whose work encompasses environmental interests.
