In response to the legal challenges posed by ecological limitations on human economic activity, WCL and the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) established the Joint Research Program for International and Comparative Environmental Law in 1990. The program was created to facilitate the shift toward sustainable development by providing a dynamic and interdisciplinary environment for training future leaders in environmental law. Durwood Zaelke is the Director of the Joint Program.
The joint program conducts environmental workshops and symposia, sponsors research on various environmental issues, and assists WCL in developing the international and comparative law curriculum. CIEL also co-sponsors the Summer Program in Europe. CIEL attorneys help students identify and arrange internships with environmental organizations in Washington, D.C. The result is a cooperative effort that provides students with a dynamic learning environment, scholars with a stimulating atmosphere for conducting practical research and young lawyers with exciting opportunities for beginning their environmental law careers.
The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) is a not-for-profit environmental law firm founded in 1989, by Durwood Zaelke, to bring the energy and experience of the U.S. public interest environmental movement to the critical task of strengthening and developing international and comparative environmental law, policy, and management throughout the world. CIEL's goals are to incorporate fundamental principles of ecology and democracy into international law and institutions, to strengthen national environmental law systems and public interest movements around the world, to educate and train public interest- spirited environmental lawyers, and to improve the effectiveness of law in solving environmental problems.
ClEL's attorneys in Washington, D.C. and Geneva, Switzerland provide a full range of environmental legal assistance, including policy research and publishing, advice and advocacy, legal education and training and capacity building. CIEL works throughout the world in partnerships with other nongovernmental organizations inter national institutions, and states, especially developing nations and those with economies in transition. Many of the individuals CIEL works with are foreign lawyers who have completed their master of law degree in the WCL International Legal Studies Program. A number of the joint programs students have gone on to start their own environmental law groups in other countries. For example recent gradutates Romina Picolotti '99 founded the Center for Human Rights and the Environment in Argentina and Nuno Lacasta '97 founded Euronatura in Portugal.
