Niranjali Amerasinghe, Staff Attorney

Niranjali Amerasinghe is the Director of the Climate Change Program and serves as CIEL's Intern Program Coordinator.

Niranjali joined CIEL in February 2009 as a Staff Attorney in the Climate Change Program. Since then she has worked on a range of issues, including compliance, REDD+, international coal financing, and the intersection between trade and climate change. She has worked extensively to improve monitoring and compliance processes in the UNFCCC framework, including contributing to the design of REDD+ safeguards and systems for monitoring safeguards implementation. Through her role as chair of the Climate Action Network's Measurement, Reporting, and Verification Working Group, she has been involved in facilitating (with partners) strategy sessions both within and outside the network. She also has experience with other REDD+ initiatives, such as the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility and the UN-REDD Programme, providing key legal and technical support to civil society representatives in those processes. Her work on international coal finance includes assisting local groups and project-affected communities raise concerns about proposed projects with relevant accountability mechanisms at the World Bank, most recently in Kosovo. In addition, she has analyzed key legal issues pertaining to national climate policies and their relationship with international trade agreements (i.e. WTO and FTAs).

Prior to joining as an attorney, Niranjali was a law fellow at CIEL, working with the Climate Change and Trade & Sustainable Development Programs. She also taught Legal Research and Writing as an International Teaching Fellow at the George Washington University Law School. Niranjali received an LL.B. (honors) from the University of Bristol, UK, and an LL.M. in International and Comparative Law (with highest honors) from the George Washington University Law School. She was born and raised in Sri Lanka, and during that time, completed the highest level of graded examinations in piano and voice offered by the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, UK. She is proficient in English and Sinhalese.

Ms. Amerasinghe can be reached at namerasinghe@ciel.org.