Nikki Reisch

Director, Climate & Energy Program

Nikki Reisch (she/her) is the Director of the Climate & Energy Program. Prior to joining CIEL, Nikki was the Legal Director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and a Supervising Attorney in the Global Justice Clinic at NYU School of Law. She was also an Adjunct Professor in the Human Rights and Gender Justice Clinic at CUNY School of Law. Her work focused on human rights and environmental harms related to a range of domestic and international issues, including open-pit mining, large-scale tax abuse, surveillance of human rights defenders, immigration enforcement, torture, and arbitrary detention.

Nikki’s engagement in climate justice began with her five-year tenure as the Africa Program Manager at the Bank Information Center, where she worked to curb development finance for fossil fuels and supported frontline communities challenging extractive industry projects. In her subsequent position as the Policy Advisor on Forests and Climate Change at Rainforest Foundation UK, Nikki co-founded a global coalition tracking reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation in the UNFCCC negotiations and pursued transnational advocacy with partners in the Congo Basin to mitigate the human rights risks posed by climate change and policy responses to it.

Nikki has litigated before domestic and international courts, appeared before UN treaty bodies and the accountability mechanisms of international financial institutions, and co-authored amicus briefs in several human rights cases. She is co-editor with Philip Alston of Tax, Inequality, and Human Rights (Oxford University Press, 2019) and has published other articles and reports on human rights and environmental matters.

After earning her JD from NYU, Nikki was a law clerk for the Honorable Marsha S. Berzon on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Honorable Raymond J. Lohier, Jr. on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. She is a member of the State Bars of California and New York* and holds a BA in Ethics, Politics, and Economics from Yale University.

Nikki can be reached at nreisch[at]ciel.org.

*Nikki is not currently admitted to the District of Columbia Bar.