BONN, Germany, June 16, 2025 — As the climate movement gathers in Bonn for the 62nd session of the Subsidiary Bodies (SB62) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) condemns the hypocrisy of the German government hosting a forum for international law related to the climate … Read More.
Published June 5, 2025 By Joie Chowdhury, Senior Attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, Aditi Shetye, Global Strategic Litigation Lead at the World’s Youth for Climate Justice and Researcher in Public International & Environmental Law at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law; and Theresa Amor-Juergenssen, Legal Research and Capacity-Building Lead at … Read More.
Published April 16, 2025 By CIEL Senior Attorney Francesca Mingrone and FIAN International Secretary General Ana Maria Suarez-Franco. This article is being cross-published on the Third World Network (TWN). The main existing frameworks to regulate corporate conduct – at the international, regional, and national levels – currently fail to incorporate the protection of the environment meaningfully. … Read More.
Published on April 7, 2025 By Luisa Gomez Betancur, Senior Attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, and Alexandra Cólon-Amil, Communications Campaign Specialist at the Center for International Environmental Law. Latin America and the Caribbean is the most violent region in the world for those who defend the land and the environment. Brazil, Colombia, … Read More.
As risky geoengineering experiments proliferate, existing laws already restrict them — but enforcement and stronger protections are needed.
Published December 12, 2024 By Hélionor de Anzizu, Senior Attorney for the Environmental Health Program at the Center for International Environmental Law. This is part two of a two-part analysis that unpacks the EU and the UK’s shift away from the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), focusing on the Treaty’s misalignment with climate goals and the … Read More.
Published November 20, 2024 By Andrés Del Castillo, Senior Attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, and Lindsey Jurca Durland, Campaign Specialist at the Center for International Environmental Law The stakes couldn’t be higher as we enter the final scheduled round of plastics treaty negotiations. From November 25 to December 1, United Nations Member … Read More.
Published October 21, 2024 By Bruna de Almeida Campos, Senior Campaigner, Offshore Oil & Gas at the Center for International Environmental Law. As world leaders gather from October 21 to November 1 in Cali, Colombia, for the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP16), governments have … Read More.
Published October 15, 2024 By Mary Church, Geoengineering Campaign Manager at the Center for International Environmental Law, and Rossella Recupero, Communications Campaign Specialist at the Center for International Environmental Law This is the first in a multi-part series exposing the threats and risks connected to geoengineering and why these technologies must not be considered effective … Read More.
Published October 14, 2024 By Aubrey Manahan, Campaigner for the People, Land & Resources Program at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL). As the World Bank Group (WBG) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) prepare to convene their 2024 Annual Meetings from October 21-26 in Washington, DC, the pressure continues to ensure the World Bank’s … Read More.
Published September 24, 2024 By Barnaby Pace, Senior Researcher at the Center for International Environmental Law, and Lindsey Jurca Durland, Communications Campaigns Specialist at the Center for International Environmental Law The US is on the brink of making a major climate misstep. According to a new CIEL analysis, planned petrochemical projects across the US could … Read More.
Published May 13, 2024 By Luisa Gomez Betancur, Senior Attorney, and Lani Furbank, Communications Campaign Specialist. The Escazú Agreement is the first legally binding regional treaty that upholds environmental democracy — the right to information, participation, and justice — in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the first in the world containing specific provisions aiming … Read More.
Published January 31, 2024 By Giulia Carlini, Manager and Senior Attorney in CIEL’s Environmental Health program, David Azoulay, Director of the Environmental Health Program, and Catherine Allary, Communications Campaign Specialist. After years of negotiations, the fifth International Conference on Chemicals Management (ICCM5) successfully adopted a new global framework on September 30, 2023, in Bonn, Germany, … Read More.
Published December 18, 2023 By Aubrey Manahan, Campaigner for CIEL’s People, Land & Resources Program. This month, during the United Nations Climate Summit COP28 in Dubai, Parties finalized the creation of a Loss and Damage Fund aimed at addressing climate-related harms endured by vulnerable communities and countries. While this achievement follows decades of advocacy by … Read More.
Just three months ahead of COP28, the Transitional Committee meets for a 3rd time in the Dominican Republic to discuss the Loss and Damage Fund. It’s time to make concrete progress.
On October 19, 2022, nearly 300 TIAA account holders filed a complaint against the financial services giant and its wholly-owned subsidiary Nuveen at the United Nations-sponsored Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). The complaint alleges that TIAA’s substantial investments in fossil fuels and deforestation violate the company’s climate pledges and commitment to the PRI Principles and … Read More.
This blog was posted on July 6, 2022. This piece was co-authored by the Center for International Environmental Law, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), and ClientEarth. It was originally posted on Jus Mundi. After two years and fifteen negotiation rounds, on June 24, 2022, the Contracting Parties of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) … Read More.
Here at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), we know our strength comes from the people who make up our movement — from our staff, to our partners, to our steadfast supporters. Our “Meet Our Staff” series will introduce you to some of our amazing staff members, who work behind the scenes every day … Read More.
Here at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), we know our strength comes from the people who make up our movement — from our staff, to our partners, to our steadfast supporters. Our “Meet Our Staff” series will introduce you to some of our amazing staff members, who work behind the scenes every day … Read More.
Here at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), we know our strength comes from the people who make up our movement — from our staff, to our partners, to our steadfast supporters. Our “Meet Our Staff” series will introduce you to some of our amazing staff members, who work behind the scenes every day … Read More.
We are living in a moment of transformative change. Our world is in the midst of an accelerating climate crisis, an ongoing global pandemic, rising threats to democracy and human rights, and the growing recognition that we cannot address any of these challenges without confronting the legacy and ongoing impacts of systemic racism and oppression. … Read More.
On December 14th, over 700 civil society groups from 113 countries called upon United Nations Member States to agree to establish a legally binding global instrument — a plastics treaty — at the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA5.2). The main messages and demands were published in a Call to Action and presented during a two-sessions … Read More.
Here at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), we know our strength comes from the people who make up our movement — from our staff, to our partners, to our steadfast supporters. Our “Meet Our Staff” series will introduce you to some of our amazing staff members, who work behind the scenes every day … Read More.
Three days into COP26 and the promise of the “most inclusive COP ever” has shaped up to be nothing more than a farce with limited access and negotiations almost entirely off-limits to observers. Alok Sharma opened the Climate Leadership Summit thanking everyone for their efforts to get to Glasgow, and it’s true: Delegates, civil society … Read More.
The climate emergency is here, and we know fossil fuels are the cause. During the People vs. Fossil Fuels week of action in Washington, DC, many of CIEL’s US-based staff answered the call from Indigenous and frontline leaders for bold action to confront environmental racism and the climate emergency. We joined thousands of Indigenous and … Read More.
Here at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), we know our strength comes from the people who make up our movement — from our staff, to our partners, to our steadfast supporters. Our “Meet Our Staff” series will introduce you to some of our amazing staff members, who work behind the scenes every day … Read More.
On July 19th, over 500 organizations across the United States in Canada expressed deep concerns about the US and Canadian governments’ support for carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies in an open letter to policymakers in the United States and Canada. The letter’s key messages and demands were … Read More.
Louisiana is gaining an ever-increasing amount of national and international attention for Cancer Alley, an eighty-five-mile stretch along the Mississippi River lined with industrial plants, and the corridor’s role in perpetuating environmental racism and threats to public health. Simultaneously, the state’s policymakers are turning toward a new pernicious industrialization effort that threatens to impact Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities: carbon … Read More.
Governments are gathering virtually under the auspices of the Paris Agreement in what is a high-stakes year for global climate negotiations. The UN Climate Change Conference, Sessions of the subsidiary bodies (SB52), is a three-week meeting that began on Monday, May 31st, and is the first formal UN climate negotiations in a year and a … Read More.
Here at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), we know our strength comes from the people who make up our movement — from our staff, to our partners, to our steadfast supporters. Our “Meet Our Staff” series will introduce you to some of our amazing staff members, who work behind the scenes every day … Read More.
Here at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), we know our strength comes from the people who make up our movement — from our staff, to our partners, to our steadfast supporters. Our “Meet Our Staff” series will introduce you to some of our amazing staff members, who work behind the scenes every day … Read More.
Here at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), we know our strength comes from the people who make up our movement — from our staff, to our partners, to our steadfast supporters. Our “Meet Our Staff” series will introduce you to some of our amazing staff members, who work behind the scenes every day … Read More.
Here at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), we know our strength comes from the people who make up our movement — from our staff, to our partners, to our steadfast supporters. Our “Meet Our Staff” series will introduce you to some of our amazing staff members, who work behind the scenes every day … Read More.
This year has been marked by profound challenges, from the intensification of the climate crisis, to a global pandemic, to police violence that has spurred global movements for racial justice. It has placed into stark relief that the greatest challenges facing people and the planet are deeply interconnected. 2020 has also demonstrated the importance of … Read More.
Here at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), we know our strength comes from the people who make up our movement — from our staff, to our partners, to our steadfast supporters. Our “Meet Our Staff” series will introduce you to some of our amazing staff members, who work behind the scenes every day … Read More.
When something as unprecedented and disruptive as the COVID-19 pandemic strikes, forcing everyone into quarantine and taking countless lives, it’s only natural to want to assign blame. Well, scientific consensus says that in this case — and in the cases of SARS, MERS, Ebola, Swine Flu, Tuberculosis, Tapeworms, Avian Flu, HIV, West Nile Virus, and … Read More.
Here at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), we know our strength comes from the people who make up our movement — from our staff, to our partners, to our steadfast supporters. Our “Meet Our Staff” series will introduce you to some of our amazing staff members, who work behind the scenes every day … Read More.
Here at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), we know our strength comes from the people who make up our movement — from our staff, to our partners, to our steadfast supporters. Our “Meet Our Staff” series will introduce you to some of our amazing staff members, who work behind the scenes every day … Read More.
The world is focusing on the devastating health, social, and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the often inadequate social policies that are exacerbating the toll it is taking on communities. As a result, the international community’s attention to another human rights crisis — the climate emergency — has waned. Fortunately, last week’s 44th … Read More.
Here at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), we know our strength comes from the people who make up our movement — from our staff, to our partners, to our steadfast supporters. Our “Meet Our Staff” series will introduce you to some of our amazing staff members, who work behind the scenes every day … Read More.
Here at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), we know our strength comes from the people who make up our movement — from our staff, to our partners, to our steadfast supporters. Our “Meet Our Staff” series will introduce you to some of our amazing staff members, who work behind the scenes every day to … Read More.
Last October, over 35 National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) from around the world met in Geneva to discuss their role in preventing business-related human rights violations and in facilitating access to justice and remedy for victims of such violations. If I were to list every case where corporations have caused environmental harm and human rights … Read More.
With the world rapidly changing around us, we want to let you know what you can expect from CIEL in the weeks and months ahead. The outbreak and impact of COVID-19 is reminding us of just how interconnected we all are with each other and with our planet. During this period, CIEL is committed to … Read More.
The European Green Deal has been presented as an ambitious plan to transport the European Union to a bright, sustainable future for chemicals management. But is it really? The European Green Deal, presented by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on December 11, 2019, is meant to be the “boarding pass” for the European … Read More.
As plastic continues to suffocate the planet, the first comprehensive legislative plan in the United States to combat plastic pollution, the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, was launched today at the US Capitol. The bill, introduced by Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) and Representative Alan Lowenthal (D-CA), seeks to address the plastic pollution crisis by … Read More.
For years, wealthy nations have flooded developing countries with toxic plastic waste under the guise of “recycling.” Now, the international community has almost unanimously agreed to finally tackle the plastic waste trade crisis, but the US is, naturally, attempting to circumvent the new standards. The practice of shipping plastic to other countries has been the … Read More.
Bradnee Chambers (1966-2019) Nature and humanity lost a true friend with Bradnee Chambers’ passing on January 23, 2019. A Canadian, Bradnee began his United Nations career at United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) working on investment and transparency and then at the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies; but he found his … Read More.
The last year has demanded more from all of us — more resilience, more innovation, more courage, more solidarity. In 2017, your support helped us… Tackle Plastic Pollution at its Source Our newly launched Fueling Plastics initiative is highlighting the deep links between plastics and fossil fuels, the primary chemical feedstock in over 99% of … Read More.
By Blanche Helbling, Communications Intern How lucky was your St. Paddy’s day this year? Likely, it brought more good fortune than you think. In the modern world we live in, full of high-tech information sharing and copious globalized trade, one might assume transparency measures to be a given aspect of international exchange. The fact of … Read More.
The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), a leading non-profit that uses international law and institutions to defend the right to a healthy planet, has selected Carroll Muffett as its new President and Chief Executive Officer