Posted on June 14, 2016 by Jeff Thaler
About 10 years ago, when Steve Herrmann began calling 22 other environmental lawyers around the country about starting a new College, I don’t think he or any of us envisioned the College’s reach extending overseas. Yet, thanks to the vision and efforts of Jim Bruen, Bob Percival, and now Jimmy May, in recent years the College has explored possible connections with China, Kenya, and just weeks ago—Haiti.
Six College members, dubbed by one as “Lawyers Without Borders,” spent four whirlwind days in Port-au-Prince Memorial Day and early June. Our key liaison was Widener Law Professor and former Dean Erin Daly, Jimmy’s colleague, who has spent some of her sabbatical year working at the Université de la Fondation Dr. Aristede (UNIFA) begun just a few years ago by former President Jean-Bertrand Aristede and his wife Mildred Aristede, an American-trained attorney. UNIFA was our wonderful host sponsor for the trip. Specifics on the ACOEL delegation and with whom we met can be found in the separate blog post of Jimmy May.
In brief, I arrived a day early with Erin Daly, and our guide, Junior St. Vil, took us to Sakala, a community center in one of the poorest sections of the city. It was Mother’s Day in Haiti, so there was a celebration going on that we witnessed, as well as touring a community garden used to teach children how to grow food—with recycled tires as planters.
On Memorial Day I briefly met Mme. Aristede at UNIFA, then went with Junior to “tour” the city. Port-au-Prince was hit hard by the major 2010 earthquake, and most roads are still in poor shape, clogged with motor vehicles and pedestrians. I saw very few traffic lights or cross walks; everyone shares the road. It thus takes a long time to get from one part of the city (3.5 million people) to another, so most of my morning was spent getting a feel for the street scene, and talking with Junior.
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. While one College member (who will remain nameless) said that Haiti ranks higher than the U.S. in the Happiness Index, my back-home research found Haitians much less happy than Americans. However, I suspect that may be explained in part by facts such as 1) 70% of the 10 million Haitians have no electricity and are illiterate, 2) most water and sewer infrastructure is in disrepair or worse, 3) only 2% of Haiti’s forest is left, with families reluctantly forced to cut remaining trees for charcoal to cook with, and 4) there are significant “rule of law” challenges from lack of enforcement or viable legal remedies.
Haiti presents lots of opportunities as well as challenges. Our visit focused in large part on the desire of UNIFA and local lawyers to develop a 1-year environmental law LLM program. Currently, “law school” in Haiti is a prescribed, 4-year college curriculum with little focus on environmental, energy or land use issues. During our visit, we met with large groups of students and of lawyers, as well as in smaller sessions with leading environmental, energy and sustainability practitioners. For me, it was clear that everyone wanted to develop, with assistance, initiatives to improve the quality of life for Haitian people. They were well aware of the many damaging pollution and climate change forces hurting the populace and economy; but a key question is how best to create home-designed programs similar to what we began to do in the U.S. in the early 1970s.
The challenge for us as College members, and for me personally, is how best to assist and collaborate with UNIFA and others in Haiti, to make a difference. Now that personal connections have been made, hopefully our Haitian hosts will be better able to propose to us possible measure to develop a sustained (not one-time) menu of actions that we can work on together with them. I hope to be able, someday soon, to work on environmental or renewable energy education or project-specific initiatives with the great people with whom we met.
Tags: Haiti, International law, climate change