Posted on July 9, 2018 by James Bruen
A real world impact of the ACOEL comes, in part, from its international pro bonoinitiatives. The International Pro Bono Committee reports here on the status of these initiatives. They are generally driven by the 28 members of this committee. Geographically-oriented initiatives are managed by Committee vice chair David Farer (Cuba), Tracy Hester (India) and Jim Bruen (Africa).
Africa
ACOEL has executed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) to provide legal support to a series of wildlife and other natural resource protection initiatives. By mutual agreement, we have begun our collaboration with work in three of the eight areas of AWF-proposed collaboration.
Through our standard staffing process (described in the “Reminder…” at the end of this blog), ACOEL Fellows Virginia Robbins and James Bruen have entered into individual pro bono engagement agreements with the AWF. To date, these engagement agreements provide for us (a) to participate in practical “on-the-job” training in Nairobi for prosecutors selected from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa; and (b) to assist AWF in setting up a new cooperative mutual-assistance association between these Prosecutors. Tracy Hester may also participate in a third task of providing advice and training on a new canine wildlife crime detection program. Ginny Robbins and Jim Bruen may travel to Nairobi for the on-the-job training program as early as the end of July or early August 2018. This schedule may slip further as it has done repeatedly in the past because of election unrest and scheduling issues controlled by the Kenyan government, but AWF seems ready to go.
Cuba
After 2016 and 2017 trips to Cuba, involving meetings with Cuban environmental and other officials involving Eileen Millett, David Farer, Mary Ellen Ternes and me, as well as speeches by David Farer and Mary Ellen Ternes at the prestigious annual scientific and technical forum, ACOEL and the University of Havana are now in the process of executing the College’s standard MOU to open opportunities for Fellows to teach US environmental law and related topics at the law faculty of the University of Havana. ACOEL is also revising a proposed MOU to open opportunities for collaboration (to be negotiated) between individual Fellows and the Institute of Ecology, a part of CITMA, the Cuban equivalent of the US EPA.
India
Through the efforts of Tracy Hester, he and I – on behalf of ACOEL — have begun discussions with retired India Supreme Court Justice (and retired India Green Tribunal Chairperson) Swatanter Kumar to open pro bono opportunities for Fellows to work in India and, eventually, perhaps Pakistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan. The ACOEL Executive Committee has approved our selection of, and proposing MOUs with, qualified and underserved Indian environmental clients. These discussions are ongoing.
Haiti
Through the efforts of Jimmy May, Tracy Hester and others, ACOEL has traveled to Haiti and completed discussions with Aristide University to allow interested Fellows to provide lectures on US environmental law to university law students. The committee has not yet finalized arrangements for these lectures or posted these opportunities for review by the Fellows, because continuing civil unrest may compromise the safety of our participating Fellows and because governmental instability has fostered conditions which make the vitality of the rule of law uncertain.
China
Through the contacts of Robert Percival (and after I joined Bob and his students on a great trip to China), ACOEL entered into a MOU with NRDC/Beijing. With a good number of Fellows participating, we thereafter implemented a very effective pro bono program in China during 2014 and 2015. In 2016, China established a new law discouraging organizations like ours from conducting pro bono or other NGO work in China. Conditions may have improved just a bit since then. We are in communication with Bob and with Fellow Scott Fulton (who is also President of the Environmental Law Institute), to ascertain whether now is the time to attempt a renewal of our China pro bono work.
Peru
The National Judicial College contacted John Cruden and me last month to ask whether our Fellows would be interested in joining the faculty of a summer 2018 program in Peru to speak about “lessons learned” in the US about the practical enforcement of environmental laws. We reported this inquiry to the our committee and to the College’s Executive Committee and received enthusiastic interest. However, our follow-up communications to the Peruvians, through the National Judicial College, revealed that the judiciary there had run low on funding for the time being. But the Peruvians and the National Judicial College promised to come back to us on this when the initiative revives in the future.
A Reminder of How the We Open Opportunities for Fellows
Our committee actively (a) pursues and identifies qualified international pro bono clients, (b) negotiates standard form Memoranda of Understanding with them, (c) obtains a list of desired pro bono projects from each client, (d) advertises those projects to the ACOEL membership, (e) obtains the curricula vitae of interested Fellows, (f) sends those CVs to the prospective international pro bono client and (g) allows that client to select the Fellow(s) with whom it wants to work. The client and the individual Fellow then enter into individual pro bono engagement agreements. The ACOEL is NOT a party to any of those engagements. The ACOEL is solely a clearinghouse to match underserved clients with interested ACOEL Fellows. The ACOEL does not practice law or provide legal advice to the international clients. The ACOEL does not contribute funds or provide loans or any other form of financial assistance to international clients. The ACOEL does not monitor the work of its Fellows in undertaking the work agreed to in their individual engagements with the international clients. But the ACOEL is delighted to receive reports of Fellows who have raved about the fun they have had, and the satisfaction they have received, in participating in these “give back” efforts.
Tags: Africa, Cuba, India, Haiti, China, Peru