Tuesday evening (Sept. 6), the William S. Richardson School of Law had the pleasure of hosting four panelists: Professor LeRoy Paddock, University of Washington; Professor Lin Harmon (Scholar at Lewis & Clark Law School and President of the Ethical Future Institute in Oregon); The Honorable Merideth Wright (retired Judge, Vermont Environmental Court); and Professor Koh Kheng-Lian, Singapore National University.

Professor Paddock, Associate Dean for Environmental Law Studies at George Washington University Law School, started by providing background about the IUCN, World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL), and IUCN Academy of Environmental Law. He also described some substantive achievements and ongoing initiatives. Professor Paddock is a member of the American Bar Association (ABA) Section on Environment, Energy and Resources Council. His recent publications include “Green Governance: Building the Competencies Necessary for Effective Environmental Management,” 38 ELR 10609 (September 2008).

Lin Harmon, Scholar at Lewis & Clark and President of the Ethical Future Institute in Oregon, talked about her role as Head of Delegation for Pace University (now the Elisabeth Haub School of Law) at the 2012 IUCN Congress in Jeju. She focused in particular on the motions/resolutions process from drafting through adoption and implementation.

Judge Merideth Wright, Vermont Environmental Court (ret.), presided over the Vermont Environmental Court from its creation in 1990. Now she is a Distinguished Judicial Scholar of ELI and consults internationally on issues related to environmental courts and the judicial role in environmental enforcement and compliance. Judge Wright compared the challenges of serving as the only environmental court judge at the beginning of her tenure, with the assistance she received from colleagues around the world who she met through the IUCN, WCEL and IUCNAEL.

Emeritus Professor Koh Kheng-Lian, Faculty of Law at the National University of Singapore, was formerly the Director of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Environmental Law (APCEL) and is currently its Honorary Director, as well as Chair of the APCEL Specialist Group on Climate Change Adaptation. She was the IUCN-CEL Regional Vice-Chair for South and East Asia, and a member of its Steering Committee. Professor Koh spoke at length about ASEAN integration, transnational crime, Indonesian haze, as well as the fallacy of attempts to compare the EU (Brexit) to ASEAN. Regarding the latter, she asked a rhetorical question, “Why must a woman be like a man?” Instead, she offered a Whole World Approach before fielding a question from Justice McKenna about the South China Sea.

Mahalo to our wonderful panelists, Professors Paddock, Harmon and Koh, along with Judge Wright for furthering the conversation in the 2016 IUCN Congress!