The Legal Path to Sustainable Development: Module 7
Developing the law to protect biodiversity and the environment
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Pre-reading study time2 hours
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Live session3.5 hours
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Community of Practice
Session 1: How can the law protect biodiversity?
MEET THE INSTRUCTOR
Worku Damena Yifru
Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, UNEP
Mr. Yifru is the Senior Legal Adviser at the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity which is administered by the United Nations Environment Programme. He is the Head of the Legal and Intergovernmental Affairs Unit. He is environmental lawyer with over three decades of experience working on environment and development issues, both at the national and international levels.
Prior to starting his international career, Mr. Yifru was in charge of the Policy and Legislation Department of the Environmental Protection Agency of his native country, Ethiopia, where he led important processes, such as the preparation and adoption of Environmental Policy (1997), and the drafting of the basic environmental laws of the country. He was the Director of Ethiopian Conservation Strategy Initiative through which the Environmental Policy, the first ever for the country, was developed along with implementation strategies. He was also a part-time lecturer on Environment and Natural Resources Law at the Civil Service University of Ethiopia.
After joining the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2001, Mr. Yifru contributed, among other things, to the rapid entry into force and the launching of the implementation of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. He served as the secretary of the Compliance Committee under the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety for eight years. He was also the secretary of the Working Group which negotiated the Nagoya – Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress, a treaty that provides liability rules for damage caused by the transboundary movement of genetically modified organisms.
Mr. Yifru has LL.B. from the Law Faculty of Addis Ababa University (1988), and LL.M. in Environmental Law, from the London School of Economics and Political Science (1995).
Session 2: Towards a Circular Economy: Legal Opportunities
MEET THE INSTRUCTOR
Maya De-Souza,
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), UK
Maya de Souza is Head of Resource Efficiency & Waste Prevention Policy in Defra’s Resources & Waste Division, playing a lead role in circular economy policy. She has over 12 years of experience as a policy official in government covering a range of policy areas: soil protection policy, flood risk management, greening government (procurement and operations) and circular economy. She also has over 3 years’ experience working with the business community on the environment in Hong Kong.
Prior to her career in environmental policy, Maya was a lawyer in government and before that in private practice. She also has a wealth of experience of policy and implementation issues that arise at a local level from her time as a local councillor in the London Borough of Camden. She studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University, and has an LLM from the University of London, as well as being a qualified solicitor.
Prior to her career in environmental policy, Maya was a lawyer in government and before that in private practice. She also has a wealth of experience of policy and implementation issues that arise at a local level from her time as a local councillor in the London Borough of Camden. She studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University, and has an LLM from the University of London, as well as being a qualified solicitor.