Center for International Environmental Law

Last updated
Center for International Environmental Law
AbbreviationCIEL
Established1989
Type Nonprofit NGO
52-1633220
Headquarters Washington, DC, United States
Location
President/CEO
Carroll Muffett (2010-present)
Revenue (2020)
$4,385,045
Expenses (2020)$3,497,333
Website Official website

The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) is a public nonprofit environmental law organization based in Washington, DC, with an office in Geneva, Switzerland. [1] It was founded in 1989. [2] CIEL's team aims to use "the power of law to protect the environment, promote human rights, and ensure a just and sustainable society. CIEL seeks a world where the law reflects the interconnection between humans and the environment, respects the limits of the planet, protects the dignity and equality of each person, and encourages all of earth’s inhabitants to live in balance with each other." [3] They help educate organizations, corporations, and the public on environmental issues and conduct their own research. [3] Carroll Muffett has been the president and CEO of CIEL since September 2010. [4] [5] CIEL also offer legal internship programs. [6] [7] [8]

Contents

Issues

CIEL's work can be divided into four programs: Climate and Energy; Environmental Health; Fossil Economy, and People, Land & Resources. [1] Actions to protect environment and human rights include "collaborating to improve safeguard policies, increasing access to information through the Early Warning System, and supporting community-driven advocacy and complaints at the accountability mechanisms of multilateral banks." [9] Areas of interest include biodiversity, chemicals, climate change, human rights, environmental rights, international financial institutions, law and communities, plastic, and trade and sustainable development. [10]

Research

CIEL has published several research reports and articles. Smoke and Fumes (2017) examined the oil and gas industry's efforts to fund the science and propaganda of climate denial, and has been cited in climate litigation against carbon majors. [11] [12] [13] Plastic & Health (2019) and Plastic & Climate (2019) have been featured in publications that seek to explain the impact of the plastic crisis on health, climate, and the environment. [14] [15] [16] [17] In 2020, Pandemic Crisis, Systemic Decline examined the oil, gas, and petrochemical industry's attempts to use the COVID-19 pandemic for their own gain. [18] [19] In 2022, Pushing Back, a report about the petrochemical industry's development and what that means for communities, was published. [20] [21]

Related Research Articles

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Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance or energy. Pollutants, the components of pollution, can be either foreign substances/energies or naturally occurring contaminants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fossil fuel</span> Fuel formed over millions of years from dead plants and animals

A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material such as coal, oil, and natural gas, formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the remains of dead plants and animals that is extracted and burned as a fuel. Fossil fuels may be burned to provide heat for use directly, to power engines, or to generate electricity. Some fossil fuels are refined into derivatives such as kerosene, gasoline and propane before burning. The origin of fossil fuels is the anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms, containing organic molecules created by photosynthesis. The conversion from these materials to high-carbon fossil fuels typically require a geological process of millions of years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Environmental health</span> Public health branch focused on environmental impacts on human health

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greenwashing</span> Use of the aesthetic of conservationism to promote organisations

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Environmental racism</span> Environmental injustice that occurs within a racialized context

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cancer Alley</span> Area in Louisiana with larger than usual clusters of cancer patients

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Environmental justice or eco-justice, is a social movement to address environmental injustice, which occurs when poor or marginalized communities are harmed by hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses from which they do not benefit. The movement has generated hundreds of studies showing that exposure to environmental harm is inequitably distributed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Environmentalism</span> Philosophy about Earth protection

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Environmental Investigation Agency</span> Non-governmental environmental organisation

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ecocide</span> Mass environmental destruction from human activities

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">BAZAN Group</span> Oil refining and petrochemicals company located in Haifa Bay, Israel

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nnimmo Bassey</span> Nigerian activist

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Climate change litigation</span> Use of legal practice to further climate change mitigation

Climate change litigation, also known as climate litigation, is an emerging body of environmental law using legal practice to set case law precedent to further climate change mitigation efforts from public institutions, such as governments and companies. In the face of slow politics of climate change delaying climate change mitigation, activists and lawyers have increased efforts to use national and international judiciary systems to advance the effort. Climate litigation typically engages in one of five types of legal claims: Constitutional law, administrative law, private law (challenging corporations or other organizations for negligence, nuisance, etc., fraud or consumer protection, or human rights.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Right to a healthy environment</span> Human right proposed by environmental groups

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plastic sequestration</span> Securing plastic out of industry and out of the environment

Plastic sequestration is a means of plastic waste management that secures used plastic out of industry and out of the environment into reusable building blocks made by manual compaction. Plastic sequestration is motivated by environmental protection and modeled on the Earth's process of carbon sequestration. Emerging out of the struggle of towns and communities in the Global South to deal with plastic pollution, plastic sequestration compaction methods are characterized by being locally based, non-capital, non-industrial and low-tech. Plastic sequestration is defined by the goals of securing plastic out of the environment and out of high energy/carbon industrial systems. Based on eliminating the chemical and physical and abiotic and biotic degradation pathways, plastic sequestration aims to achieve these goals, by terminally reducing the net surface area of thin film plastics. The building blocks that emerge from plastic sequestration are used in applications that further protect from degradation and permanently keep plastic out of industrial processes, thereby preventing their carbon emissions.

References

  1. 1 2 "Center for International Environmental Law - CIEL". Geneva Environmental Network. n.d. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  2. ↑ "Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)". Charity Navigator. n.d. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  3. 1 2 "Center for International Environmental Law/The". Bloomberg. n.d. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  4. ↑ Jacobo, Julia (2022-04-20). "Experts predict lasting environmental damage from Russia's invasion of Ukraine". ABC News. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  5. ↑ "CIEL Announces Carroll Muffett as New President and CEO". CIEL. 2010-09-20. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  6. ↑ "Center for International Environmental Law Spring 2021 Legal Intern". Harvard University. 2020-09-21. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  7. ↑ "MASTER'S EXTERNSHIPS". Vermont Law School. n.d. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  8. ↑ "Sohn Fellowship". CIEL. 2015. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  9. ↑ "CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW (CIEL)". Coalition for Human Rights in Development. n.d. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  10. ↑ "UN human rights experts urge treaty to address 'plastic tide'". United Nations Human Rights. 2022-02-22. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  11. ↑ "Smoke & Fumes". Smoke & Fumes. n.d. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  12. ↑ Mulvey, Kathy (2017-08-24). "ExxonMobil Attacks New Study That Exposes Its Climate Deception…Again". Union of Concerned Scientists. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  13. ↑ Grasso, Marco. From Big Oil to Big Green: Holding the Oil Industry to Account for the Climate Crisis. p. 186.
  14. ↑ Alberts, Elizabeth Claire (2021-10-22). "Plastics set to overtake coal plants on U.S. carbon emissions, new study shows". Mongabay. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  15. ↑ "Plastic & Climate: The Hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet (May 2019)". CIEL. n.d. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  16. ↑ "Plastic & Health: The Hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet (February <r2019)". CIEL. n.d. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  17. ↑ Rubio-Domingo, Gabriela; Halevi, Amit (2022). "Making Plastics Emossions Transparent" (PDF). Coalition on Materials Emissions Transparency. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  18. ↑ "Pandemic Crisis, Systemic Decline: Why Exploiting the COVID-19 Crisis Will Not Save the Oil, Gas, and Plastic Industries (April 2020)". CIEL. n.d. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  19. ↑ Paremoer, Lauren; Nandi, Sulakshana; Serag, Hani; Braum, Fran (2021). "Covid-19 pandemic and the social determinants of health". BMJ. 372 (129): n129. doi:10.1136/bmj.n129. PMC   7842257 . PMID   33509801.
  20. ↑ "Pushing Back: A Guide for Frontline Communities Challenging Petrochemical Expansion (May 2022)". CIEL. n.d. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  21. ↑ Noor, Dharna; Fabricant, Nicole (2022-04-12). "Fighting Off a Petrochemical Future in the Ohio River Valley". Yes! Magazine. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
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