Inside E-LAW U.S.: Visitors from Japan and Bangladesh

Amy Solomon Joins Board

Amy Solomon, E-LAW U.S. Board of Directors

Amy Solomon has joined the E-LAW U.S. Board of Directors. Amy is a program officer at the Bullitt Foundation in Seattle. She served as the Executive Director of the Northwest Renewable Resources Center from 1987 to 1995 and is currently on the Executive Board of Energy Northwest. She holds an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a BA degree cum laude from Yale University.

International Public Interest Defenders

Seven E-LAW advocates have formed a new organization, the International Public Interest Defenders (IPID), based in Geneva, to take public interest cases to the heart of the international community.

Many international organisations, including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Trade Organization, and the Office of the Special Representative for Human Rights Defenders, have their headquarters in Geneva. IPID will help grassroots advocates gain direct access to international organizations, tribunals, and forums. IPID and E-LAW U.S. have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to jointly promote the human rights-environment agenda. The collaboration is part of a wider E-LAW U.S. human rights-environment initiative funded by the Oak Foundation. Through this project, IPID will help advocates develop and bring environment related cases to the UN Human Rights Committee and other international institutions based in Geneva and elsewhere in Europe. IPID will also raise the awareness of grassroots environmental advocates about international human rights instruments and institutions.

For more information, please contact IPID’s Geneva Secretariat at secretariat@i-pid.org.

Visitors from Japan and Bangladesh

Left to right: Carolyn Sykora, E-LAW U.S. Education Coordinator; Mirza Hasan; Nobuo Kojima; and Maggie Keenan, E-LAW U.S. Communications Director

Nobuo Kojima of Toyko, Japan, and Mirza Hasan of Dhaka, Bangladesh, visited E-LAW U.S. in April to gain tools they need to protect the environment in Asia.

Nobuo is a pioneering public interest environmental lawyer in Japan. He has been practicing for more than two decades and has worked with the E-LAW network since 1993. He has brought numerous cases in Japanese courts to challenge short-sighted highway development and defend community rights to a biodiverse environment.

Nobuo is now teaching environ-mental law at Japan’s prestigious Waseda University, where he is inspiring a new generation of Japanese lawyers to protect the environment. In Eugene, Nobuo learned about setting up environ-mental law clinics, met with E-LAW’s law student interns, and interviewed law professors at the University of Oregon School of Law.

Mirza was a close friend of the late Mohiuddin Farooque, who founded the Bangladesh Environmental Law Association (BELA). Mirza helped BELA bring early air pollution cases to court. Today, Mirza is a private attorney and traveled to Eugene to learn more about U.S. environmental law. He left with information about reducing vehicular emissions and skills for using information technology to support his work.

E-LAW Advocates Gather in Ukraine

Grassroots attorneys at Ecopravo-Lviv did a tremendous job hosting this year`s E-LAW Annual International Meeting. Thirty-six advocates from 11 countries gathered May 15-20, 2004, in Slavske, Ukraine, a small village on the edge of the Carpathian Mountains. E-LAW advocates worked together, one-on-one, and furthered their pioneering efforts to protect the environment, public health, and human rights. Look for a full report in the next E-LAW Advocate.