Environmental Lawyers

The associate director of the Community Environmental Defense Fund (CELDF) describes the inspiring, groundbreaking work she and CELDF are doing to recognize Rights of Nature in law in both the US and Ecuador, which recently became the worlds first nation to enshrine such rights in its constitution.

Makram Ahmed Hussein began working in the pottery craft in Egypt’s Old Cairo district of Fustat at a young age. His family was poor; learning a trade as a child laborer was his only route to help support his family and earn a living. In 2000–2001, the potters’ kilns in Old Cairo were destroyed and the potters pushed out as the area was slated for touristic development. The pretext for the evictions was Egypt’s environmental protection law passed in 1994, which was disastrous to Makram and the potters’ community since the kilns used by potters generated thick black clouds of smoke. Many potters lost their means of livelihood. Now under construction are new potters’ workshops equipped with natural gas-burning ovens—a government-sponsored initiative to revive a traditional craft and make it safe for the environment.

Law 270.6 – Lecture 3 – Public Utilities & Rate Regulation: Cost of Service Regulation (Part 1) January 31, 2008 The role of a PUC, its organization, duties and procedures; how regulation works; rate base, rate of return, operating expenses; judicial review, including the first of the classic cases.