CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW

Our vision for the world is one 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. CIEL's values inspire the strategies that we pursue and how we pursue them. In every aspect of our work, CIEL promotes the rule of law; transparent, just and sustainable processes; balanced economic and political power that protects the rights of communities and the environment; democratic inclusion; intra and inter-generational equity; the interconnectedness of life on the planet; and the intrinsic value of nature and the inherent rights of species and ecosystems.

We have identified four cross-cutting legal approaches through which we can have the greatest impact in supporting our own mission and the work of partners.

Building and strengthening international law and systems to protect human rights and the environment. Global processes must strengthen regional and national systems to ensure effective implementation of international obligations, and to confront regional environmental problems that have global impacts. The best way to respond to these challenges is to ensure that law responds to existing needs, continually adapts to changing realities and, above all, leads to real changes in policy, human behavior and environmental outcomes.

Empowering communities to use international law to defend their rights. Those whose health, families, communities and rights are most vulnerable to environmental threats often have the hardest time responding to them. CIEL has a long track record of assisting such communities in bringing international attention and international action to their concerns, through the use of human rights bodies, accountability mechanisms within international financial institutions, trade dispute panels, and other grievance mechanisms at the international level.

New Strategies and Global Standards for International Financial Flows. Investment now flows across borders through new sources of international finance, such as climate funds and rising investments from sovereign wealth funds, national development banks, and private financial institutions. The World Bank and other IFIs are under increasing pressure to weaken their own human rights and environmental policies or carve out broad exceptions. CIEL has a vital role to play to both in defending the safeguards within existing IFIs and in leveraging these safeguards into new standards for other international financial flows.

Strengthen legal tools to counterbalance corporate power and increase trans-boundary corporate accountability. States are no longer the sole or even the primary actors in international law and policy. Investor protection provisions in trade and investment treaties have given companies new tools to block public interest regulations and to undermine the legitimate public policy choices of States and communities in forums to which the broader public has little or no access. By contrast, the judicial and quasi-judicial tools available to address the trans-boundary harms caused by commercial activities remain weak, slow and difficult to access. CIEL is actively exploring and developing new legal tools to counterbalance the power of multinational corporations and increase trans-boundary corporate accountability.

CIEL is incorporated as a U.S. nonprofit organization designated by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charity. CIEL meets the rigorous public accountability standards of the federal government's Combined Federal Campaign, including by conducting an annual audit; completing a Form 990; and publishing an Annual Report made available to the public. CIEL is governed by a seven person Board of Trustees that oversees the general policies, finances and operation of CIEL. CIEL's administrative staff conduct the business of the organization, managing approximately $2.6 million in FY2014. We collaborate with civil society, indigenous peoples, local communities, and NGOs throughout the world, working at local, regional, national and international levels. In our offices in Washington, D.C. and Geneva, Switzerland, we have a staff of 16, including 10 attorneys, a program scientist, and other professional and support personnel. We also have a vibrant intern program. Our methodologies include:

• Rigorous legal analysis
Our path breaking research and analysis helps expand the realm of the possible in applying legal principles and thinking to the world's most pressing environmental challenges. As we have for decades, we will continue making original contributions across all of our program work in defining new uses for law, legal thinking and approaches for achieving environmental objectives.

• Legal advocacy and Litigation
Our attorneys are among the best in the world at representing the interests of communities that aim to right the balance of power on pressing environmental challenges. We represent partners, communities or groups in litigation, participate in mediation, or negotiate on their behalf. We select opportunities where our advocacy can bring meaningful and positive change for our partners while setting broader precedents from which still greater change can arise.

• Connecting the global to the local
Environmental problems are international, the solutions need to be too. At its best, the law can overcome political and economic power imbalances to help ensure communities can protect their rights and their environment in ways that generate larger changes in international policy and practice.

• Lasting partnerships based on mutually respectful collaboration
We work with partners around the world who share our vision. We expend considerable effort to identify partners and work jointly to achieve common goals.

• Education, training, and supporting collaborative research
Sharing knowledge and building capacity has been central to our long-term effort to strengthen the global environmental movement, including training the next generation of public-interest environmental lawyers.

• Effective communications
While masters of the expert language that carries the law, we also interpret complex legal concepts for partners, affected communities, and the general public.

In each of our key result areas, we will measure and evaluate our progress and impact in multiple ways, including by:
o reducing public finance for fossil-fuel based power plants;
o using existing accountability mechanisms to raise the legal barriers to and risks of private investment in fossil fuel based energy sources;
o working with broader environmental community to limit the development of massive, newly-emerging fossil fuel sources;
o supporting communities adversely affected by major fossil fuel extraction or combustion projects;
o laying the groundwork to address the growing role of the United States as a net exporter of fossil fuels and fossil fuel technologies;
o increasing awareness of available recourse mechanisms among affected communities, with a particular focus on communities who are affected by projects financed by international financial institutions;
o seek policies at the World Bank and other development finance institutions that protect human rights and effective mechanisms to apply them;
o bring cases that can catalyze to systemic change, including greater accountability for corporations and financial institutions;
o ensuring legality standards in key importing countries are strong and well enforced;
o equipping forest-dependent communities in exporting countries with the information, tools and support to defend their rights and their forests;
o building stronger standards and monitoring frameworks at the international level while minimizing loopholes and perverse incentives;
o supporting stronger laws, better enforcement, and better safeguards in REDD+ priority countries;
o promoting adherence to strict legality standards among market actors, including through strong chain of custody and transparency standards;
o defending and strengthening international standards and monitoring frameworks being developed in the UN climate talks and beyond;
o advocating for strong chemicals reform legislation in the United States;
o seeking stronger EU leadership for global action on endocrine disrupting chemicals and nanomaterials;
o leading efforts to launch international negotiations begin on global chemicals framework for beyond 2020; and
o developing litigation strategies to hold companies and investors accountable for risks to children's environmental health.