Global Environment & Society Academy

Internship with International Organizations

Following the conclusion of the first edition of the LLM in Global Environment and Climate Change Law, several of our graduates are already working in international inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations specialising in environmental law.

Global Environment LLM Students Work for International Organizations.

Graham Hamley is starting a six-month internship at the Development Law Service of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome, Italy.

Johanna Lutterfelds is completing a three-month internship at the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in the Finance, Technology and Capacity Building Programme, Finance sub-programme, focusing on the newly established Standing Committee on Finance.

Estelle Isik is starting her internship at the Centre for International Environmental Law (CIEL) in Geneva, Switzerland, concentrating on the EU Regulation on the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemical substances and on nanomaterials.

Tommaso Depalma is working as an intern at the Secretariat of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) in Bonn, Germany, providing legal support to the scientific and climate change officer, particularly on climate change and ecological network policies, in preparation for the next meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention which will take place in November 2011 in Bergen, Norway.

Nicola Joanne Christie and Lynn Finnegan worked as interns for the International Institute on Environment and Development (IIED) at the Edinburgh Office. Nicola was involved in a project on land acquisition in the Philippines, looking at trends in agricultural land use and local land rights, and is currently researching possible strategies for communities whose land rights are insufficiently protected by traditional legal tools. While at IIED, Lynn also assisted with research in land rights issues, looking at biomass as another possible driver of large-scale land acquisitions in the global South. She is currently working as Programme Assistant in Global Economic Issues at the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva, focusing on trade and agriculture, seeds and intellectual property, and climate change and migration.

Barry Smith is starting work with the Climate Change group at the IIED office in London, and will be involved in assessing parliamentary institutions’ roles in addressing climate change issues in South-East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Earlier in 2011 the students on the LLM in Global Environment and Climate Change Law participated in a career advice session focused on international jobs in the area of environmental and climate change law. The event was facilitated by the University of Edinburgh Career Office, and organized by Dr Elisa Morgera and Dr. Gracia Marín Durán from the School of Law. During the event, employment opportunities in the United Nations, European Union, World Trade Organization and international NGOs/think-tanks were identified and tips for successful applications shared.