In mid-November, three fellows working with the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (ELAW)—Mamadou Alpha Diallo, Vanessa Torres, and Clinton Ezeigwe—visited Professor of Practice Dr. Alaí Reyes-Santos and her class, Human Rights and the Environment.
During the visit, Diallo, Torres, and Ezeigwe shared about their work as environmental human rights lawyers, shedding light on what it means to work with law and advocacy groups at the international level. They also heard about the work of students in the Human Rights and the Environment class and provided feedback on the students' ongoing research projects.
"It was a lively conversation," said Dr. Reyes-Santos. "The visit was an opportunity for students to meet people practicing public interest environmental law internationally and engage in cross-cultural, multilingual, and international conversation. It also gave ELAW Fellows the chance to meet potential future collaborators and learn about the international environmental human rights issues our students wish to address."
Dr. Reyes-Santos' students took key insights from the visit with ELAW Fellows. "Ezeigwe posed a counterargument to my paper on the legal personhood of nature that I had not yet considered." said 2L Sophie Sceats. Another student, 3L Abby Mitchell, said the fellows asked "good questions to pursue as we work to better understand the challenge of protecting a sacred site and endangered watershed in Puerto Rico."
The ELAW Fellows, too, took much away from their class visit. "I was impressed by how deep, serious, organized, and well-structured the students' projects were," said Torres. "It is impressive at this stage in their career."