Environmental Law Scholarship

Prof. David Takacs announces retirement

Prof. David Takacs has announced his retirement after 15 years at UC Law SF.

He says he prefers to say “resigning,” because he thinks it sounds youthful and vaguely rebellious. After a first career as an environmental studies professor, Takacs graduated from UC Law SF and then taught here.

Colleagues and students know him as a devoted teacher, a dedicated institutional citizen, a tireless mentor and advocate for his students, and a good friend.

He’s off to Valencia, where he’ll take up residence, but says he’s “basically a mercenary who will teach Biodiversity Law wherever the setting is beautiful,” which is how he came to be cuddling dingos in the photo above.

With Takacs’ departure, the College has brought on two visiting professors. Madeline Kass is teaching with us this fall, and Tracy Hester joining us in the spring.

Helping Pacific fisheries officers with legislation

Jessica Vapnek, faculty director of UC Law SF’s International Development Law Center (IDLC),  helped train fisheries and legal officers from around the Pacific Region on legislative drafting—a project that will continue this year.

With grant support from the Pacific Community, an intergovernmental organization of Pacific states, she spearheaded design of an asynchronous legislative drafting course.

Subsequently, with support from the grant, Vapnek and Professor Claudia Cantarella traveled to New Caledonia for international workshops, which brought together the cohorts of government officials from across the Pacific Region who had taken the online legislative drafting course. The workshops cemented learning and allowed sharing of best practices from around the region.

Visit the IDLC

Serving Hondurans Displaced by Climate Change

Center for Gender & Refugee Studies Director Karen Musalo collaborated with Donald Hernández Palma, executive director of the Honduran Center for the Promotion of Community Development, to draft a declaration addressing the profound impacts of climate change and environmental degradation on vulnerable communities in Honduras.

The declaration will be used to support claims for refugee protection, and Hernández’s declaration underscores the urgency of confronting environmental and human rights abuses in the context of the global climate crisis.

Read the Declaration

Indigenous Law Center Advances Land Back Knowledge

The Indigenous Law Center (ILC), led by Faculty Director Jo Carrillo, worked extensively this year on land back and implicit bias issues.

Thanks to a grant from the Resources Legacy Fund, the ILC is studying actual land back conveyance documents. The Rural Land Foundation (RLF) also funded a law school seminar (Enhanced Access to Land) so that six lawyers could have a roundtable discussion each week with invited Tribal leaders, managers, regulators, and other stakeholders in a UC Law SF seminar.

Carrillo presented some of her work on Marine Protected Areas at the Yurok Tribal Wind Summit Conference in March 2024, with the written article to follow.

Visit the ILC

UC Law SF student Gabby Olk ’25 helped to represent the nation’s forests through a summer internship with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Olk, who grew up in Washington D.C., returned to her hometown to work for the USDA Office of General Counsel in the Natural Resources and Environment Division. The division’s main client is the U.S. Forest Service.

“My work is important because my office is essentially the attorneys for our country’s forests –which I think is pretty cool,” Olk said.

In the interview, Olk talks about her internship and the UC Law SF public interest grant that provided support during her internship.

Meet Gabby Olk

CGRS submits brief on climate displacement to

UC Law SF’s Center for Gender and Refugee Studies and its partners filed an amicus brief to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on states’ human rights obligations in the face of climate displacement.

Submitted on Dec. 15, 2023, the brief’s authors were: Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS); International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP); Global Center for Environmental Legal Studies (GCELS) at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University; Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES), The University of the West Indies (Mona); Refugees International; Alianza Americas; and Professor Shana Tabak.

Read the brief