Latest News

ELAW is working with grassroots advocates and coastal communities around the world to protect ocean and coastal ecosystems for future generations. We are pleased to share some examples of our work in more than 20 countries in Asia, Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean, and Europe.

ELAW Bulletin

Indonesia has more than 17,000 islands that present unique challenges for environmental defenders working in the world’s fourth most populous nation.

ELAW Bulletin

LAW partners at Environment People Law (EPL) continue their challenging work to hold Russia accountable for environmental damage in Ukraine.

ELAW Bulletin

We are pleased to announce that Mark Odhiambo Odaga will work with our team as this year’s Killian O. Doherty Environmental Justice Fellow

ELAW Bulletin

ELAW has been glad to work with our summer legal interns, Haley Rowlands and Alex Kerr, and undergraduate interns Mira Kron and Lily Nelson. We collaborated with each student to tailor a program that aligns with their skills and academic interests and helps advance ELAW’s mission.

ELAW Bulletin

We are thrilled to report that our 2023 Annual Meeting was a big success. Roughly 100 ELAW partners from 40 countries gathered in Cebu, Philippines (June 26-29).

ELAW Bulletin

Hernán Morantes, a lawyer and ELAW partner in Colombia, recently shared exciting news: the environmental license for an open-pit coal mine covering 1,949 hectares in San Vicente and El Carmen de Chucurí, Santander, has been suspended.

The ELAW Fellows Program Grows

ELAW Bulletin

Last week, the Kakhovka dam on the Dniprio River collapsed, flooding communities downstream and causing enormous human and ecological damage. The cause of the breach is still under investigation.

ELAW Bulletin

In honor of World Ocean Day, ELAW’s Marine Working Group invites you to a panel discussion: Marine Justice: For the Ocean, For the People.

ELAW Bulletin

The United Nations Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (the “Working Group”) hasabout ELAW partner, Dang Dinh Bach, finding that the Government of Vietnam arbitrarily detained him and calling for his immediate and unconditional release.

ELAW Bulletin

ELAW partner Olivier Ndoole traveled to Dublin, Ireland, last week to receive a 2023 Human Rights Defenders at Risk Award from Front Line Defenders.

ELAW Bulletin

ELAW partner Zelda Soriano of Community Legal Help and Public Interest Centre (C-HELP) recently shared the exciting news that the Supreme Court of the Philippines issued a writ of kalikasan in response to their petition against the commercial propagation of GMO rice and eggplant in the Philippines.

ELAW Bulletin

Congratulations to the communities in Ecuador's Intag Valley that recently secured a court order canceling a license to mine copper in one of the world's most biodiverse forests!

Communities around the world are speaking out against short-sighted projects that threaten wild places, wildlife, biodiversity, and ecosystems. In the Maldives, Congo, Guinea, and Nepal, advocates are working to protect forests, watersheds, coral reefs, and much more. We are proud to collaborate with these local advocates. Enjoy the following brief reports on our recent work.

ELAW Bulletin

They will share their work on Saturday, March 4 at a panel at the University of Oregon Public Interest Environmental Law Conference (PIELC): “Protecting Indigenous Lands in Brazil” (9 am, UO Law School, Room 282).

ELAW Bulletin

More than 20 years ago, ELAW met Nixon Sifuna, PhD, a Kenyan grassroots attorney. He traveled to Eugene in 2002 as an ELAW Fellow and I traveled to meet him in Kenya as he worked to protect forests through a case he filed at Kenya’s High Court at Eldoret....

ELAW Bulletin

ELAW partners in Jamaica are celebrating a January 20 Supreme Court order halting bauxite mining next to communities in St. Ann until a claim brought by nine residents is heard later this year.

ELAW Bulletin

Indoor and outdoor air pollution make people sick and kill people all over the world. To fight for clean air, community advocates need to be able to assess air quality.

ELAW Bulletin

In June this year, Malene Alleyne, Jamaican international human rights lawyer and founder of Freedom Imaginaries, called on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to protect Afro-descendant families living in peasant communities in St. Ann.

Protecting our global climate is the leading challenge of our time. ELAW partners around the world are working to ensure that communities who suffer the worst impacts from damaging the climate have a voice at the table and the tools they need to win victories for a healthy planet.

ELAW Bulletin

We are pleased to announce that ELAW partners at the Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO) were awarded a 2022 Right Livelihood Award for “tireless efforts to protect the rights of local communities from environmentally damaging projects linked to the exploitation of oil and gas.”

ELAW Bulletin

This week, world leaders and activists from around the globe gathered in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, for the United Nations Climate Change conference (27th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC or COP27).

ELAW Bulletin

One of Europe’s largest and most endangered saltwater lagoons – the Mar Menor – was recently granted special protection by Spain’s senate.

ELAW Bulletin

ELAW partners in Indonesia share great news: The Bandung State Administrative Court canceled the permit for the proposed 1,320MW “PLTU Tanjung Jati A” coal-fired power plant.

ELAW Bulletin

Join us in welcoming Nchunu Justice Sama, Cameroonian Environmental Lawyer and Executive Director of the Foundation for Environment and Development (FEDEV). Justice arrived in Eugene last week to collaborate on his work to protect communities and the environment across Cameroon.

ELAW collaborates with public interest lawyers around the world to protect communities and the environment. 

ELAW Bulletin

Please join us in welcoming our new ELAW Fellows who arrived from Ukraine and the Democratic Republic of Congo last week.

ELAW Bulletin

ELAW was recently invited to participate in a conference organized by partners at the Alianza de Derecho Ambiental y Agua (Alliance for Environmental Law and Water, ADA2.) Attorney Alejandra Serrano Pavón traveled to Guatemala City and Puerto Barrios, Guatemala, for the two-day conference organized in collaboration with Marfund, Ocean5, the Environmental Justice Forums of Peten and Izabal, the School of Judicial Studies of Guatemala, the Training Unit of the Public Ministry, and the National Council of Protected Areas.