A couple of years ago, I remember sitting in the kitchen of my home in New Jersey hearing a news report about the wildfires happening in California. When I first heard about this, I had no idea why these were occurring, but remember watching them with tremendous horror. Seeing these massive wildfires plow through the beautiful forestry that makes up the Sacramento area was unbelievably astonishing to me as I could not believe this was happening in real life.
Due to this news report, I was determined to understand why this was happening, and what I could do to help it. I learned that wildfires are a major outcome of climate change, and from that day forward, I knew that this was what I was interested in studying.
I later went off to study environmental science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I continue to learn about the worsening climate and what causes these changes in our world. However, as I continue to explore the field of environmental studies, I learn what I want to do and what I don’t want to do. I also learned what is most important to me in the work that I do one day, which is to make a difference. I was not interested in sitting in a lab or going out into a field to do manual work.
I did not enjoy business or accounting or anything mathematical. However, I realized that the most effective way to generate change in the environment is to be at the forefront of the problem. This meant to me being in a position where I can force change to happen, which meant studying environmental law and policy.
To learn more about a career in environmental law, I met with Gidon Bromberg, the director/cofounder of EcoPeace: an organization that brings regions together in the Middle East to solve environmental problems.
Gidon got his Master’s Degree in international environmental law at American University in Washington D.C. and has been directing EcoPeace for the last 30 years: “The most important thing that law school taught me was how to think clearly, how to think relevant to the issue, how to assess what is relevant to solving or advancing or dealing with a particular issue and blocking out everything else,” said Gidon on his experience in law school.
When going to school for law, there are so many different styles of law that one can study, like criminal, corporate, business, but when it comes to studying environmental law, you also need a background in environmental science to know why law is necessary to address environmental solutions. Therefore, attending law school and getting a degree in environmental law is so beneficial to one’s career because you learn how to interpret law on the international level in order to find compromises across nations.
When it comes to international law, it becomes quite complicated for people like Gidon. A common issue that occurs when trying to form treaties across nations is the issue of free riding, where other countries want a cleaner environment but don’t want to bear the costs. However, in a lot of cases, especially in the Middle East, conflicts between countries cause great tension to arise in its discussion.
Israel is surrounded by countries that do not like them, and when we try to discuss ways we can collaborate to discuss environmental solutions, surrounding countries become hesitant. Since climate change is a worldwide issue that affects every country, one country cannot do all the work. Therefore it is necessary that every country is on board to discuss and come up with solutions.
Like Gidon who works to bring countries together in the discussion of the environment, specifically Jordan and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, international environmental lawyers are so important and continue to be more necessary as our environment continues to worsen. And as so many people in Israel preach on what they’d like to see from their country is peace, the climate crisis may be the unspoken solution.
When nations come together to discuss a problem that affects us all equally, we are forced into a position where we can all come to an agreement. The degradation of our environment is a negative concept, but its discussion makes us all see something on the same level, something that is bringing us down together. Furthermore, we have no other option but to come together and discuss ways in which we can do better, for the planet and for the people who live on it.
A career in international environmental law not only creates a cleaner environment but also creates a better society and a more resilient economy. Gidon, for example, strives to make EcoPeace the example of what we can and should seek for international environmental law-related solutions. That is why the projects headed by EcoPeace have been so admirable because they head a cleaner environment and an opportunity for peace. For example, in Project Prosperity, EcoPeace created relations between Israel and Jordan by finding solutions to water desalination for Jordan. And on the other hand, renewable energy solutions for Israel.
Via renewable energy, the project aims to create a desalination plant in Israel’s Emek Hefer for shipping low-cost water over to a water-parched Jordan. Israel expects to buy lower-cost solar energy from Jordan where the deserts are more vast for collecting solar energy, and the labor to run the solar energy plants is more cost-effective. In the early stages, this project will tighten the bond between these two countries while also bettering our environment, a win-win scenario.
It is now more important than ever to come together and discuss peace agreements, as we cannot continue to let our environment retrogress. We can look up to EcoPeace as an example of this amendatory act and understand its importance. A career in international environmental law is guaranteed to be necessary and can change the world forever.
::Ecopeace
