Mr. Veit Koester (Denmark)

Mr. Koester is an External Professor at Roskilde University in Denmark, and a Visiting Professor at United Nations University’s Institute of Advanced Studies in Japan; he is also a guest lecturer in international environmental law at Copenhagen University in Denmark. Mr. Koester has been involved in the Aarhus Convention process since the very beginning and headed the Danish delegation at the negotiations of the Convention until the first session of the Meeting of the Parties (MOP 1, Lucca 2002). He has received several awards, including the UNEP Global 500 Award, the Elisabeth Haub Award for Environmental Diplomacy, the Wetland of International Importance Person Award, and the environmental award for 2010 of the Danish Society for Environmental Law. Mr. Koester was Head of the Ecological Division of the National Forest and Nature Agency in Denmark for 20 years, and also directed the section for Multilateral Cooperation of the Agency. He has chaired numerous intergovernmental negotiation processes and was also the first chair of the Compliance Committee of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. Mr. Koester holds a law degree from Copenhagen University.

 

Ms. Svitlana Kravchenko (Ukraine)

Ms. Svitlana Kravchenko founded Environment-People-Law, the first public interest environmental law firm in Ukraine in 1995. Ms. Kravchenko has authored 12 books as well as many scholarly articles and book chapters on environmental law issues. Ms. Kravchenko taught environmental law for more than 25 years at Lviv National University in Ukraine. She was also an advisor for the Ministry of Environment and the Parliament of Ukraine, and. Moreover, Ms. Kravchenko co-founded and served as Co-Executive Director of the Association of Environmental Law of Central and Eastern Europe, and is an elected Regional Governor for Eastern Europe of the International Council of Environmental Law. Ms. Kravchenko obtained her J.D.-equivalent at the Lviv National University in Ukraine, her Ph.D. in Moscow, and her S.J.D. at the Law Academy of Ukraine. In the 1990s, she took part in negotiation of the Aarhus Convention and worked on ratification of the Convention by EECCA countries in the capacity of the Director of the Parliamentary component of the EU-funded TACIS project. She now serves as the Director of the LL.M. Program in Environmental and Natural Resources Law at Oregon Law at the University of Oregon where she also teaches international environmental law classes.

 

Mr. Merab Barbakadze (Georgia)

Mr. Merab Barbakadze has served as a public interest lawyer since 1995 for various NGOs, and is currently the Executive Director of the Legal Society Association, which furthers legal awareness in Georgian society and provides legal support to NGOs. Mr. Barbakadze is also a member of the Georgian Bar Association, and serves on the Compliance Committee for the Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTR). Mr. Barbakadze held the position of Programs Director for the International Charity Fund “Cartu” from 2000 until 2007. In addition, Mr. Barbakadze is a board member of the Environmental Law Association of Central and Eastern Europe and the Newly Independent States. Mr. Barbakadze has held numerous other positions such as Public Advisor to the Tbilisi City Council and board member for the Environmental Law Club. Mr. Barbakadze holds a law degree from Tbilisi State University.

Mr. Jonas Ebbesson (Sweden)

Mr. Jonas Ebbesson is Professor of Environmental Law at Stockholm University, Director of the Stockholm Environmental Law and Policy Centre, and Researcher at Stockholm Resilience Centre. Mr. Ebbesson serves on the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee since 2005. His research and writings cover various international, EU and transnational dimensions of environmental law, including legal aspects on public interests, public participation and access to justice in environmental law; transnational corporate responsibility; justice in environmental law; and the impact of law for social-ecological resilience. Among his books are (as editor) Access to Justice in Environmental Matters in the EU – Accès à la Justice en Matière d’Environnement dans l’UE (Kluwer, 2002), and (as co-editor) Environmental Law and Justice in Context (CUP, 2009). Mr. Ebbesson has acted as consultant for various governmental, non-governmental and intergovernmental bodies, including UNEP and UNECE, OSCE and the Nordic Council, and has been advisor to various environmental law journals.

Ms. Ellen Hey (Netherlands)

Ms. Ellen Hey is the Head of the Public International Law Department at Erasmus School of Law in Rotterdam. Her key areas of expertise include international institutional law and international natural resources law. Prof. Hey is the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law, the Editor in Chief of the Erasmus Law Review, and a member of the Editorial Board of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law. Prof. Hey is also a member of the Advisory Board on Legal Aspects of Water Management for the Netherlands, which advises the Dutch government and parliament. In addition, Prof. Hey has worked as a consultant for various international organizations including the European Union, the World Bank, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the U.N. Development Program. Ms. Hey holds law degrees from Utrecht University and a M.Sc from the University of Wales.

Mr. Jerzy Jendroska (Poland)

Mr. Jerzy Jendroska is the Managing Partner of Jendroska Jerzmanski Bar & Partners, which is an environmental law firm based in Poland; and Adjunct Professor of European and International Law at Opole University, and of Environmental Law at Wroclaw University. Mr. Jendroska has been involved in the Aarhus Convention process since the very beginning, including serving as the Vice-chair of the Aarhus Convention negotiations (1996-1998), as the Secretary to the Aarhus Convention (1998-1999) and as the vice-Chair (1999-2002) and later the Chair (2002-2003) of the Aarhus Convention Bureau. In addition, Mr. Jendroska serves as an arbitrator at the Permanent Court of Arbitrage in the Hague (since 2002) and as a member of the Implementation Committee of the Espoo Convention (since 2004). Mr. Jendroska has authored or edited about 28 books and 250 articles on environmental law. Mr. Jendroska obtained his Master of Laws from Wroclaw University and  Ph.D. from the Institute of Law at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. Mr. Jendroska also received a Diploma in International Law from the Vienna University Summer School.

Mr. Alexander Kodjabashev (Bulgaria)

Mr. Alexander Kodjabashev is a Senior Partner specializing in environmental law matters at Dobrev & Partners in Sofia, Bulgaria. Mr. Kodjabashev is the founder of the Bulgarian Association of Municipal Environmental Experts, and is a member of the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide and Environmental Lawyers from Central and Eastern Europe. Mr. Kodjabashev was the legal advisor to the National Ecological Ecofund, where he oversaw the assessment of the legal aspects of financing for public-private partnership projects. In addition, Mr. Kodjabashev developed a legislative framework for the creation of the Water Regulatory Body in Bulgaria as well as a legal scheme for implementing the SAPARD programme for agricultural activities in Bulgaria. Mr. Kodjabashev attended the University of Sofia and obtained his law degree from the Robert Schumann University (now University of Strasbourg) in France.

Mr. Gerhard Loibl (Austria)

Mr. Gerhard Loibl is a Professor of International Law and Law of the European Union at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna. Mr. Loibl is also a Professor for the Institute for International Law and International Relations at the University of Vienna, and a Visiting Professor at the University of London. Mr. Loibl is also a consultant for the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management. Mr. Loibl served as the Editor of the Austrian Review of International and European Law from 1999 until 2006, and has written numerous chapters and papers in the field of International Law including “Environmental Law and Non-Compliance Procedures: Issues of State Responsibility”. Mr. Loibl also served as co-chair of the Conference on the Role of Precaution in Chemical Policy in Vienna.

Mr. Vadim Nee (Kazakhstan)

Mr. Vadim Nee is the Executive Director of the Law and Environment Eurasia Partnership, which is an NGO based in Kazakhstan that works to promote sound environmental policy and rule-of-law in Central Asia. His key areas of expertise include environmental law and policy and labour law. Mr. Nee has worked as a consultant for a number of international organizations, including OSCE, ILO, IOM, OECD, UNDP, World Bank. In addition, he was a team member for the UNECE second environmental performance reviews of Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Mr. Nee has authored about 10 handbooks and guidance documents on implementation of the Aarhus Convention in Central Asia and coauthored the Aarhus Centres Guidelines. Mr. Nee holds a law degree from Adilet Law School in Almaty, and a chemistry degree from the Kazakh State University.