Linda Sheehan: Codifying Nature's Rights in Human Law

Video Title: Linda Sheehan: Codifying Nature's Rights in Human Law. Source: IntlForum. Date Published: November 26, 2014. Description: 

Linda Sheehan was one of 45 leading scholars, authors and activists who convened at The Great Hall of Cooper Union, New York City, on October 25-26, 2014, for the public presentation: "Techno-Utopianism and the Fate of the Earth." Speakers discussed the profound impacts—environmental, economic and social—of runaway technological expansionism and cyber immersion; the tendency to see technology as the savior for all problems. For more info, see http://ifg.org/techno-utopia/program/

Linda Sheehan is an attorney and educator who works to improve environmental laws and policies. She is currently Executive Director of Earth Law Center, which advances recognition of the inherent rights of the natural world to exist, thrive and evolve. Prior to Earth Law Center, Linda worked to protect California’s waterways and ocean habitats as Executive Director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance, and as the Pacific Region Director of the Ocean Conservancy. For her efforts in “fight[ing] pollution of the Pacific and the streams and rivers that flow into it,” Ms. Sheehan was recognized as a 2009 “California Coastal Hero” by Sunset Magazine and the California Coastal Commission.

Linda holds a B.S. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.P.P. from the University of California, Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, and a J.D. from the Berkeley School of Law. She is a member of the Commission on Environmental Law for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and a Research Affiliate with the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. Linda also is regular Summer Faculty at Vermont Law School, where she teaches “Earth Law,” and has taught this class as Adjunct Faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She is a contributing author to Exploring Wild Law: The Philosophy of Earth Jurisprudence (Wakefield Press, 2011), Rule of Law for Nature (Cambridge University Press 2013), and Wild Law in Practice (Routledge 2014).