These webinars are approved by the Oregon State Bar and may be eligible for CLE credit in other states. Most states accept credit from other mandatory CLE states such as Oregon, but please check with your law bar association to confirm.
Total Credits: 1 General
In this on-demand CLE, Erica Lyman, Clinical Professor and Director of our Global Law Alliance for Animals and the Environment, and Senior Staff Attorney Nick Fromherz assess the Lacey Act's potential to serve as a model national approach in the global fight against wildlife trafficking. By criminalizing almost all market dealings in wildlife tainted with illegality—and by acknowledging that much of the predicate illegality may occur in a foreign country—Lacey maximizes the U.S.’s contribution to the global effort to curb illegal wildlife trafficking. This CLE unpacks this and other unique features of the Lacey Act in the context of NGO calls for a proposed wildlife crime protocol to the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.
| Learning from Lacey- Structural Legal Collaboration to Combat Wildlife Trafficking (pdf slides) (1.4 MB) | 16 Pages | Available after Purchase |
Professor Erica Lyman boasts over fifteen years of experience in international environmental law, with a strong focus on wildlife protection issues. She is the Director of the Global Law Alliance for Animals and the Environment (the Global Law Alliance)—a collaboration launched in the fall of 2020 between the Center for Animal Law Studies and the Environmental Law Program at Lewis & Clark Law School. The Global Law Alliance is a champion for wild animals and wild spaces across the globe, working to protect animals and the environment through the development, implementation, and enforcement of international law. Law students (JD and LLM) actively participate in the work through two clinics within the Alliance.
Professor Lyman has a rich history of practicing and teaching international environmental law, with a focus on international wildlife issues. In 2005, she joined the International Environmental Law Project (IELP) at Lewis & Clark Law School as its first staff attorney. Professor Lyman has gained a reputation for identifying creative strategies that also promote the integrity of treaty regimes. Professor Lyman’s international wildlife law practice focuses on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the Convention on Migratory Species, the International Convention on the Regulation of Whaling, and other international institutions that impact wildlife conservation. In recent years, Professor Lyman has expanded her work to include a focus on implementation of international commitments, supporting the revision and development of national legislation and addressing enforcement challenges. In this capacity, Professor Lyman works directly with governments and other stakeholders to strengthen national frameworks for combating wildlife trafficking. Professor Lyman has worked in Malawi, Angola, Kenya, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Benin, Togo, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Liberia, Ghana, Gambia, and Guinea.
Although a significant focus of Professor Lyman’s work is in the field of international wildlife law, she also works on broader issues, such as habitat conservation, climate change, human rights, and trade and the environment. Professor Lyman’s work on climate change included legal support to the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in the lead-up to the Paris Agreement.
Professor Lyman teaches two clinic courses. She teaches an International Animal and Environmental Law Clinic for JD students who are interested in developing the practical skills and substantive knowledge required to tackle contemporary wildlife and other international environmental challenges. Professor Lyman also teaches the International Wildlife Law Clinic for Animal Law LLM students who are interested in wildlife issues and desire to enhance their skill set in order to work in wildlife conservation and international animal protection after receiving their degrees.
In addition to her clinic courses, Professor Lyman teaches an innovative course in international wildlife law that brings the complex politics of international law-making to the classroom through in-class exercises that draw on the “hot” topics of international wildlife law, including trophy hunting, Japanese whaling, polar bear conservation in light of climate change, and other contemporary issues. The design of the class promotes creative problem-solving and complex critical thinking and digs into the underlying politics and policy choices reflected in international wildlife law.
Nick Fromherz serves as a senior attorney for the Global Law Alliance for Animals and the Environment (the Global Law Alliance), a collaboration launched in the fall of 2020 between the Center for Animal Law Studies and the Environmental Law Program at Lewis & Clark Law School. The Global Law Alliance is a champion for wild animals and wild spaces across the globe, working to protect animals and the environment through the development, implementation, and enforcement of international law. Law students (JD and LLM) actively participate in the work through two clinics within the Alliance.
Prior to joining the Global Law Alliance, Nick worked as an attorney for a public-interest law firm dedicated to conserving marine wildlife around the world. Combining this experience with his considerable time living and working in Latin America, Nick expands the Global Law Alliance’s footprint in the Americas while building on its existing fisheries program and international wildlife practice.
Previously, Nick served as a Visiting Assistant Professor, teaching courses within Lewis & Clark’s Environmental, Natural Resources, and Energy Law program. Since 2015, Nick has taught Administrative Law at Lewis & Clark Law School during several summer sessions as an Adjunct Professor.
Nick’s scholarship has appeared in the Stanford Environmental Law Journal, the Washington University Global Studies Law Review, the Ecology Law Quarterly, the West Virginia Law Review, Administrative Law Review, and Animal Law Review. In addition, he has written a number of shorter opinion pieces – with a particular focus on Latin American political and environmental issues – in outlets like Foreign Affairs and the International Policy Digest.
Before transitioning to environmental work, Nick served as a litigation attorney for a law firm in California and spent three years clerking for federal judges (Judge Lawson of E.D. Mich. and Judge Terence Evans of the Seventh Circuit). Nick graduated as the valedictorian of his law-school class. Nick is a member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law.
Away from work, Nick enjoys spending time with his family, reading, watching college sports, and exploring Bolivia’s wild spaces. Nick works for the Global Law Alliance primarily from his home office in Bolivia.