Green Constitution and Natural Resources / Constitución verde y recursos naturales

Date: 

Wednesday, April 20, 2022, 12:30pm to 2:15pm

12:30 - 2:15 Hora de Chile

This event is part of the Academic Forum for the New Constitution in Chile. It will be held in English and Spanish with simultaneous translation. To register, click here.

For a recording of this event in English, please click here.

For a recording of this event in Spanish, please click here.

Welcoming Words: Forest Reinhardt, John D. Black Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
Opening Remarks: Maisa Rojas, Minister for the Environment, Chile
Keynote Speaker: Jorge Viñuales, Harold Samuel Professor of Law and Environmental Policy, Founder and Former Director, Cambridge Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance (C-EENRG), University of Cambridge
Discussants: Dominique Hervé, Professor of Law and Director, Program for Environmental Law and Policy, Universidad Diego Portales; Ricardo Irarrázabal, Assistant Professor of Law and Director, Environmental Law Program, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; Verónica Delgado, Professor of Environmental and Water Law, Universidad de Concepción
Moderated by: Cristián Rodríguez-Chiffelle, DRCLAS Luksic Visiting Scholar 2021-2022, Harvard University

Few issues would rank higher on people’s priorities than the protection of the environment and the rights of nature. The apprehensions at hand: atmospheric pollution, environmental regulation of freshwater, land degradation, nature conservation, marine fisheries, genetically modified organisms, chemicals and waste regulation, and climate change are among the key concerns of citizens and societies. But how do sovereign states protect their natural environment? Answers differ among states, from broad constitutional-level protection in emerging economies to complex federal and sub-national statutory schemes in the United States. It is now Chile’s turn to redraft its constitutional framework on the environment, which correlates with similar definitions being taken by the constitutional convention on ownership of natural resources, water, property rights and the whole economic model. Definitions that – some argue – should further focus on the rights of the Earth and nature in itself, irrespective of its temporary inhabitants.

Bios

Forest Reinhardt

Forest Reinhardt is a global expert on the interface between climate change, business, and energy. He is co-chair of the Harvard Business School’s Global Energy Seminar, an executive education course for leaders of firms that play important roles in the delivery of energy services.

Reinhardt is the John D. Black Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. In the HBS Owner/President Management Program, Reinhardt teaches a course on Global Markets, which helps business leaders understand the economic and political environment in which business is conducted, and the opportunities and risks to which globalization gives rise. Recently, Reinhardt served as course head for the required MBA course, Strategy, which covers topics in industry analysis, competitive advantage, and corporate strategy. Reinhardt currently serves as the faculty chair of Harvard Business School’s Asia-Pacific Research Center and the chair of the HBS Executive Education Asia-Pacific Region. He also teaches in the HBS Agribusiness Seminar.

Maisa Rojas

Maisa Rojas is a Chilean politician, physicist and climatologist who currently serves as Minister for the Environment. Rojas received her undergraduate degree in physics from the University of Chile and her Ph.D. in atmospheric physics from Lincoln College, Oxford. She then was a postdoctoral fellow at International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University in 2001. She then returned to Universidad de Chile as a postdoctoral fellow, researcher, and then professor of geophysics.

Maisa has become an international leading climate change scientist. She was the lead author of the Paleoclimate chapter for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) fifth report (AR5) and is also a coordinating lead author for the next IPCC report (AR6). She has served on various presidential councils and committees on climate change.

In 2022, Chilean President Gabriel Boric named Maisa Rojas to be Minister for the Environment in his cabinet.

Jorge Viñuales

Jorge E. Viñuales holds the Harold Samuel Chair of Law and Environmental Policy at the University of Cambridge and is the founder and former Director of the Cambridge Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance (C-EENRG). He is also a Research Professor at LUISS Rome, an Associé of the Institut de Droit International, the Chairman of the Compliance Committee of the UNECE/WHO Protocol on Water and Health, a member of the Panel of Arbitrators of the Shanghai and Shenzhen International Arbitration Centres and the Director-General of the Latin American Society of International Law. Jorge has published extensively in his specialty areas, including his books The International Law of Energy (CUP, 2022), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Environmental Law (CUP, 2019, co-ed. with E. Lees), International Environmental Law (CUP, 2018, with P.-M. Dupuy), The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. A Commentary (OUP, 2015), The Foundations of International Investment Law (OUP, 2014, co-edited with Z. Douglas and J. Pauwelyn) and Foreign Investment and the Environment in International Law (CUP, 2012).

Dominique Hervé

Director of the Environmental Law and Policy Program, and Professor of the Department of Public Law at Universidad Diego Portales. Currently is the secretary of the Board from the recently launched Chile Nature Fund. From 2014 to 2018, she served as Prosecutor of the Superintendence of the Environment.

Doctor of Law, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, 2014. Master's Degree in Environmental Law (LL.M). University College London, University of London, 1998. Degree in Law and Social Sciences. University of Chile, 1995.

Ricardo Irarrázabal Sánchez

Assistant Professor of Law and Director, Environmental Law Program, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Irarázaval was the first Undersecretary for the Environment in the first government of President Sebastián Piñera . He was later appointed director of the Environmental Assessment Service (SEA). 4 In 2018 he was Undersecretary of Energy and between 2019 and August 2020 he served as Undersecretary of Mining, in the second government of Sebastián Piñera. He is a lawyer. Master in Mining Law and Policy (LL.M.) from the Center for Energy, Petroleum & Mineral Law & Policy of the University of Dundee, Scotland. Fellow Chevening / Río Tinto in the same program. Diploma in Natural Resources Law from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and has a degree in Legal and Social Sciences from the same university.

Veronica Delgado

Professor of Environmental and Water Law, Universidad de Concepción. Lawyer from the University of Concepción, Master and Doctorate in Law from the Università degli Studi di Roma II, Italy. She was a prosecutor for the National Commission for the Environment in the Bío-Bío Region. In addition, she works as an Associate Researcher for the FONDAP CHRIAM Project (Water Center for Agriculture and Mining).

Cristián Rodríguez-Chiffelle

Cristián served as the Executive Director of InvestChile – the Nation’s foreign investment promotion agency – , as Head of International Trade and Investment Policy at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Geneva, and as trade and environment lead negotiator for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile, including at the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal. Cristián holds an LL.B from the University of Concepción, Chile, where he is qualified to practice law. He also holds an LL.M from Harvard Law School, an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School – where he was an Edward S. Mason Fellow – and is a Global Leadership Fellow alumni with WEF.

In Collaboration with / En colaboración con:

Facultad de Gobierno, Universidad de Chile
Instituto Milenio Fundamentos de los Datos
Laboratorio Constitucional, Universidad Diego Portales
Facultad de Derecho, Pontificia Universidad Católica
Instituto de Ciencia Política, Facultad de Historia, Geografía y Ciencia Política, Pontificia Universidad Católica
Harvard Association of Chilean Students
Escuela de Gobierno, Pontificia Universidad Católica

Co-Sponsored by / Copatrocinado por:

Fundación Luksic Scholars