Since 1989, the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) has used the power of law to protect the environment, promote human rights, and ensure a just and sustainable society. CIEL seeks a world where the law reflects the interconnection between humans and the environment, respects the limits of the planet, protects the dignity and equality of each person, and encourages all of earth’s inhabitants to live in balance with each other.

CIEL pursues its mission through legal research and advocacy, education and training, with a focus on connecting global challenges to the experiences of communities on the ground. In the process, we build and maintain lasting partnerships with communities and non-profit organizations around the world.

CIEL’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Commitment

We are deeply committed to upholding and advancing equity, working towards justice, and dismantling oppression. There is no environmental justice without other forms of justice, including racial, gender, and disability justice. Recognizing and confronting sources of systemic bias and systemic injustice within our work and within our own organization is essential to achieving our core mission of protecting the environment, promoting human rights, and ensuring a just and sustainable society.

We believe that every person has inherent value and is deserving of respect and a life with dignity. We also know that broad intersectional movements are fundamental to protect and promote human rights. These beliefs undergird our commitment to deep relationships and to following the leadership of people and Peoples who are on the front lines and directly impacted as we co-power our work towards mutual goals. And while CIEL uses the law as a vital tool for change, we recognize that legal systems themselves frequently reflect and too often entrench legacies of colonialism and oppression.

CIEL is committed to transformational change that addresses root causes in order to change the system, not just win individual cases. For this reason, justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion are not just aims for our work, but approaches that infuse every aspect of how we work. 

Our JEDI Goals

CIEL’s strategic plan expressly commits to advance JEDI principles in the following areas:

  • Support Environmental Justice: Support frontline and Global South leadership, recapture civil society spaces in global governance, and expand access to justice for climate and toxic harms.
  • Decolonize the Law: Support the recognition and application of Indigenous laws as applicable and binding standards for companies or decisions affecting Indigenous lands, mainstream the rights of future generations in legal principles, and support the recognition of the rights of nature.
  • Foster an Inclusive Workplace: Diversify staff and board, strengthen equitable practices and policies, and build an inclusive, people-centered, and joyous workplace.

Environmental injustice is inextricably linked to, and compounded by, wider systems of racism, gender injustice, oppression, and colonialism that focus and magnify harms on marginalized and vulnerable populations. CIEL seeks to recognize and respond to those linkages, and their compounded impacts, in defining our vision, identifying partners, and focusing our support on those most vulnerable to and most harmed by environmental and systemic injustice.

Internal Efforts for JEDI

We cannot center JEDI in our work without first fostering it within CIEL. To this end, CIEL seeks to acknowledge, identify, and mitigate how we ourselves are embedded in and risk perpetuating systems of oppression.

We do this in part by:

  • Regularly asking for and remaining open to feedback (directly and anonymously); convening regular meetings of the Diversity Committee of the Board of Trustees;
  • Actively investing in and prioritizing JEDI efforts led by a Director of Talent, Equity, and Culture;
  • Offering regular workshops and training sessions for all staff, managers, and leadership;
  • Incorporating an equity lens into our policies and practices;
  • Engaging in ongoing discussions around how to decolonize the law and spaces in which we work;
  • Periodic assessments and iteration of our hiring processes to recruit diverse candidates and ensure our hiring process is equitable and inclusive; supporting and working with with Green Leadership Trust;
  • Consulting with our staff, partners, and allies to understand opportunities for advancing JEDI in our work and within the organization.

We also participate in the annual Green 2.0 NGO & Foundation Transparency Report to share our demographics to contribute to ongoing transparency and accountability across the sector.

CIEL Employee and Board Demographics Over Time

We know that JEDI work is never “done.” There are always areas for growth and improvement, and we strive to do so alongside our partners, colleagues, funders, and communities to whom we are accountable if we are to achieve our goal of creating a more inclusive, equitable, and just world.