Visiting Scholar Biographies
The Institute hosts environmental lawyers, practitioners, and scholars working on policy research projects aimed at domestic American environmental policy — national, regional or state — and at the international level and national level in other countries. Individual scholars are typically in residence at the Institute for periods of one to three months, with some staying for a year or more. The exchanges which take place under the auspices of the ELI Visiting Scholars Program help to strengthen institutions and stimulate intellectual activity across disciplines and borders. The program helps to build and sustain a growing network of environmental lawyers and related professionals dedicated to advancing environmental protection.
The Institute is pleased to introduce the most recent ELI Visiting Scholars. They are:
Mishkat Al Moumin
The former Minister of the Environment in the interim Iraqi government and recent Futrell Visiting Scholar at the Environmental Law Institute, Mishkat Al Moumin is a well-known Iraqi lawyer and a lecturer of human rights in University of Baghdad — College of Law. Since Iraq did not previously have a Ministry of Environment, Dr. Al Moumin designed its entire structure. In this post, she also developed a new environmental law, led campaigns to support Iraqi people living in environmentally dangerous areas, and initiated awareness-raising and cleaning projects. Prior to joining the government, she served as the women’s issues director for the Free Iraq Foundation, where she successfully advocated for women to hold 25 percent of the seats in the new Iraqi parliament. In this role, she also conducted trainings for NGOs and women leaders. In 2004, Dr. Al Moumin worked with the International Federation of Election System as an advisor on the elections in Iraq. As a practicing member of the Iraqi Bar Association, Dr. Al Moumin represented clients in cases concerning personal status and labor. Dr. Al Moumin was a lecturer at University of Baghdad College of Law, where she lectured on human rights, fundamental rights, international, and constitutional law. She has participated as a speaker and facilitator at several conferences on women’s issues in Iraq. She just graduated as a Mason fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University where she earned a master’s degree in public administration, the course are related to environmental justice, gender, civil society, and human rights. She already has an MA and PhD in public international law from the University of Baghdad. Dr. Moumin has published articles on environmental developments and women’s roles in public life in various Arabic newspapers. She has also authored articles on international law and international justice in a number of legal journals. Finally she is the Founder and the Director of Women and Environment Origination that operates in Iraq, a member of the board of directors in PATH organization an international, nonprofit organization that creates sustainable, culturally relevant solutions, enabling communities worldwide to break longstanding cycles of poor health. At ELI, Dr. Al Moumin collaborated with ELI staff in reviewing the water laws, regulations, and institutions governing water resources in the Middle East and North Africa. She also conducted research on Islamic water law and gender aspects of environmental management.
Tatiana R. Zaharchenko
Tatiana R. Zaharchenko was the Institute’s Scholar in Residence having been a Senior Staff Attorney and an Adviser on the Eastern Europe Program at ELI in 1994-1995. She received her Ph.D. in Natural Resource Law and Environmental Protection from the All-Union Research Institute of Comparative Law in Moscow, Russia. For twelve years, she was a tenured professor at the Ukrainian Law Academy teaching land and natural resources law and environmental protection in Kharkiv, Ukraine, where she also served as a Counsel for the Ecological Commission of a local municipality. During perestroika, Dr. Zaharchenko became one of the first legal professionals bringing issues of access to information, right to know, and public participation in environmental decision-making into scholarly debate, legal writing, and law drafting. Transparency and democratic environmental governance remain a focus of her professional work. Since 1992, she has split her time between the US and Europe applying her comparative legal background in international technical assistance projects to reform legal systems, laws, and policies in the post-Soviet countries and Eastern Europe. In 1994, under a NRDC project, she wrote first-ever “Citizen Guide for Environmental Democracy in Russia” which became a leading reference source for public interest environmental lawyers in Russia and a guidebook for lawyers from other former Soviet countries. In 1996-1999, as a senior program officer of WWF, she developed and directed a USAID-financed project to promote biodiversity conservation in Ukraine. The book resulting from this project, Priority-setting in Conservation: A New Approach for Crimea, documents an unprecedented participatory process that brought together Ukrainian specialists from a wide range of disciplines and sectors to conserve Crimea’s biodiversity. Most recently, Dr. Zaharchenko worked as a consultant helping governments of countries in transition implement multilateral environmental agreement and reform their environmental laws and policies following models and standards developed in the European Union. She recently completed a nine-month fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. Dr. Zaharchenko is the author of or contributor to over 40 publications, reports, and articles and a frequent speaker and invited guest lecturer internationally. She serves as a Vice Chair of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Commission on Environmental Law and she is a member of Board of Advisors for the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL). As a Scholar in Residence, Dr. Zaharchenko contributed her expertise to the ELI global environmental democracy and governance projects and undertook independent study on compliance with multilateral environmental agreements.
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