The Legal Obligations, Barriers, and Pathways workstream seeks to ground the transition away from fossil fuels in the law, by unpacking the legal duties to phase out the production and use of oil, gas, and coal, and to cooperate internationally toward that end. Participants will discuss where implementation of legal obligations is gaining traction and where key obstacles remain, informing recommendations to States on ways to address cooperation and governance gaps, remove legal barriers like investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), and ensure phaseout aligns with the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities.
Nikki Reisch (she/her) is the Director of the Climate & Energy Program at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), where she leads a team of attorneys, campaigners, and researchers driving legal and policy change to address the causes and consequences of climate change and responses to it. In this role, she develops and oversees strategic efforts to hold states, corporations, and financial institutions accountable for climate harm; shift public and private finance away from fossil fuels; halt oil and gas expansion and accelerate fossil fuel phaseout; and center human rights in climate policy and governance.
Nikki has over 25 years of experience in environmental justice, corporate accountability, and human rights, with a focus on the impacts of natural resource extraction, investment law, and climate change. She has engaged in litigation before domestic and international courts, appeared before UN treaty bodies and the accountability mechanisms of international financial institutions, and co-authored multiple amicus briefs. She is co-editor with Philip Alston of Tax, Inequality, and Human Rights (Oxford University Press, 2019) and has written many other pieces on international law, human rights, and environmental matters.
Prior to joining CIEL, she was the Legal Director at NYU’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and a clinical instructor in human rights law and advocacy at NYU and CUNY Schools of Law. She previously held roles at the Rainforest Foundation UK and the Bank Information Center, and served as a law clerk in the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Ninth and Second Circuits. Nikki has a JD from NYU School of Law and a BA in Ethics, Politics and Economics from Yale University.
Adrián is the Director and founder of La Ruta del Clima. MA. Adrián Martínez Blanco. Alexander von Humboldt – ICC Alumni. Master in Environment, Development and Peace. Researcher on public participation, loss and damage, and international climate law.