Global Environmental Democracy Project

Preparing students to be advocates for global change

The Global Environmental Democracy Project explores the principles of public participation, freedom of information, and access to the judicial system and how those principles play out when confronting international environmental problems. Faculty leaders are John Bonine, Svitlana Kravchenko, and Mary Wood.

GEDP News

The Project was excited to launch the Climate Crisis Initiative website this year, a public interest resource devoted to the issue of climate change which features current events, curriculum information, and recent scholarship.

Organized by the Public Interest Public Service Program and the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics, David Cobb, an attorney who was the Green Party's candidate in the 2004 presidential election, delivered a lecture on systemic problems in the electoral process on October 24, 2007. Cobb discussed the role that attorneys and other citizens play in ensuring fairness and encouraging widespread participation in elections. You can watch and listen to his lecture by clicking on the icons below.

David Cobb: "How Fair and Open Are Elections in the United States?" (October 24)
Audio • Video

GEDP Fellows

Michelle Platt Bassi

Michelle is completing her fourth and final year in her joint JD/MA in international studies degree, and is focusing her master's degree on international environmental issues. Michelle has worked for public interest environmental groups during her law school career and has primarily focused on water, wildlife, and NEPA issues. During the summer of 2008, she worked for the Southern Environmental Law Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This past summer, Michelle worked for Earthjustice in Denver, Colorado. Michelle is completing her MA thesis this year, which analyzes water rights and ethical dilemmas in the face of climate change in South America. Michelle has a B.A. in Art History from Bowdoin College.

John Mellgren

John Mellgren is a second year law student and a co-director of the 2010 Public Interest Environmental Law Conference. During the summer of 2009, John worked for Fiscalia del Medio Ambiente, an environmental law NGO, in Santiago, Chile where he focused on research related to the environmental impact statements of large-scale mining projects. Before law school, John served as Deputy Director of Legislation for Michigan State Senator Raymond E. Basham. John has a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from the University of Michigan.

Faculty

John Bonine

Svitlana Kravchenko

Mary Wood