Kathryn GWIAZDON

Kathryn (Katy) Gwiazdon is a lawyer, author, advisor, and connector who specializes in the role of the state in global governance and the inter-sectionality of ethics and the environment with all policy issues. She has 20+ years of expertise in local-regional-global research and advocacy in international environmental law development; 20+ peer-reviewed publications on international law, human rights, human security, global governance, justice, and ethics (and recently co-edited The Routledge Handbook on Applied Climate Change Ethics (2023)); professional experience and academic credentials in local, state, and federal government, campaign management, and government and non-governmental strategic planning; and seven years of experience teaching undergraduate (BA), graduate (JD, PhD), and post-graduate (LLM) courses. She also serves in leadership, advisor, and expert roles with several international organizations, boards, and steering committees that advance good governance, environmental protection, and public health, with a vast network of friends and colleagues at all career levels. 

Katy’s work focuses on systems of law and governance that harm and help our world, with particular consideration to the underlying values and power dynamics. As such, she is the Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Environmental Ethics and Law, an international non-governmental organization based in the United States that works with government and NGOs around the world to advance ethics in policy-making. She also teaches a range of international law courses at Northern Illinois University College of Law, including but not limited to Climate Law and Policy, Decolonizing International Law, and International Law and Armed Conflict. She is the current Chair of the Ethics Specialist Group of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law and an Expert for the UN Harmony with Nature program.

Katy often presents her work with partner organizations, universities, and Conferences of the Parties of treaty bodies. In 2018, she spoke before the UN General Assembly on corruption and ethics in environmental policy-making. In 2020, she spoke as a Keynote at the Lisbon Forum of the North-South Center of the Council of Europe on using the ethical and legal principle of ubuntu as a methodology to build global solidarity. And in 2022, she closed the final plenary of the conference of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law, discussing the failure of environmental law in providing the environment that can support a human right to a healthy environment.