Mandate

Strategic Objectives

Principles

The mission of the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL) is to promote sustainable societies and the protection of ecosystems by advancing the understanding, development and implementation of international sustainable development law.

The CISDL is governed by a distinguished Board of Governors, Chaired by Hon. Judge Charles D. Gonthier, formerly of the Supreme Court of Canada, and two CISDL Directors, and is guided a roster of honoured international advisors and expert collaborators. The CISDL is engaged in six primary areas of sustainable development law research, each of which is led by a CISDL Lead Counsel based at a developing or developed country law faculty or international organisation. These include:

Trade, investment and competition law;

Sustainable developments in natural resources law;

Biodiversity law;

Climate change and vulnerability law;

Human rights and poverty eradication in sustainable development law; and

Health in sustainable development law.

There are also two Lead Counsels responsible for cross-cutting sustainable development law issues (e.g. global governance, corporate social responsibility and accountability, financing mechanisms, and criminal and constitutional law aspects of sustainable development).

CISDL members include learned jurists and scholars from all regions of the world, and a diversity of legal traditions. Through a competitive annual process, the CISDL selects Associate Fellows, Legal Research Fellows and Senior Research Fellows, who are holders of the associated privileges and obligations of membership.

As a result of its ongoing legal scholarship and research, the CISDL publishes books, articles, working papers and legal briefs in English, Spanish and French. The CISDL hosts academic workshops, dialogue sessions, legal expert panels parallel to international negotiations, law courses and seminar series, and conferences to further its legal research agenda. It provides instructors, lecturers and capacity-building materials for developing country governments and international organisations in national and international law in the field of sustainable development, and works with countries to develop national laws to implement international treaties in these areas.

CISDL Relationships with Key Partners

The CISDL collaborates closely with the Law Faculty of McGill University in engaging students and interested faculty members in sustain­able development law research and scholarly initiatives. The CISDL also works in cooperation with a network of developing country faculties of law, and is developing closer ties with the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law through the LRCIL and the Université de Montreal through the CERIUM. It has guidance from three Montreal-based multilateral treaty secretariats, the World Bank Legal Vice-Presidency, the United Nations Environment Programme and the United Nations Development Programme. It maintains a memorandum of understanding with the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and the International Development Law Organisation (IDLO). Leading CISDL members serve as expert delegates on the International Law Association Committee on International Law on Sustainable Develop­ment.

With the International Law Association (ILA) and the International Development Law Organisation (IDLO), under the auspices of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UN CSD), CISDL chairs a Partnership Initiative, ‘International Law for Sustainable De­velopment’ that was launched in Johannesburg at the 2002 World Summit for Sustainable Development, to build knowledge, analysis and capacity about international law on sustainable development.

CISDL Location

The CISDL is based at 3661 Peel St., Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3A1X1 in offices lent to it by the McGill University Faculty of Law by reason of the involvement of students, graduates and faculty members in its activities. The CISDL also has subsidiary offices at the University of Oxford, the University of Costa Rica, and the University of Nairobi, Kenya.