John Bonine

Dean's Distinguished Faculty Fellow

John Bonine is one of the pioneers of environmental law in the United States and a professor in Oregon's LL.M. program. He was a Legislative Assistant in the U.S. Senate in 1972 and then moved to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He rose to the supervisory position of Associate General Counsel before joining the University of Oregon in 1978. While at Oregon, he has created or co-founded numerous institutions: the world's first environmental law clinic (now the Western Environmental Law Center); the Public Interest Environmental Law Conferences; the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide; a domestic network of public interest environmental lawyers in the United States; a discussion network of environmental law professors (ENVLAWPROFESSORS); and the Oregon-Lviv University Partnership (see article).

He is co-author of two textbooks, The Law of Environmental Protection and Human Rights and the Environment. In recent years, his scholarship has focused particularly on public participation and access to justice in environmental decision-making. Bonine teaches Administrative Law, Comparative Environmental Law, Constitutional Law, Environmental Law, and the LL.M. Seminar. He is a member of the Commission on Environmental Law of the World Conservation Union and an elected member of the International Council of Environmental Lawyers.

Professor Bonine's passion is public-interest law.

International

In recent years he has devoted much of his efforts to promoting environmental law around the world. For example, he is:

• co-founder of the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (ELAW), a network of 300 environmental lawyers in 70 countries;
• a citizen negotiator on international environmental treaties and conventions in Geneva and London for the European ECO Forum;
• Chair of the Board of Directors for the Ukrainian public interest environmental law firm Ecology-People-Law; and
• an active member of the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law.

National

Bonine teaches and researches U.S. environmental law, and represents citizen groups in environmental cases. His work includes:

• co-founding the world's first Environmental Law Clinic (at the University of Oregon) in 1978, which now works through the Western Environmental Law Center in Eugene;
• founding the world-renowned Public Interest Environmental Law Conferences at the University of Oregon;
• co-authored the well-regarded casebook, The Law of Environmental Protection (West, 1984, 1992)

Recent Publications

HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE ENVIRONMENT (Carolina Academic Press, 2008) (with Svitlana Kravchenko)

Other recent work, including an homage to University of Washington Professor William H. Rodgers, can be viewed here.