The Honors Scholars Student Academic Conference keynote address highlights our individual and collective capacities for change in environmental justice. Professor Rebeca Bratspies offers the legal perspective as to why a healthy environment is a human right. She calls on CUNY students to recognize the ways in which they can directly impact the health of NYC’s natural environment. Her important body of work communicates, to all generations, the importance of constructing our environments with intention. This keynote will be followed by several student panels.
Rebecca Bratspies is a Law Professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law, where she is the founding Director of the Center for Urban Environmental Reform. She is an internationally recognized expert on environmental justice, and the human right to a healthy environment. Professor Bratspies has written scores of law review articles, op-eds, and other publications including four books. Her most recent book Environmental Justice: Law Policy and Regulation is used in schools across the country. Bratspies is perhaps best known for her environmentally-themed comic books Mayah’s Lot, Bina’s Plant, and Troop’s Run, made in collaboration with artist Charlie LaGreca-Velasco. These widely-adopted comic books bring environmental literacy to the next generation of environmental leaders.
Professor Bratspies serves as an appointed member of the New York City’s Environmental Justice Advisory Panel, and EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee. She is a scholar with the Center for Progressive Reform and is a Deputy Director for the Global Network for the Study of Human Rights and the Environment. She is a member of the NYC Bar Association Environmental Committee and is Past-President of the American Association of Law Schools Section on the Environment. Her work alongside environmental justice communities has been honored with the ABA SEER Award for Commitment to Diversity and Justice, the CISDL 2022 International Legal Specialist for Human Rights Award, the PSC-CUNY “In It Together” Award, and the Eastern’ Queens Alliance’s Snowy Egret Award.
