Sébastien Jodoin
Lead Counsel for Climate Change at CISDL
Sébastien Jodoin is an academic expert and international lawyer specialising in environment, development, human rights, sustainability, climate change, and transitional justice. Sébastien is currently completing a PhD on the links between human rights and environmental governance at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. At Yale, he is part of the Governance, Environment and Markets Initiative and contributes to multidisciplinary research projects on human rights, democracy, and the environment as well as on the performance of environmental market mechanisms. Sébastien also holds an Associate Fellowship with the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism based at McGill University and serves on the editorial board of the Canadian Journal of Poverty Law. Sébastien was recently awarded a Trudeau scholarship, Canada’s most prestigious and valuable doctoral scholarship in recognition of his active scholarly focus on issues of compelling public concern.
Sébastien maintains an active set of engagements in academic and policy research outside of his doctoral studies. He is a Lead Counsel with the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL) and serves on its Board of Governors. He leads the CISDL’s work on the links between human rights and climate change and on legal empowerment for sustainable development. He has worked on research, capacity-building, and technical assistance projects in partnership with numerous developed and developing country governments and organisations including the United Nations, the World Future Council, and the International Development Law Organisation. Sébastien also holds a Fellowship with the Canadian Centre for International Justice (CCIJ) and contributes to its international and training programmes. As part of his work with CCIJ, Sébastien serves on Amnesty International’s Working Group on International Justice, providing advice and assistance on advocacy activities focusing on international criminal justice in Canada and abroad. Finally, Sébastien directs the One Justice Project (1JP), established through the Academics Stand against Poverty network based at Yale. 1JP seeks the recognition, investigation, and prosecution of serious violations of international economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights as crimes under domestic and international law.
Since 2005, Sébastien has lectured widely at universities and conferences in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, actively participated in international negotiations on climate change, sustainable development, and international criminal law, published in leading academic journals in international law and policy, and been interviewed by a number of media outlets in Canada and Africa. He was previously employed at the Canadian branch of Amnesty International, where he worked on legal challenges and interventions before the Supreme Courts of Canada and the United States, the Federal Court of Canada, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, and the Military Police Complaints Commission. He also previously served as an Associate Legal Officer in Trial Chamber III of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and in the Appeals Chamber of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where he drafted judgements and decisions in a number of landmark cases involving genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
Sébastien holds degrees in Civil law and Common law from McGill University, a master’s degree in international law from the London School of Economics, and a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Cambridge. Sébastien has been the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including a Doctoral Scholarship from the Trudeau Foundation, a Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities and Research Council of Canada, a John Humphrey Fellowship in Human Rights from the Canadian Council on International Law, a Fellowship in International Criminal Law from the International Bar Association, and a Public Interest Law Articling Fellowship from the Law Foundation of Ontario.