Law and Policy Advisor job in #London or #Brussels, #Belgium/ ClientEarth

This is an excellent opportunity to contribute to ClientEarth’s Forests Programme. In this role, you will focus on the promotion of community forestry and the rights of local communities and indigenous peoples (LCIP) through legal reform, empowerment and capacity building. This role offers an opportunity to establish the strategic direction of this area of work, including setting milestones and broadening the scope and impact.

This role also addresses broader issues relating to forest governance, commodity-driven deforestation, climate change and human rights and requires engaging with multiple actors at the local, national, regional and international levels. There is a global orientation to these efforts, with a particular focus on Southeast Asia.

Meet your Manager

In this role, you will be managed by Brian Rohan, our Head of Climate and Forests. Brian joined ClientEarth in February 2020 and is based in the UK. Prior to joining ClientEarth, Brian lived in Cambodia where he headed a start-up initiative linking private investment, conservation management and local livelihoods, served as advisor on land rights, natural resources governance and community livelihoods issues, and managed the Ministry of Environment’s process to create Cambodia’s Environmental Code. Brian graduated from New York University School of Law and is admitted to practice law in New York State.

Main Duties

• Contribute to the development and delivery of legal support and advocacy strategies on LCIP land tenure rights, community forestry, and community impacts from land conversion for production of forest-risk agricultural commodities
• Critically analyse laws, legislative and policy proposals
• Prepare legal and policy analyses, research notes, training materials or presentations
• Select and develop relevant legal interventions
• Support the delivery of in-country legal working group meetings
• Initiate and manage collaborative partnerships and working relationships with key partners in countries of engagement

See the job description (below) for a full list of duties for this role.

Role requirements

• Working knowledge of one or more of these areas:
  • natural resources governance;
  • human rights law and policy;
  • environmental governance;
  • forest governance;
  • land tenure;
  • legal reform processes
• Experience of establishing, building and maintaining relationships with key contacts and engaging with a wide variety of external stakeholders
• Experience of engaging effectively with governments, civil society, local communities and/or private sector partners
• Knowledge of international or national forest policy processes (such as country-specific community forestry mechanisms, Voluntary Partnership Agreements under the EU’s FLEGT programme, the UNFCCC’s REDD+ mechanism, and other ongoing legal and policy reforms) (desirable)
• Fluent (CEFR level C2) in English

See the job description (below) for a full list of requirements for this role.

Further Information

Have a question about this job? Please visit our Careers site for advice on applying, FAQs, and more.

Flexible working: Post-covid, our flexible working policy allows our people the choice to decide to work from home in the country where their contract of employment is issued for 80% of their month, with the other 20% of their month being office-based  See our Benefits page for more.

ClientEarth values diversity and inclusion and the benefits this brings. We aim to appoint the most suitable candidate at all times and welcome applications from people from all different backgrounds. We particularly encourage applications from black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) candidates, as these groups are currently under-represented in our organisation.

Please note that ClientEarth is only able to employ those who have the pre-existing legal right to work in the UK or Belgium

ClientEarth is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice or legal services to third parties.