James Gustave (Gus) Speth (born March 4, 1942) is an American

environmental law Environmental law is a collective term encompassing aspects of the law that provide protection to the environment. A related but distinct set of regulatory regimes, now strongly influenced by environmental legal principles, focus on the manage ...

yer and advocate who co-founded the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Early life and education

He was born in

Orangeburg, South Carolina Orangeburg, also known as ''The Garden City'', is the principal city in and the county seat of Orangeburg County, South Carolina, United States. The population of the city was 13,964 according to the 2010 United States Census and declined to 12 ...

in 1942. He graduated

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

in 1964, attended

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...

as a

Rhodes Scholar The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

and graduated from

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by ''U ...

, where he was a member of St. Anthony Hall and the ''

Yale Law Journal The ''Yale Law Journal'' (YLJ), known also as the ''Yale Law Review'', is a student-run law review affiliated with the Yale Law School. Published continuously since 1891, it is the most widely known of the eight law reviews published by students ...

'', in 1969.

Career

In 1969 and 1970, Speth served as a law clerk to

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

Justice

Hugo L. Black Hugo Lafayette Black (February 27, 1886 – September 25, 1971) was an American lawyer, politician, and jurist who served as a U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1927 to 1937 and as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1937 to 1971. ...

. He was a co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, where he served as senior attorney from 1970 to 1977. He served from 1977 to 1981 as a member and then for two years as chairman of the

Council on Environmental Quality The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is a division of the Executive Office of the President that coordinates federal environmental efforts in the United States and works closely with agencies and other White House offices on the developmen ...

in the Executive Office of the President. As chair, he was a principal adviser on matters affecting the environment and had overall responsibility for developing and coordinating the President's environmental program. In 1981 and 1982, he was professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, teaching

environmental A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...

and

constitutional law Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a State (polity), state, namely, the executive (government), executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as th ...

. In 1982, he founded the World Resources Institute, a

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

-based environmental

think tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmenta ...

, and served as its president until January 1993. He was a senior adviser to President-elect

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

's transition team, heading the group that examined the U.S.'s role in

natural resources Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. O ...

energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat a ...

and the environment. In 1991, he chaired a U.S. task force on international development and environmental security which produced the report ''Partnership for

Sustainable Development Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The des ...

: A New U.S. Agenda''. In 1990 he led the Western Hemisphere Dialogue on Environment and Development which produced the report ''Compact for a New World''. From 1993 to 1999, he served as Administrator of the

United Nations Development Programme The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...

; he served as special coordinator for economic and social affairs under Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, managed the

United Nations Development Assistance Plan The United Nations Development Assistance Plan (UNDAP) is a common business plan for the United Nations agencies and national partners, aligned to the priorities of the host country and the internationally agreed development goals. It was launched ...

and also served as chair of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group. In 1999, he became the dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

. He served the school as the Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. Dean and Sara Shallenberger Brown Professor in the Practice of Environmental Policy when he retired from Yale in 2009 to assume a professorship at Vermont Law School in South Royalton, Vermont. Speth was succeeded as Dean at Yale by Sir

Peter Crane Sir Peter Crane, FRS (born 18 July 1954) is the current President of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation and Senior Research Scientist in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University. In addition to his work in leading and d ...

. In 2014 he published his memoir ''Angels by the River''. In that year, he was also board member of the

New Economy Coalition The New Economy Coalition (NEC) is an American nonprofit organization based in Boston, Massachusetts, formerly known as the New Economics Institute. It is a network of over 200 organizations based in the US and Canada working for "a future where ...

. Speth currently serves on the advisory council of

Represent.Us RepresentUs is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization focused on ending political corruption in the United States. It refuses to take donations from political parties and it neither endorses nor opposes particular political candidates. Funded by d ...

, a

nonpartisan Nonpartisanism is a lack of affiliation with, and a lack of bias towards, a political party. While an Oxford English Dictionary definition of ''partisan'' includes adherents of a party, cause, person, etc., in most cases, nonpartisan refers sp ...

anti-corruption organization. Speth has been a leader or participant in many task forces and committees aimed at combating environmental degradation, including the President's Task Force on Global Resources and Environment; the Western Hemisphere Dialogue on Environment and Development; and the National Commission on the Environment.

Awards

Among his awards are the

National Wildlife Federation The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) is the United States' largest private, nonprofit conservation education and advocacy organization, with over six million members and supporters, and 51 state and territorial affiliated organizations (includin ...

’s Resources Defense Award, the Natural Resources Council of America's Barbara Swain Award of Honor, a 1997 Special Recognition Award from the Society for International Development, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Environmental Law Institute, and the

Blue Planet Prize The recognises outstanding efforts in scientific research or applications of science that contribute to solving global environmental problems. The prize was created by the Asahi Glass Foundation in 1992, the year of the Rio Earth Summit, and ...

. He holds

honorary degree An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...

s from

Clark University Clark University is a private research university in Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1887 with a large endowment from its namesake Jonas Gilman Clark, a prominent businessman, Clark was one of the first modern research universities in the ...

, the College of the Atlantic, Vermont Law School,

Middlebury College Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalists, Middlebury was the first operating college or university in Vermont. The college currently enrolls 2,858 undergraduates from all ...

, and the

University of Massachusetts Boston The University of Massachusetts Boston (stylized as UMass Boston) is a Public university, public research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the only public research university in Boston and the third-largest campus in the five-campus Un ...

Publications

Books

* ''Globalization and the Environment'' (as an editor),

Island Press Island Press is a nonprofit, environmental publisher based in Washington, D.C., United States, that specializes in natural history, ecology, conservation, and the built environment. Established in 1984, Island Press generates about half of its re ...

(2003) * '' Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment'' (2004) * ''

Global Environmental Governance Global Environmental Governance is the title of a book written by Adil Najam, Mihaela Papa and Nadaa Taiyab. All the information of this article comes from this book. Introduction Global environmental governance (GEG) is the sum of organizations, ...

'', Island Press (2006) * ''The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability'',

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Universi ...

(2008) * ''America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy'',

(2012) * ''Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril'' (chapter), Nelson, Michael P. and Kathleen Dean Moore (eds.) Trinity University Press, (2010) * ''Angels by the River, a memoir'', Chelsea Green Publishing (2014) * ''Imagine a Joyful Economy'', with Peter Denton, Wood Lake Publishing Inc''.'' (2020) * ''They Knew: The US Federal Government's Fifty-Year Role in Causing the Climate Crisis'',

MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publish ...

(2021)

Articles

* ''Beyond Reform'' Our Planet Magazin
PDF
* ''America the Possible: A Manifesto'', ''From decline to rebirth'
link
* ''America the Possible: A Manifesto'', ''A new politics for a new dream'
link

References

External links

Angels by the River
- book website * * * Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies profile, Archived July 1, 2007
Greenery and Justice for All
- Jan 9, 2015, Pacific Standard interview
“Focus 580; Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of Global Environment,”
2004-06-29, WILL Illinois Public Media, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed June 5, 2021. , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Speth, James G 1942 births Living people People from Orangeburg, South Carolina American non-fiction environmental writers Yale University faculty Yale Law School alumni Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford American Rhodes Scholars Sustainability advocates Administrators of the United Nations Development Programme Natural Resources Defense Council people Carter administration personnel American environmental lawyers Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States American officials of the United Nations Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 20th-century American lawyers 21st-century American lawyers