Nicholas A. Robinson

Gilbert & Sarah Kerlin Professor of Environmental Law Emeritus and University Professor for the Environment, Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University (Lenapehoking, Quarropas/White Plains, New York)

Prof. Nicholas A. Robinson specializes in ecological law, in both its comparative and international aspects. In 1978 he founded the environmental legal education program at Pace University’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law and has collaborated with universities world-wide to advance post-graduate legal education in environmental law. Since participating in the 1972 UN Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, he has collaborated with the UN Environment Programme and published widely on legal issues of nature conservation and sustainable development, and edited the traveaux preparatoires for the UN 1992 Rio Earth Summit. He published the definitive history of the Carta de Foresta (Forest Charter) of 1217, established through Magna Carta. He prepared the first compilation of the treaties of the Lenape Nation (2025). He is a former Chair of the Commission on Environmental Law of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and led IUCN’s decisions culminating in the World Conservation Congress’ decision renouncing the colonial “Doctrine of Discovery.” His teaching and scholarship includes the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007). He taught international and comparative environmental law for two decades at both Yale University and the National University of Singapore. He is a 1970 graduate of Columbia University School of Law, where as a student he founded Columbia’s Environmental Law Society and Journal of Environmental Law.