20 Facts About Durwood Zaelke

Durwood Zaelke was born on 15 May 1947 and is an American environmental litigator, professor, author, and advocate.

Durwood Zaelke co-authored the standard English language textbook on international environmental law and policy, founded the international environmental law program at American University, and co-founded the program on governance for sustainable development at the University of California, Santa Barbara's Bren School.

Durwood Zaelke attended the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of California, Berkeley, and received a BA from University of California, LA in 1969 and a JD from Duke University School of Law in 1972, where he was an editor of the Duke Law Journal.

Durwood Zaelke is a member of the bar in California, the District of Columbia, and Alaska.

Durwood Zaelke began his legal career as the acting Editor-in-Chief of the Environmental Law Reporter at the Environmental Law Institute after graduating law school.

Durwood Zaelke returned to the Environmental Law Institute in 1975 where he focused on the need for energy conservation during the OPEC oil embargo.

In 1978, Durwood Zaelke joined the Department of Justice in what is the Environment and Natural Resources Division.

Durwood Zaelke led the investigation into several of the initial cases including the Justice-EPA investigation of hazardous waste dumping at Love Canal by Hooker Chemical Company, which was ultimately settled for $129 million, and helped pave the way for the Superfund law enacted in 1980.

In 1979 Durwood Zaelke led the Department's investigation into the accident at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station.

Durwood Zaelke left the DOJ and headed north to Alaska in May 1980 to serve as the director and senior attorney for the Alaska office of the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund.

Durwood Zaelke's work helped conserve important resources in the Tongass National Forest, Admiralty Island National Monument, the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge, among others.

Durwood Zaelke worked closely with the Tlingit village of Angoon on Admiralty Island, the last remaining traditional Tlingit village in the world, helping protect Angoon's traditional subsistence hunting lands from clear cut logging.

Durwood Zaelke found international environmental law a pale shadow of the national law he was used to and set out with his colleagues to change this by starting a movement modeled after the public interest environmental law movement in the US.

In 1989, Zaelke co-founded the Center for International Environmental Law in Washington, DC, and London, with his late wife Barbara L Shaw, James Cameron, Philippe Sands and Wendy Dinner.

In 2022 Durwood Zaelke was recognized by Washingtonian Magazine as one of the 16 most influential people for climate and environment, among Washington, DC's 500 most influential people.

Durwood Zaelke is the author, co-author, and editor of several books, publications, and commentaries.

Durwood Zaelke is co-author of the standard English language textbook on international environmental law and policy, International Environmental Law and Policy, Foundation Press 6th ed.

Durwood Zaelke contributed to the University of California's climate change textbook, Bending the Curve: Climate Change Solutions, and a chapter on fluorinated gasses for ELI's Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States.

Durwood Zaelke has taught various environmental courses and programs nationally and abroad including:.

On 24 December 1976, Durwood Zaelke married Barbara Lee Shaw, who co-founded CIEL and IGSD, and in 2000 founded the Maasai Girls Education Fund in Kenya and the US which she directed until her death in 2013.