Cymie R. Payne studies global governance of the environment and natural resources and the consequent evolution of international law, with a focus on climate change, protection of the environment in relation to armed conflict, and conservation of ocean resources.
She has represented the interests of the international community in the marine environment as legal counsel before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg, on behalf of the International Union for Conservation of Nature(IUCN) and as an expert on compensation for environmental damage before the International Court of Justice in The Hague. She previously practiced natural resource and environmental law with the United Nations Security Council, the U.S. Department of the Interior and the law firm of Goodwin, Procter. For six years she participated in landmark decisions on the legal responsibility of aggressor states for the restoration and remediation of damage to the environment from armed conflict as counsel to the United Nations Compensation Commission in Geneva, Switzerland. As Director of the Global Commons Project at University of California Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, she focused on the linkage of state and international climate policy, particularly with respect to emissions trading systems; conflicts of state law with international trade; and regulating risks of new technologies such as carbon sequestration, where she was also a lecturer in residence on international courts and climate change law.
She currently serves as Chair of the Ocean Law Specialist Group, International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. She is a Fellow of the American College of Environmental Lawyers. She holds a Master’s degree from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a Juris Doctor from the University of California, Berkeley.
Publications:
Cymie Payne, International Law and Valuation for Climate Loss and Damage, Research Handbook on Climate Change Law and Loss & Damage (Meinhard Doelle, Sara Seck, eds., Edward Elgar, 2021).
Cymie Payne, Judicial Developments: Normative Development, Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law (Jacqueline Peel, Lavanya Rajamani, eds. 2d ed., Oxford University Press, 2021).
Carl Bruch, Cymie Payne, Britta Sjöstedt, Armed Conflict, Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law (Jacqueline Peel, Lavanya Rajamani, eds. 2d ed., Oxford University Press, 2021).
Cymie Payne, Negotiation and Dispute Prevention in Global Cooperative Institutions: International Community Interests, IUU Fishing, and the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Negotiation, International Community Law Review (2020), open source.
Cymie Payne, Jus Post Bellum and the Evolution of Reparations: Reframing Reparations as Peace Building, in JUST PEACE AFTER CONFLICT (C. Stahn, J. Iverson, eds., Oxford University Press 2020), open source.
Cymie Payne, Environmental Liability, in ESSENTIAL CONCEPTS OF GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE (J.-F. Morin & A.Orisini, eds., Routledge, 1st ed., 2014, 2nd ed. 2020).
Cymie Payne, Protection of the Natural Environment, in OXFORD GUIDETO INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIA N LAW (Ben Saul, DapoAkande, eds., Oxford University Press, 2020).
Cymie Payne, New Law for the High Seas, 46 Ecology Law Quarterly 191/37 Berkeley Journal of International Law 345(2019), open source.
Cymie Payne, Defining the ‘Environment’ and the Principle of Environmental Integrity, in ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND TRANSITIONS FROM CONFLICT TO PEACE: CLARIFYING NORMS, PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES (C. Stahn, J. Iverson, & J. Easterday,eds., Oxford University Press 2017) open source.
Cymie Payne, Developments in the Law of Environmental Reparations: A Case Study of the UN Compensation Commission, in ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND TRANSITIONS FROM CONFLICT TO PEACE: CLARIFYING Norms, PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES (C.Stahn, J. Iverson, & J. Easterday, eds., Oxford University Press 2017) open source.
