James Speth

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James Gustave (Gus) Speth (born March 4, 1942) is an American environmental lawyer and advocate.

He was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina in 1942. He graduated summa cum laude from Yale University in 1964, attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and graduated from Yale Law School, where he was a member of the Yale Law Journal, in 1969. He served in 1969 and 1970 as a law clerk to [US Supreme Court]] Justice Hugo L. Black.

Speth 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 in the Executive Office of the President. As Jimmy Carter's CEQ Chairman, he was a principal advisor on matters affecting the environment and had overall responsibility for developing and coordinating the President's environmental programme. In 1981 and 1982 he was Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, teaching environmental and constitutional law.

In 1982 he founded the World Resources Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental think tank; served as its president until January 1993. He was a senior advisor to President-elect Bill Clinton's transition team, heading the group that examined the USA's role in natural resources, energy and the environment.

In 1991 he chaired a USA task force on international development and environmental security which produced the report Partnership for Sustainable Development: 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; he served as Special Coordinator for Economic and Social Affairs under Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and also served as Chair of the United Nations Development Group.

In 1999 he became the dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. Currently he serves the school as the Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. Dean and Sara Shallenberger Brown Professor in the Practice of Environmental Policy.

Speth has been a leader or participant in other many task forces and committees aimed at combatting 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.

Among his awards are the National Wildlife Federation’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. He holds honorary degrees from Clark University, the College of the Atlantic, the Vermont Law School, and Middlebury College.

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