 Aloha, welcome to today's edition of Life in the Law. My name is Carol Monly. We have a very special show today with two law students from the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law, Emily Gaskin and Christina Lizzie, and both our third year law students who are working toward their environmental law certificate. And this week is an extremely special week here in Hawaii because of the IUCN World Conservation Congress. And so tell us all about it and your involvement in it, and so let's see. Christina, you're going to tell us about the IUCN. Thank you. Thank for the opportunity to be here today. We're both very excited. And we're very excited that the IUCN is finally here. We've been working since, well, Emily's been working since last December on that, and many people have been working well before that. So the IUCN Congress brings together the IUCN's 1,300 members to discuss matters of importance to its members and develop its environmental policy going forward. And the IUCN, I know that your viewers may have been following already, but it's the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. And it's comprised of both governmental actors and also non-governmental actors. So we have states and NGOs in the same room coming up with really the international conservation agenda. And that will hopefully move forward. And these decisions that are made at this Congress then perhaps will move forward. Eventually becoming conventions and treaties and really becoming hard law in the future. So this next couple of weeks are really important. This next week is really important to what the world's conservation agenda will be. And so how many members are there of the IUCN? There are about 1,300 members. The majority of those are non-governmental organizations and the rest are, of course, states. And how often does it meet? It meets every three years. So is this the first time in Hawaii, I understand? Yes, this is the first time in Hawaii and the first time in the United States, actually. And how many are participating? How many people are coming to Hawaii? We've heard the numbers are up to around 9,000 now. Great, and I know we have a special visitor as part of the IUCN. Yes, so we are hoping there have been different reports. We are hoping that President Obama may be addressing us tomorrow at the opening of the ceremonies. Okay, great. So Emily, tell us a little bit more about the law school's involvement in the IUCN and particularly your class. Absolutely, and I would like to thank you on behalf of the law school for having us here today. The law school became an official member of the IUCN this past October, so in October of 2015. And as a member, the law school had the opportunity or the environmental law program had the opportunity to draft motions that could be submitted and as Christina described, eventually become law. And at that time, our associate dean, Denise Santolini, assembled a group of students and we began the process of working with communities here in Hawaii to try and identify what issues were important to us and what motions we wanted to draft for the IUCN. And that process took several months and we worked with a number of stakeholders here in Hawaii and ended up writing seven different motions on a range of environmental issues, including marine debris, community-based natural resource management, a number of other issues. Climate change, of course, is a big issue that we wanted to address here in Hawaii. And we were able to submit those motions to an electronic portal in February of 2016. And this was a very unique year for the IUCN. In the past, all of the voting has occurred at the actual meeting. This year, however, they made the decision that the non-controversial motions would actually get voted on ahead of time through an electronic voting process. And so this class of students at the law school had the really unique opportunity to participate in this electronic voting. And in doing so, we were able to learn about all of the different issues that were being proposed around the world and really look in depth at what issues mattered to us in Hawaii and also meet with our stakeholders to determine what issues mattered to them as well. I see. So how many motions altogether? You said Hawaii's drafted seven. And worldwide, how many motions have been proposed? Worldwide, there were approximately 125 motions that were drafted. Only 91, I believe, were accepted to move on to the next stage of voting. And there were many reasons for that. Some motions were merged, some motions addressed issues that had already been covered, and some issues were just outside of the spectrum of what the IUCN wanted to address. I see. And so of the 91 motions, you said 91. I believe that's the number it's in there. Right. So how many did the law school get to vote on in advance? We had the opportunity to vote on all of them. So in the spring, we were joined by a number of a couple new students, including Christina, and we divided the motions up amongst ourselves just based on our personal interests. And then we had the opportunity to look in depth at those issues. I see. So you said, though, that the motions, usually the ones that were voted on in advance were the non-controversial ones, but... So there were, I believe, 13 motions that are gonna move forward and they're gonna be voted on the floor at the Congress. And so we'll be able to play a role in that process as well. We've also looked into those issues and as a class, we've divided them amongst ourselves. And so we will be participating in the motions assembly process and we'll have the opportunity to stand up and speak to those motions on next week. I see, how exciting. So does the law school just get one vote? Yes, the law school only gets one vote. So as a group, we had to come to a consensus about how we wanted to vote on each motion. But we've had quite a lot of opportunities to meet this semester and I think we are all in agreeance about how we wanna vote on each of those motions. So how many students are there? Is Professor Antellini also participating in the vote? And we also had Professor Foreman on, I think, Tech last week. So do other professors get to vote too? Participate in the voting? Professor Foreman has certainly been involved in this process, but particularly with regards to the motions in the voting, it will be Dean Antellini and one of the students at each of the votes. And so each one of us will have the opportunity to stand up there and speak about a motion. Great, so now I wanna spend a little time about these specific motions, particularly the ones of seven that Hawaii and UH has been involved in. So how did you determine which topics to draft motions? It was really a collaborative process. We initially met as a group and the students who were participating in this class come from a wide range of backgrounds and a lot of us had experience working in environmental conservation here in Hawaii already. And so based on our knowledge, we brainstormed some ideas that we thought would be important to move forward. And then next we reached out to the other members here in Hawaii, as well as organizations that may not be IUCN members, but who still wanted to say in drafting this international soft law, this policy. And so it was through many meetings and with stakeholders, we were able to whittle this list down to the seven that move forward. Okay, Zuri, can we show the seven motions, maybe one page with the four motions first and let's just go through the topics because very interesting. Yes, okay, so while we pull that up, so Christina, I know you were involved in two of the motions, more and more details, right? I was, and I can speak mostly to 71. I joined the class after the motions were drafted. So I really, my role was more helping in moving the motion through the voting process and reaching out to our stakeholders and the others who had been involved in the process and then trying to generate more support during the electronic motions vote. Okay, well let's talk about, so here are four of the seven motions. The first motion says, motion 51 is international biofouling. And it's very funny when I first saw that, I said, isn't that a typo? Biofueling, but it's biofouling. So Christina, were you, did you, had you explained that to me? I should actually allow Emily to take that on, but obviously I know biofouling, so it's whenever there are barnacles and things like that attach to stationary objects and then objects that are moving through the ocean and they get carried into different areas and Emily can explain more. So this is one of the environmental issues that results from globalization. And in an increasingly connected world, we have more trade, we have boats going back and forth across the ocean. And exactly as Christina explained, what happens is things attach to boats. And when boats travel from harbor to harbor, those marine species will travel with the boat and will be released at the next harbor. And that is one of the ways that invasive species get introduced to Hawaii and get spread around the planet. And this is something that we're particularly concerned about as an island, as an island community because we're very vulnerable to invasive species. And so when something new comes in, it can completely take over an ecosystem. And it's something that we need to be aware of. Now there are steps being taken by the Department of Land and Natural Resources as well as some federal agencies here on the islands to address these issues. But when we were reviewing the IUCN motion from past years, we noticed that this was not something that had been elevated to the international level. And so we thought that as an issue that would impact all members, or at least all members with a coastline, we thought this would be particularly important. Can you give us examples of some of these things that attach to, you said the bottoms of the ships? A lot of the things that attach aren't particularly sexy. They're algae and they're different types of bacteria. And so they might not seem like a big deal, but when they come into a new environment with a different temperature and a different acidity, they have the opportunity to proliferate and that can be a major problem. Damaging the environment. Do we have examples that you can give us of some of the damage that's happened either here in Hawaii or in other places? I don't know a specific example. I'm trying to think of one. Marine debris. I know we have an example. Motion 52 is on marine debris. Is that related to motion 51? They're not related, but that is the motion that I primarily worked on. So I can speak into that. So let's talk about motion 52. So motion 52 addresses issues of marine debris. And this was actually a really interesting process that we went through to develop this motion. My background is in ocean policy and I've spent the last eight years working for NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. And this is an issue that we were very much aware of doing marine conservation and marine policy. And so when we first started discussing at the law school, we decided this was something that we certainly wanted to move forward with. We have many problems with marine debris. Both marine debris that comes from the lands and so things that we'll travel in through the LOI canal, for example, and through runoff. But we also have problems for marine debris that comes from boats. So things that are discarded out at sea. And what we're now beginning to realize is that marine debris is becoming concentrated in these ocean guyers. In ocean guyer? It basically a circulation pattern in the ocean that causes plastic to all come together in one area. And what scientists have become to identify are these things called ocean patches. And they're existing all over the world. The Great Pacific Ocean Patch is the one that we might hear about the most in the media. But this is something that- How big is that one? It's very large. I don't know- It's about the size of Texas. The size of Texas, okay, oh my goodness. And this is obviously something that's a huge problem. There are a number of negative impacts. The plastics, when they become concentrated, they break down and they can be ingested by the larger marine mammals, obviously causing health problems and even death. But they can also be consumed by smaller organisms. And we are part of a food chain that consumes smaller organisms as they get eaten and moved up the food chain. So it's something that we need to be concerned about as well. So what's the- Right now, Motion 52, has that been voted on already? Or is that one of those that are coming at all? Yeah, so the motion was voted on through the electronic voting process. And we actually learned this morning, and this is some really exciting news, that all seven of the motions that the law school proposed were all approved through the electronic voting process. So they are not gonna officially pass until September 6th, when they get brought forth before the Congress. But we know that that motion is gonna go forward. That's so exciting. Yeah, it's so exciting. Well, before we get into more motions, I'm gonna take a short break now. This is think Tech Hawaii, Carol Monley with my special guest, Emily Gaskin and Christina Lizzie from the UH William S. Richardson School of Law. And they're here to speak about the IUCN World Congressional Congress. We'll be right back. Hey, how you doing? Welcome to the Bachi Talk. My name's Andrew Lang. I'm your co-host. And we have a nice program here every Friday at one o'clock. Think Tech Studios, where we talk about technology. We have a really good family. So join us if you can. Thanks. Aloha, everyone. I'm Maria Mera, and I'm here to invite you to my bilingual show, Viva Hawaii, every other Monday at 3 p.m. We are here to show you news, issues and events, local and around the world. Join me. Hi, I'm Ethan Allen, host of Lakeable Science on Think Tech Hawaii. I hope you'll join me each Friday afternoon as we explore the amazing world of science. We bring on interesting guests, scientists from all walks of life, from all walks of science, to talk about the work they do, why they do it, and more why it's interesting to you. What the science really means to your life, its impacts on you, how it's shaken a little bit around you, and why you should care about it. I do hope you'll join me every Friday at 2 p.m. for Lakeable Science. Welcome back. This is Carol Mon-Lee with my special guests, Emily Gaskin and Christina Lizzie from UH Richardson School of Law. And we're talking about these motions that the University of Hawaii Law School students drafted. And we had a great announcement that this morning you found out that all seven motions have been passed. Is that the word? They all passed. We're very excited with that news. And so they're all going to be moving forward. Moving forward before the entire Congress? They'll be presented to the entire Congress on September 6th. And we anticipate that they'll be passed on that day. Great. Now one of the other motions we wanted to talk about was motion number 72. So there it is, Zuri. Aloha Challenge plus Challenge, Model for Sustainable Development. So Christina, can you tell us about that one? Sure. What does that mean? It goes a little bit to that one than also on community-based resource management. So Aloha Plus was really looking at the model for sustainability that the state has put forward and then how we can move that and how it can be used as a model for the general world, really. So we're calling on IUCN members to recognize the way that Aloha Plus Challenge has worked in the state and then to implement it in their own countries. And specifically, how does it do that? It's set a number of goals and targets, one of the really innovative things is it has a tracking system online. They can go and see the updates at any time about where the state is at on some of its progress towards its goals. So, and who monitors it? That, I cannot speak as well to this one. This is one of my colleagues who focused on this particular motion. One of the ones that I did spend more time on was number 71, the Community-Based Natural Resource Management. And that, one of the groups that we worked with on that was Kua, and they have... Kua. Kua, yeah, Kevin Chang played a large role, coordinated with him a lot on that. And Community-Based Natural Resource Management supports communities pursuing community-based management and subsistence fishing practices. And it really recognizes the importance of grounding resource management in the community and really recognizing the values of the community. So here in Hawaii, that includes Kuliana and Aloha Aina. And so this motion calls on member states and NGOs in particular to look to Hawaii as an example and also to call and acknowledge how well these systems are working and to encourage the state of Hawaii to continue to pursue community-based fisheries management and community-based natural resource management in general. So on a state level, beyond the Congress, how is it being implemented beyond what's been done up to now? Is it taken over? Is it under DLNR or? It is something that's under DLNR. So one of the impetuses for this was the haena on quite their community-based subsistence fishery that I believe went into effect in 2014, or a few years ago at least. And that is, the regulations are established under the Department of Land and Natural Resources, but they're developed through community input process and really grounded in the community's values. And so we're looking at how that model can be expanded throughout the state and other fisheries. How do you get the community involved? Is it through local organizations, through volunteer? How do you do that? I believe the ideal situation would be that the community itself comes forward and says, we have a resource in this community that needs to be protected and needs to be managed in a certain way. In particular with fisheries, there are communities that come forward and say, they've fishermen that have noticed the depletion of resources and would like to see the fishery managed in a different way. And so they come forward. So ideally, because it's community-based, it shouldn't be an outside stimulus other than recognizing that this is now a model that can be followed. Right. So was the motion itself drafted with the help of these community groups? This one in particular was drafted with Kua, as I mentioned, as well as the Hawaii Conservation Alliance, the Council, the Conservation Council for Hawaii, as well as Conservation International and the Environmental Law Program. We also had a partner with the Northern Australia Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, so once it was drafted, and those were some of the co-sponsors who helped move this forward. Right. So these are partners on all of your motions. Did you have partners? Yes, yes, so all of the motions you needed. Emily, how many did we need to move? At least five to propose a motion, but then sometimes there were more for a different reason. And how did you get these partners? I think one way that Emily mentioned was there was a general call to the community at the very beginning about what kinds of motions should move forward. And so some of these ideas came from community members and from other organizations as well and law students helped in the drafting. I see. So it's not just members of the IUCN who participate in the drafting of the motions or the decisions about which motions? That is correct. Although for a motion to be proposed, we needed at least five members. Of the IUCN? Of the IUCN. And we actually had a very unique experience with the marine debris motion because in drafting that motion, we came to learn that the government of Australia was actually in the process of drafting a very similar motion. And we didn't get the news in time and so we both submitted our own motions independently, but the IUCN actually took the initiative to merge our motions and to bring us together through this process. And so we ended up having, I think over a dozen partners on this motion because of the support that they received as well as the support that we received here in Hawaii. So which language was used? Was it our motion, the Hawaii motion, the language was actually merged, which was really neat to see. And then through the online voting process, there was actually an opportunity to continue to refine the language. There was a comment period that allowed people to make amendments to the language. And so now the motion looks similar to what was originally proposed, but it definitely contains language, both from our motion, from Australia's motion and from input from around the world. So did the seven motions from Hawaii get a lot of input in terms of redrafting language in addition to this one? There were small changes. One of the interesting things was on the community-based natural resource management in the state of Hawaii, there was a little bit of going back and forth with the Department of State over the language regarding self-determination, whether because we had some of the apology resolution language and they're recognizing the apology resolution from the United States to the Native Hawaiians and there was some going back and forth and ultimately I believe the overthrow of the government of Hawaii was changed to the overthrow of the kingdom of Hawaii, something like that, but there was a few changes. And then I believe Emily had an interesting one with marine debris and litter. Well, that was interesting. The Department for the Government of Belgium actually proposed the use of the word litter instead of debris. And this is just something that happens being part of sort of a global conversation on these issues and... Is there a difference? Well, I think there's difference in how people interpret and understand the term. Litter may be a larger or encapsulate more items, but in the end we actually decided that, or the IUCN decided to use both terms. And so now in the title, you'll see litter and parentheses after the full title. Do we have that one? What number was that one? It's motion... Marine debris. 52, I apologize on the slide, you have a much abbreviated version of the entire title. I was trying to save space. Okay, great. Now I know there's another one that you worked on, Emily, which was motion 85. Both of you did, huh? Neither of us actually worked on it, but we can definitely talk about it a little bit. And that one is on environmental courts and tribunals. Yeah, so as you may be aware of Hawaii instituted in environmental court last year in July 2015, and it's one of the second in the nation. And so we're very proud of that. Very proud, yes. And professor and Dean Antolini has been very involved in the World Conservation, sorry, the World Council on Environmental Law. And they have really been putting forward different ways to promote these environmental courts throughout the world in order to promote the environmental rule of law. And so this motion really is recognizing that there's been a proliferation of these courts across the world. I believe we're up to about 1,200 now. 650 of those are actually in China. And they recently have been overhauling some of their environmental laws. But it's also recognized that the way these courts play out and tribunals play out in different countries is very different. So we need different models and some guidance from the WCEL on how to move forward. And so this motion essentially recognizes the important role that environmental courts and tribunals play and then encourages the development of a document or a working group that can provide guidance. I see. I know you're going to spend the spring semester in India, right? I will be, yes. Is that part of the international environmental court process? It is, in a way, related. The opportunity really arose because of the connection between the Hawaii Supreme Court here and the Indian National Green Tribunal and subsequently the Indian Supreme Court. So the Indian National Green Tribunal is their country's environmental court. And as Hawaii was developing theirs, they, I believe, Chief, or I believe Justice Wilson met with Chief Justice Swatanta Kumar, who is the chairperson of the National Green Tribunal. And there was also a close connection with Jindal Global Law School, which is the near vicinity of the NGT. And so I'll have the honor of spending a semester with Jindal and hopefully also interning at the National Green Tribunal. Great, and I know you're both in line for your environmental law certificates when you graduate. So we just have a few minutes left. So I just wanted to ask you, what do you both see or understand as being the biggest challenge for our environmental life here in Hawaii and around the world? I guess I'll start out. I had the honor and privilege of hearing Ben Bauer speak last night, who is the commissioner of the head of the World Conservation, World Council on Environmental Law, I'm gonna keep saying it wrong, was WCEL of the IUCN. And he was talking about the role of environmental law and the role of environment, the RULE, the role, the importance of it, and that we really need to have all of our aspirations really grounded in the law and then also have those laws enforced in courts. And so I believe it's really taking some of these policies that grounded them in the law and then on the ground being able to enforce them. Take action, yeah. Actually implement them. Yeah, right. Well, I wanted to thank you both for such a in-depth analysis of what the motions are for Hawaii, but also your role in helping us in Hawaii participate, have real hands-on involvement and understand what's going on. And we look forward to both of you continuing your work in environmental law. So if you have a parting message to our audience. Well, I understand that there's still come on, the day pass is available to come out to the IUCN. So if you are interested, I encourage you to try and come out and spend a day. There are gonna be some really incredible presentations and some wonderful people there. So be great if you could join us. Yes, and thank you both. So thank you, Christina. Thank you. Thank you, Emily. Good luck in the Congress and we look forward to hearing more about our motions in Hawaii. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.