Candidate info
Particular qualifications:
I have served the IUCN for many years in various contexts and understand the Union, its structure and objectives very well. Through my work for the IUCN WCEL, the Climate Change Task Force and the Academy of Environmental Law, I have built a large network within the Union, complemented by my global network worldwide through my academic and governmental work. My wide-ranging expertise in the field of environmental law, as well as my large networks have been and will continue to be beneficial to WCEL and the IUCN. They will help to increase WCEL´s member base and thereby spread environmental law knowledge and competence to all regions and support the WCEL to function as the leading global network of environmental lawyers. Through my work as project coordinator at the Excellence Center at the University of Oslo as well as for the Norwegian Ministry for the Environment, I have broad experience in project management, planning, administration and implementation, as well as fund raising and financing. I am focused, dedicated, diplomatic, knowledgeable and engaged and I like to work with people with different backgrounds and opinions. My hope is to continue to support, through the advancement of the environmental rule of law by the WCEL, the role of the Union in bringing about the urgently necessary transformation towards an environmentally sustainable world.
Experience in fields of concern to IUCN:
Dr. Christina Voigt is a renowned expert in international environmental law. She has a PhD in Law and is full professor at the University of Oslo. She is passionate about and has dedicated her career to legal issues of environmental protection, such as forest protection, nature and biodiversity conservation, climate change, environmental multilateralism, and sustainability. Over the last 25 years, Professor Voigt has taught and published widely on these topics. In 2009, she was awarded the inaugural Environmental Scholarship Prize (Junior) of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law for the intellectual influence and international significance of her work and for the enhancement of collaboration among persons from different institutions and regions. For more than 15 years, Professor Voigt has been an active member of the IUCN WCEL. From 2017 to 2021, she was the chair of its Climate Change Specialist Group and a member of the IUCN Climate Change Task Force. She chaired the organising committee of the 14th Annual Colloquium (2016) of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law in Oslo and co-edited its proceedings Courts and the Environment (EEP, 2018). At the World Conservation Congress in Marseilles in 2021, she was elected as chair of the WCEL and in this capacity led the work of the Commission in all relevant environmental legal fields, through 8 Specialist Groups and 4 Task Forces. She was responsible for organising the 3rd and 4th IUCN WCEL World Environmental Law Congress, in 2022 Oslo and 2025 Rabat, respectively. She also functioned as IUCN lead legal counsel and represented IUCN in the advisory proceedings on climate change before the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, The Inter-American Court on Human Rights and the International Court of Justice.