Pace University School of Law established the Gilbert and Sarah Kerlin Distinguished Professor in Environmental Law Lecture to expand the School’s programs of research, education, professional and scholarly activity and publications in environmental law, a field for which Pace has received national and international recognition. The Kerlin endowment also funds a named professorship at Pace in Environmental Law. Professor Nicholas A. Robinson, founder of the Law School's environmental programs, was named the Kerlin Professor in 1999. The first Kerlin Lecture entitled, “Selling the Common Heritage? Commerce, Property, and the Protection of the Environment” was given by Professor Carol Rose in 2000. 

Mr. Kerlin was a distinguished lawyer in New York City. He was a founder and chairman of the Riverdale Community Planning Association, an organization that spearheaded the rezoning of the entire West Bronx to preserve the greenbelt area of that section of the City of New York. Also, he was a leader in protecting the natural environment of the Hudson River and its greenbelt area. Mr. Kerlin was the founding chairman of Wave Hill, the outstanding public garden and cultural institution in Riverdale, New York. Mrs. Kerlin, a long-time trustee of the Bank Street College of Education, is responsible for creating and supporting environmental and educational programs at Wave Hill for teachers and public school students.

Synopsis of Professor Esty's Lecture:

Some number of environmental problems from climate change to biodiversity loss to depletion of the fisheries in the world’s oceans are inescapably international in scope.  The well-established logic of public goods provision argues for a policy response to these issues that is global in scale.  Yet there exists a great deal of hesitancy about “global governance.”  In this year’s Kerlin Lecture, Professor Daniel C. Esty of the Yale Law School and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies focuses on one aspect of this hesitancy.  He argues that in addition to doubts about the political accountability of decision makers at the global scale, the legitimacy of international policy processes is undermined by the lack of basic elements of administrative law. Professor Esty suggests that the well-established elements of good governance and public decision making that have emerged on the domestic scene—including transparency, disclosure of financial interests on the part of decision makers, the identification of those engaged in lobbying, creation of an “administrative record,” a structured process of identifying policy alternatives, etc.—need to be adopted as the foundation for legitimate global-scale governance, in the environmental realm and more broadly.

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About the Speaker