International Environmental Law Summer Clerkship

The Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development is hiring summer law clerks for 2025 to support international environmental law efforts, focusing on fast climate mitigation strategies. Clerks will engage in research, legal analysis, and policy development while working remotely with experienced professionals. Ideal candidates are JD or LLM students with strong writing and research skills, a commitment to climate progress, and preferably some relevant experience.
The Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD) is seeking 2025 summer law clerks to support its effort to ensure fast cuts to the non-carbon dioxide climate pollutants and other fast climate mitigation strategies to slow near-term warming and self-amplifying climate feedbacks. These strategies include cutting climate “super pollutants,” such as methane, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), black carbon soot, and tropospheric ozone (O3), and protecting and enhancing carbon sinks. Fast mitigation strategies must limit warming and complement long-term decarbonization and carbon-removal efforts. The IGSD team is active worldwide. The team advances and helps implement laws, policies, and related actions to keep the world from crashing through the 1.5 oC guardrail for a safe planet.

Based remotely, IGSD’s summer law clerks will have the opportunity to work with experienced attorneys, negotiators, economists, and scientists on international environmental law and policy issues. Examples of IGSD’s work involving summer clerks include:
• Working with partners to improve climate governance and policies related to fast mitigation.
• Researching novel legal theories and strategies, to support IGSD’s overseas climate litigation portfolio.
• Analyzing international environmental treaties and preparing for associated meetings relevant to IGSD’s work.
• Advancing legal and scientific thinking on key climate proposals through research and writing for IGSD’s publications. IGSD publishes law reviews, scientific articles, primers, and background notes as the foundation for climate action. See recent publications by IGSD.

Basic Qualification
• Excellent English writing, research, footnoting, and editing skills. Published work a plus.
• Demonstrated commitment to climate and environmental progress.
• Strong references.
• Strong work ethic and experience working under pressure, individually and in teams.
• Innovative approaches to solving complex problems.

Preferred Qualifications
• Legislative drafting and/or international law research and writing experience.
• Foreign language skills.

Education Qualifications
• JD candidates, ideally 2L or higher, or 1L with relevant work experience.
• LLM candidates with excellent English writing, reading, and research skills.
• Added plus for public-interest-minded candidates who recently lost summer/internship opportunities with U.S. federal agencies and with relevant work experience, such as work involving super climate pollutants like methane.

Location
• Those working in DC area will be able to participate in our in-person gatherings, though we have regular virtual meetings.

To apply, please send a cover letter, resume, and writing sample to Madelyn Zuckerman at mzuckerman@igsd.org.