The field of environmental law is now so complex that it has become hard for IUCN's several hundred volunteer lawyers and modest full-time staff of legal specialists to sustain both the demands for their expert services and the academic study and elaboration of new concepts for refining and advancing environmental law. It has been increasingly difficult for CEL to both provide expertise to the Union, and to respond to requests to build the environmental law capacity in developing countries and economies in transition.
Recognising these difficulties, CEL began consultations around the world on how to strengthen independent scholarly and professional research into environmental law. CEL has determined that the most efficacious way to sustain the Union's contribution to building environmental law is to become more closely allied with the university community's expertise in environmental law. After eight years of study, experimentation with capacity building programs, and dialogue with university faculties of law on a world-wide basis, the Commission announced at the 50th Anniversary of IUCN in 1998 that it was undertaking to establish an international Academy of Environmental Law. Besides the extensive discussions that were held with legal scholars from more than 240 universities, CEL convened conferences, workshops and meetings in every region of the world between 1997 and 2002.
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