EUEGENE, Ore. - (Aug. 23, 2011) - The University of Oregon School of Law's 2011 Public Interest Environmental Law Conference has been named the law student program of the year by the American Bar Association's Section of Environment, Energy and Resources.
This year's conference, "Turning the Tides: Creating a Clean and Green Future," included panels on Liberia's environmental abuses, forestry mining in Ghana and Liberia, pesticide pollution, the impacts of natural resource extraction in Latin America and environmental impact assessments in Estonia and Hungary. The four-day conference was held at the UO in March.
The ABA award recognizes the best student-organized educational program or public service project of the year that focused on the fields of environmental, energy or natural resources law.
The Public Interest Environmental Law Conference - organized primarily by UO law students - has grown from 15 speakers and 75 participants in its inaugural year of 1982 to more than 2,000 attendees at this year's 125 panels, workshops and presentations. Past years' conferences have hosted keynote speakers including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.; Ralph Nader; David Brower; Terry Tempest Williams; and Winona LaDuke.
The law student program of the year award was presented to the student organizers of the PIELC earlier this month at the ABA's annual meeting in Toronto.
"Receiving this award from the ABA is a great honor for the conference, and is real testament to the hard work put in by last year's organizers," said Alek Wipperman, a second-year law student and co-director of next year's conference. "PIELC is one of the main factors that drew me to Oregon Law, and I'm excited to have the opportunity to help organize the conference as it enters its 30th year."
The 2012 PIELC will be held March 1-4, 2012, at the University of Oregon.
About the UO School of Law
For more than 125 years, the University of Oregon School of Law has served the state, the nation and the world through a constantly renewed commitment to excellence in scholarship, classroom teaching and public service. Oregon Law is an American Bar Association accredited law school, and the only public law school in the state.
About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is among the 108 institutions chosen from 4,633 U.S. universities for top-tier designation of "Very High Research Activity" in the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The UO also is one of two Pacific Northwest members of the Association of American Universities.
MEDIA CONTACTS: Erick Hoffman, director of communications at Oregon Law, 541-346-1665, erickh@uoregon.edu; Ali Wayner, communications manager at Oregon Law, 541-346-7355, agreen@uoregon.edu