News

LLM candidate Bastian Pasten Delich has been accepted into the World Bank’s prestigious Legal Associate Program (LAP). Pasten, who practiced environmental law in Chile prior to beginning his LLM studies at Duke, will begin a yearlong legal fellowship at the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental and International Law Practice Group (LEGEN) unit of LAP in September.

Pasten is a graduate of the University of Chile School of Law, where his graduate thesis, published by Thomson Reuters, examined the obligations Chile acquired with its accession to the OECD in chemical management. He also has served as research assistant at the law school’s Environmental Law Center, and in that capacity helped design an online course on international relations and the environment for officials of the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As an associate at Eelaw, a Santiago firm specializing in energy and environmental law, Pasten focused on project development, environmental compliance and enforcement procedures, natural resources regulation, and international environmental law.

At Duke, Pasten is pursuing the Certificate in Environmental Law for LLM students. “It’s terrific that Bastian Pasten Delich will be working with the environmental law group at the World Bank,” said Jonathan Wiener, the Perkins Professor of Law, Professor of Environmental Policy, and Professor of Public Policy. “Bastian has done excellent work this year in my courses on risk regulation and climate change. He is becoming a skilled analyst of international and comparative environmental law.  Now he will use his skills to contribute to, and gain critical understanding of, actual international institutions and national legal systems.

“This World Bank program is highly competitive – it’s just the kind of opportunity that graduates of our LLM Certificate in Environmental Law can attain.”

Pasten said that Duke has fulfilled his expectations as “an excellent place to study environmental law,” finding the faculty, like Wiener, both expert and accessible to students. “The curriculum is very diverse and has allowed me to embark on the study of environmental law from different perspectives,” he said. “I felt assured when I applied to the World Bank that my studies at Duke provided me with new knowledge and tools that increased my chances in the selection process for the Legal Associate Program.”

One unique opportunity Pasten found at Duke was the fall-semester U.N. Climate Change Treaty Negotiations Practicum course, co-advised by Wiener, that allowed him and 11 other graduate students from the Law School, the Nicholas School of the Environment, and the Sanford School of Public Policy to take part in the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate change in Warsaw, Poland. With each student assigned to represent a client to the negotiations – a country or an NGO – Pasten represented the Republic of Palau, preparing briefings and reporting back to that country’s leadership.

Pasten said his interest in LEGEN stems from its involvement in the environmental aspects of the World Bank’s lending process. “Financial institutions are very important to the international environmental law architecture, and their role goes far beyond just providing money flows,” he said, pointing to the World Bank’s support of sustainable development and combat of climate change in developing countries through such financial mechanisms as the Global Environmental Facility and the Climate Investment Funds. “I believe the bank really serves as catalyst to the convergence of international, regional, and national environmental regulatory schemes.”

Having learned of the World Bank’s Legal Associate Program at Duke, Pasten said he is grateful for Duke’s sponsorship and the support he received from Associate Dean for International Studies Jennifer Maher and from Oleg Kobelev, Duke’s director of International Career Development and Special Projects.

In 2011-2012, Charles Boudry LLM ’11 served in the Africa practice group and the Environment & International Law practice group of the Legal Vice Presidency.