David Hunter, Esq.
Professor of International Environmental Law, American University's Washington College of Law
United States
David Hunter is Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Environmental Law Program at American University's Washington College of Law. He teaches US Environmental Law, International Environmental Law, Comparative Environmental Law and the Law of Torts. He is also the director of the Washington Summer Session on Environmental Law. Professor Hunter was the former Executive Director of the Center for International Environmental Law, a non-governmental organization dedicated to protecting the global environment through the use of international law. Professor Hunter is also President of Peregrine Environmental Consulting, and was formerly an environmental consultant to the Czech and Slovak environmental ministries, an environmental associate at the Washington, D.C. law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and executive director of WaterWatch of Oregon, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving western water laws. He currently serves as a Strategic Advisor to the Compliance Advisor/ Ombudsman and on the Board of Directors of the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide-US (chair), EarthRights International, the Project on Government Oversight (chair), the Bank Information Center, Protimus Educational Trust (chair) and Greenpeace USA, Inc. He is a 1983 graduate of the University of Michigan with majors in economics and political science, and a 1986 graduate of the Harvard Law School. Professor Hunter is author of many articles on international environmental law, and is co-author of the leading textbook in the field: International Environmental Law and Policy (Foundation Press: 2001).
Bob Kerrigan, Esq.
Partner, Kerrigan, Estess, Rankin, McLeod & Thompson, LLP
United States
Born in Highland Park, Michigan, in 1943, Bob Kerrigan moved to Florida in 1959, graduating from high school in Port St. Joe. In 1967 he graduated with a bachelor's degree in accounting from Florida State University. As a Certified Public Accountant, he worked for Price-Waterhouse before beginning the study of law. In 1971, he graduated with honors from the Florida State University College of Law. Bob came to Pensacola in 1971 to assume a position with the Public Defender's Office, where he later attained the position of Chief Assistant. In 1973, he went into private practice with emphasis on criminal defense trial work. Over the years, Bob has tried many high profile murder cases. In 1975, he formed a partnership with George Estess and began to concentrate on personal injury litigation. He was one of eight trial lawyers selected by the Governor of the State of Florida to prosecute the State's claim for Medicaid recovery against the tobacco industry. The case settled during jury selection for, at the time, the largest civil judgment in the history of the United States. He has obtained numerous multi-million dollar jury verdicts. He is a member of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, the Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers, and is a Florida Bar Board Certified Civil Trial Lawyer. Bob was legal advisor to the minority caucus of the Florida Senate during the election controversy in Florida in 2000. He is a member of the Florida Association of Attorney-CPAs and a member of the International Bar Association. Bob has been selected for inclusion in Best Lawyers in America and was named as one of Florida's Top Lawyers in Florida Monthly Magazine. In 2006, he was named as one of the top 500 Plaintiffs' Lawyers in America by LawDragon, an independent listing of the nations top plaintiffs' lawyers and a distinction that is awarded to less than one-half of one percent of America's 1.1 million attorneys. In recent years, Bob has dedicated a major portion of his time to the prosecution of international human rights cases. He acted as co-counsel in two recent trials, Ford v. Garcia and the Estate of Winston Cabello, et al. v. Armando Fernandez-Larios. He has also endowed the Florida State University Center for the Advancement of Human Rights.
Beth Van Schaack
Associate Professor of Law, Santa Clara University School of Law
United States
Beth Van Schaack is Associate Professor of Law with Santa Clara University School of Law, where she teaches and writes in the areas of human rights, transitional justice, international criminal law, public international law, international humanitarian law, and civil procedure. She also is a member of the U.S. Department of State’s Advisory Council on International Law and served on the United States interagency delegation to the International Criminal Court Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda in 2010. For the academic year 2009-2010, she was a Visiting Scholar with the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. Prof. Van Schaack joined the law faculty from private practice at Morrison & Foerster LLP. As a Senior Associate at “MoFo”, Prof. Van Schaack practiced in the areas of commercial law, intellectual property, international law, and human rights. In particular, she was trial counsel for Romagoza v. Garcia, a human rights case on behalf of three Salvadoran refugees that resulted in a plaintiffs’ award of $54.6 million. She was also on the criminal defense team for John Walker Lindh, the “American Taliban.” Prior to entering private practice, Prof. Van Schaack was Acting Executive Director and Staff Attorney with The Center for Justice & Accountability, a non-profit law firm in San Francisco dedicated to the representation of victims of torture and other grave human rights abuses. She was also a law clerk with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Since 1995, she has served as a legal advisor to the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an organization dedicated to staging a legal accounting for the crimes committed during the Khmer Rouge era in Cambodia. In 2006, she served as Prosecutor for the International Citizen’s Tribunal for Sudan, presided over by Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, which presented the case under international criminal law against President Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan. Prof. Van Schaack is a graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School.
Howard Shainker
Managing Partner, Bow Street
United States
Howard Shainker is a Managing Partner at Bow Street, an investment firm based in New York City. He graduated from Wesleyan University and holds an MBA with honors from Harvard Business School.
