EU Timber Regulation Lawyer (Enforcement) ClientEarth Brussels, Belgium

About the role

The EU Timber Regulation Enforcement Lawyer will play a crucial role in identifying strategic ways in which to strengthen and test the application of the Timber Regulation, and in supporting the development of test cases. This will include developing a robust analysis of the Timber Regulation and other relevant legislation and building up an enforcement strategy through advocacy, direct litigation and awareness raising-style 'test-cases'. 
This role will be based in ClientEarth’s Brussels office, although exceptional candidates who prefer to be based in our London or Warsaw office will also be considered.

About you

You have outstanding legal analytical and strategic skills as well as strong knowledge of accountable systems of governance that equip you to identify and work towards an effective and adequate enforcement of the Timber Regulation. You will bring a creative approach to the law and use of legal practice to lead the enforcement focussed work. You are adept at thoroughly analysing complex legal issues, coordinating investigative work and implementing litigation strategies. You are an excellent communicator, able to influence, convince and collaborate at a high level, and to build and support partnerships and networks. 

You are adaptable and resilient, able to work independently in diverse settings, and work collaboratively within a team.

About us

ClientEarth is a public interest environmental law group founded in 2007. ClientEarth brings together law, science and policy to create practical solutions to key environmental challenges. Working in partnership with civil society and policy-makers, ClientEarth is committed to securing the rights of citizens and civil society to participation, information and justice in environmental matters. In Europe and beyond, ClientEarth’s 50 strong staff includes legal experts qualified in more than nine jurisdictions based in offices in London, Brussels and Warsaw. Our programmes cover biodiversity and ecosystems, climate and energy, and health and environment. 

ClientEarth’s Climate and Forests Programme exerts a growing influence on the development and implementation of effective policies to address the drivers of deforestation. We aim to take law and policy forward, beyond narrow sectoral approaches which fail to link together the drivers of natural resource degradation, destruction and livelihood loss for forest peoples and other local communities. Instead, we look for coherent, integrated ecosystem and community rights based approaches to reforming governance of forest land tenure and related natural resources and the effective regulation of consumption patterns driving global deforestation and forest degradation.

Climate & Forest Programme Overview

In relation to specific commodity drivers of deforestation (e.g., timber products, palm oil, bioenergy), we focus on EU policies relevant to sustainable public procurement, regulating trade in illegal timber, and ensuring that EU bioenergy use is sustainable. Through these efforts, we aim to reduce the EU’s ‘forest footprint’ and contribute to the definition of legal frameworks that bring consumption patterns in line with social and environmental sustainability limitations.

Our Forest Rights & Governance work engages with local partners in countries at risk of deforestation and forest degradation to strengthen local efforts to address drivers of deforestation in the focus countries. This includes securing the rights of forest-dependent communities to forest tenure, use, management, and benefit sharing, and strengthening their capacity to effectively engage in FLEGT VPA and REDD+ processes. Current focus countries of include Ghana, Gabon, Republic of Congo, Honduras, and Guatemala. Our Rights & Governance team also engages at the international and national levels to ensure that REDD+ initiatives comply with the Cancun REDD+ safeguards.

Project Description

The Timber Regulation is one of the key measures to result from the European Union’s Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan. The Timber Regulation responds to the fact that, as a key consumer market for timber and timber products, the EU has a responsibility – and importantly, the ability – to positively influence the way that timber is harvested. It seeks to prevent illegally harvested timber from accessing the EU market, by making it illegal to place illegally harvested timber on the EU market and imposing a due diligence obligation on economic operators, requiring them to assess and mitigate the risk that they place illegal timber on the EU market.

ClientEarth has focused on the Timber Regulation since 2009. During the legislative phase we engaged to strengthen the terms of the regulation itself and in the last 18 months we have continued our engagement to be sure that, when the regulation takes full effect in March 2013, it will be effective in practice.

ClientEarth is committed to a comprehensive plan of work over the next three years to ensure the effective implementation and enforcement of the Timber Regulation. This will involve:

1. Continuing to engage with the European Commission and Member States to advocate necessary steps for the correct and effective implementation and subsequent enforcement of the Timber Regulation;
2. Developing the understanding and capacity of civil society organisations in the EU and non-EU timber producing states to play an active role in the effective enforcement of the Timber Regulation;
3. Developing the understanding of industry stakeholders as to what the Timber Regulation will require of them; and
4. Developing enforcement strategies, including but not limited to legal test cases, to test and strengthen the enforcement of the Timber Regulation throughout the EU.

We are investing in this work because we consider that it creates the opportunity to support three valuable and related objectives:

1. Reduction of the illegal harvesting of timber internationally (especially when considered in the light of related legal frameworks including EU FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreements and the US Lacey Act);
2. Demonstration of the need for and value of the correct implementation and enforcement of EU law by the Commission and Member States, including a focus on a number of fundamental themes: of the active application of the law by Member States and the Commission; of civil society having and using a meaningful role in enforcement; and of access to information and transparency in decision making;
3. If effective, the Timber Regulation will show that consumer markets can meet their responsibility for the goods they consume and positively influence the production of natural resources – and by doing so, potentially act as a template for approaches that can be applied to the trade of other natural resources.

Job description

Job focus

The Lawyer, EU Timber Regulation (Enforcement), will play a key role in developing the enforcement strategy for the Timber Regulation. The enforcement strategy will combine a focus on the detail of the operation of the Timber Regulation and on the procedural and administrative steps that are needed to enable and strengthen that operation. Reflecting ClientEarth's broader work, including on strong, transparent and accountable systems of governance, the enforcement strategy will also highlight and seek to use EU transparency legislation and will focus on identifying the financial flows from and to illegal timber harvesting, seeking to increase the awareness of the risks of these financial flows. 

The position will play a key role in the development and implementation of direct litigation, as well as non-court, awareness-raising/campaign-style ‘test cases’, to ensure proper enforcement of the EU Timber Regulation.

Working relationships

The position reports to the Project Leader, EU Timber Regulation. The lawyer will also have key relationships with the Lawyer, EU Timber Regulation (Stakeholder Outreach) as well as with the Africa Rights and Governance team, the Latin America Rights and Governance team, and with members of the Climate & Forests team more generally (including lawyers working on the EU Timber Regulation, public procurement policies, and bioenergy).
This position will not have line management responsibilities for other staff.

Job specification

This role involves:

• Working together with the Project Lead and Stakeholder Outreach Lawyer to deliver a unified, strategic approach to the implementation and enforcement of the Timber Regulation;
• Developing and maintaining a robust knowledge to the EU Timber Regulation; EU transparency legislation; the timber trade and finance flows supporting the timber trade; and the institutions and processes necessary for the effective implementation and enforcement of the Timber Regulation;
• Analysing the Timber Regulation and identifying key strategic opportunities to test and strengthen its operation and the achievement of its objectives, by developing or supporting litigation, advocacy work and awareness raising/campaign-style 'test-cases'.;
• Developing analysis of interaction of the Timber Regulation with related legal frameworks (VPA, Lacey Act) and ensuring that potential synergies are developed;
• Identifying the information needs for any particular litigation strategy and assessing the means of meeting those needs;
• Developing relationships with partner organisations to develop joint platforms for enforcement steps and develop joint platforms for action;
• Assessing and comparing the hospitality of different EU and Member State jurisdictions to test cases (e.g., standing and other procedural issues, relevant substantive case law, costs implications) and coordinating local legal consultants to gather information required for such assessment;
• Defining, developing, assessing, and organising legal evidence required to support enforcement cases;
• Developing and implementing communication strategies to support the objective of enforcement strategies.

Qualifications

• Law degree with entitlement to practice as a lawyer in an EU Member State (essential);
• Fluent in English (essential) and a second EU language (highly desirable).

Experience

• At least 5 years experience of relevant legal practice in an EU Member State/at EU level (essential);
• Strategic planning (essential);
• Developing and implementing litigation strategies in a Member State and at EU level (desirable);
• Coordinating investigative work (highly desirable);
• Coordinating and overseeing strategic planning and projects (desirable);
• Analysing trade data (desirable);
• Working with civil society organisations in and beyond the EU (desirable);
• Working in legal regimes of countries in one or more key regions of focus (C & S America, C & W Africa, Russia, SE Asia) (desirable).

Knowledge

• Working knowledge of public and administrative law (EU and/or EU Member State) (highly desirable);
• Knowledge of transparency legislation (EU and/or EU Member State) (highly desirable);
• Knowledge of patterns of finance and investment in timber or other natural resource sectors (desirable);
• Understanding of commodity flows in the timber or another natural resource sectors (desirable);
• Knowledge of legal standing rules and related access to justice issues (desirable);
• Working knowledge of one or more of the following areas (desirable): forestry law, environmental law, commercial law, trade and investment law (EU and/or EU Member State).

Skills

• Excellent legal analysis skills (essential);
• Excellent legal writing and advocacy skills (essential);
• Ability to identify strategic opportunities to enforce EU law (essential);
• Excellent case management skills (essential);
• Ability to grasp new and complex areas of law (essential);
• Ability to engage confidently and effectively with government, civil society and industry partners (essential);
• Ability to balance competing work priorities effectively (essential);
• Well developed inter-personal communication style and ability to work collaboratively with a small team (essential);
• Ability to work both independently and in a team-oriented, collaborative manner (essential);
• Ability to co-ordinate work effectively with colleagues (essential);
• Critical thinking, highly creative and solutions-oriented (essential);
• Organised, dynamic, reliable, self-motivated (essential);
• Ability to communicate objectives of litigation strategies to non-legal audiences (desirable).

This position is based in Brussels (desired) or Warsaw (possible) or London (possible). It involves extensive travel. You must be willing and able to travel within EU and potentially internationally, as the project requires.

To apply

Please send us your CV and a cover letter explaining your interest in joining ClientEarth and the contribution you believe you could make to the organisation. 

Please include ‘Climate & Forest Programme – EUTR Enforcement Lawyer’ in the email subject line, and identify the documents you are sending by including ‘[your name] EUTR Enforcement Lawyer cover letter’ and ‘[your name] CV’ in the file name.

Please address your application to Janet Meissner Pritchard, Climate & Forest Programme Leader, ClientEarth, The Hothouse, 274 Richmond road, London E8 3QW and send it by email to jobs@clientearth.org. 

Recruitment is open now and you should send your application as soon as possible. Applications are scheduled to close on 1st February 2013. Interviews are intended to take place at the beginning of the week commencing 18 February.

Please note that ClientEarth will only consider candidates who have the legal right to work in Europe.

If you have any questions about the roles advertised or recruitment process, please contact Patricia Del Rio (pdelrio@clientearth.org).