Washington, DC, August 16, 2024.
The Jacobs Law Clinic for Democracy and the Environment at Stetson University College of Law is a program providing free legal services from law students under the supervision of licensed attorneys. The purpose of the Jacobs Law Clinic (JLC) is to represent clients in various democracy-related and environmental issues while fostering the legal education of students at Stetson University College of Law. JLC has agreed to represent Adaptation Leader as part of the ongoing Receiving Communities Initiative, specifically to conduct legal research on several questions being explored by participants in the initiative. The JLC team will produce two deliverables in this collaboration. First, A white paper detailing whether any nations have acknowledged climate change as a factor in granting refugee status, either to persons from outside the country or to persons internally displaced, in-part as a consequence of climate change. Second, a white paper exploring whether the framework for site selection for refugee resettlement in the U.S. provides a helpful framework that could inform selection or preparation of climate refuge receiving sites. Adaptation Leader’s Ira Feldman will work directly with the Stetson law students on this matter. The JLC team is being supervised by Stetson law professor and JLC director Jaclyn Lopez.