Carmen Gonzalez

Biography

Professor Gonzalez joined the Seattle University faculty in 1999, teaching torts, environmental law, and international trade law. She has published extensively in the areas of international environmental law, environmental justice, trade and the environment, and food security.

In addition to writing about international environmental problems, Professor Gonzalez has been actively involved in the development of solutions through teaching, institutional capacity-building, and training of environmental law scholars, lawyers, judges, and other officials. Professor Gonzalez has taught and/or worked on environmental law projects in Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Guatemala, Argentina, Ukraine, Moldova, and China. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Argentina, a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, a Visiting Professor at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center in Nanjing, China, and a Fellow at the U.S. Supreme Court. She has created summer study opportunities in Brazil and Guatemala for Seattle University law students, and is part of a consortium of law professors that was awarded a three year grant from Higher Education for Development/U.S. Agency for International Development to conduct environmental law capacity-building workshops for law professors in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic.

Professor Gonzalez is active in a variety of professional organizations. She is Chair of the Environmental Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools, a member of the Research Committee of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Academy of Environmental Law, and a member scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform, a non-profit research and educational organization of university-affiliated academics that seeks to inform policy debates regarding environmental regulation. She has also served as member and vice-chair of the International Subcommittee of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (an advisory body to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on environmental justice issues), and has represented non-governmental organizations in multilateral environmental treaty negotiations.

After graduating from Yale University and Harvard Law School, Professor Gonzalez clerked for Judge Thelton E. Henderson of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, and subsequently practiced law at Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro, where she specialized in environmental litigation . She later served as an attorney at Pacific Gas and Electric Company and as Assistant Regional Counsel in the San Francisco office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Her responsibilities at EPA included enforcement of U.S. hazardous waste laws and participation in joint activities between the United States and Mexico to address environmental problems along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Books 

Presumed Incompetent: the Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia (with Gabriella Gutierrez y Muhs, Angela P. Harris, and Yolanda Flores-Niemann, eds.). Utah State University Press, forthcoming 2012.

Democracia, derecho y economía de mercado, (with Colin Crawford and Daniel Bonilla, coordinators.) Bogotá, Colombia: Editorial Temis, 2010.

Articles

Climate Change, Food Security, and Agrobiodiversity: Toward a Just, Resilient, and Sustainable Food System, 22 Fordham Envtl. L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2011), available on SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1756914

An Environmental Justice Critique of Comparative Advantage: Indigenous Peoples, Trade Policy, and the Mexican Neoliberal Economic Reforms, 32 U. Penn. J. Int'l L. 723 (2011), available on SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1260048

The Global Food Crisis: Law, Policy, and the Elusive Quest for Justice, 13 Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal 462 (2010), available at SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1567231

 China in Latin America: Law, Economics, and Sustainable Development, 40 Environmental Law Reporter 10171 (2010), available at SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1486506.

China en América Latina: Derecho, economía y desarrollo sostenible, 44 Revista de Derecho Privado (2010), available on SSRN:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1566988

 Squatters, Pirates, and Entrepreneurs: Is Informality the Solution to the Urban Housing Crisis? 40 U. Miami Inter-Am. L. Rev. 239 (2009), available at SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1260040.

 Is NAFTA a Good Model for China?: Lessons from Mexico and the United States, 5 Jiangxi Social Sciences 244 (2009), available on SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1485231

 Environmental Impact Assessment in Post-Colonial Societies: Reflections on the Proposed Expansion of the Panama Canal, 4 Tenn. J. Law & Pol'y 303 (2008), available at SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1260029.

 Genetically Modified Organisms and Justice: the International Environmental Justice Implications of Biotechnology, 19 Geo. Int'l Envtl. L. Rev. 580 (2007), excerpted in Stephen McCaffrey & Rachael Salcido, Global Issues in Environmental Law (West Group 2009), available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=986864.

 Deconstructing the Mythology of Free Trade: Critical Reflections on Comparative Advantage, 17 Berkeley La Raza L.J. 65 (2006), available at SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1588987

 Markets, Monocultures and Malnutrition: Agricultural Trade Policy through an Environmental Justice Lens, 14 Mich. St. J. Int'l L. 345 (2006), reprinted in L. Lakshmi, Environment and Health: Issues and Implications (Amicus Books, ICFAI University Press, 2008), available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=986852.

 Trade Liberalization, Food Security and the Environment: the Neoliberal Threat to Sustainable Rural Development, 14 J. Transnat'l L. and Contemp. Problems 419 (2004), available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=987150.

 Seasons of Resistance: Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security in Cuba, 16 Tul. Envtl L.J. 685 (2003), reprinted at http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/bibarticles/gonzalez_seasons.pdf,available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=987944.

 Institutionalizing Inequality: The WTO Agreement on Agriculture, Food Security, and Developing Countries, 27 Colum. J. Envtl L. 433 (2002), available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=987945.

 Beyond Eco-imperialism: An Environmental Justice Critique of Free Trade, 78 Denv. U. L. Rev. 979 (2001), excerpted in James Kushner, Comparative Urban Planning Law: An Introduction to Urban Land Development in the United States through the Lens of Comparing the Experience of Other Nations (Carolina Academic Press, 2003), available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=987941.

Book Reviews and Introductions

Presumed Incompetent: Introduction (with Angela P. Harris) in Presumed Incompetent: the Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia (Utah State University Press, forthcoming 2012).

The Global Politics of Food: Introduction to the Theoretical Perspectives Cluster, 42 U. Miami Inter-Am. L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2011) (symposium introduction).

El Liberalismo neoclásico, el libre mercado y sus críticos (with Daniel Bonilla Maldonado and Colin Crawford) in Democracia, derecho y economía de mercado (Bogotá, Colombia: Editorial Temis S.A., 2010) (book introduction), available on SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1558703

 Reality, Theory and a Make-Believe World: the Fundamentalism of the "Free" Market (with Daniel Bonilla Maldonado and Colin Crawford), 5 Seattle J. for Social Justice 499 (2007) (symposium introduction).

Book Review: Global Agricultural Trade and Developing Countries, 5 World Trade Review 308 (2006).

Other Publications

Op-ed, Setting the Record Straight about Latino Immigrants (with Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic), Seattle Times, May 20, 2011, available at: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2015108753_guest22delgado.html

Markets, Monocultures and Malnutrition: Agricultural Trade Policy through an Environmental Justice Lens (2007) (Center for Progressive Reform White Paper), available at: www.progressivereform.org/articles/Gonzalez_702.pdf.

Environmental Justice (with Member Scholars of the Center for Progressive Reform) (2006) (Center for Progressive Reform Perspectives Series), available at: www.progressiveregulation.org/perspectives/environJustice.cfm.

An Unnatural Disaster: The Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (2005). White paper co-authored with Member Scholars of the Center for Progressive Reform. Contributed to the section of the white paper entitled "The Two Americas," discussing issues of race, class and justice. The white paper is available at: www.progressivereform.org/Unnatural_Disaster_512.pdf.