Prof. Patricia Kamieri-Mbote

Prof Patricia Kameri-Mbote

Professor Patricia Kameri-Mbote, SC is the Director of the Law Division at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and a globally recognised authority on environmental law, natural resource governance, and sustainable development. She previously served as the Founding Research Director of the International Environmental Law Research Centre (IELRC), where she led its Africa Programme for more than two decades. With over 30 years of academic and policy leadership, Professor Kameri-Mbote has worked extensively at local, national, regional, and international levels. She has consulted for UNEP on programme evaluations, legal frameworks, and stakeholder engagement processes, and has been a central contributor to the Montevideo Environmental Law Programme since 2007. She is also a member of the Governing Board of the International Council on Environmental Law (ICEL). A distinguished academic, she is a Senior Counsel in Kenya and a long-serving Professor of Law at the University of Nairobi, where she also served as Dean of the School of Law. She has taught environmental law at the University of Kansas, the University of Zimbabwe, and Stellenbosch University, and has chaired the Association of Environmental Law Lecturers in African Universities, helping to expand environmental law education across Africa, North Africa, and the Middle East, including judicial capacity-building programmes. Professor Kameri-Mbote holds a JSD (1999) and LLM (1996) from Stanford University, an LLM (1989) from Warwick University, and an LLD (2019) from the University of Nairobi. She also holds an Honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) from the University of Oslo (2017). Beyond academia, she has advised governments and international institutions including DFID, the World Bank, USAID, UNEP, UNDP, WIPO, NORAD, and the Government of Kenya. She was appointed to the Committee of Eminent Persons in 2006 to advise on Kenya’s constitutional reform. Her contributions have been recognised by institutions such as the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). Her research and publications span environmental and natural resource law, human rights, women’s rights, land tenure, climate governance, biotechnology policy, and economic law. She is a sought-after speaker at global, regional, and national forums.