LEAP Speaker Series: “Representing Climate Wreckers” with Camila Bustos ’21

In recent years, lawyers have become increasingly aware of the implications of the climate crisis for legal practice. Amidst this context, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres has urged recent graduates to decline work on behalf of “climate wreckers.” In this talk, moderated by LEAP Faculty Director Doug Kysar, Camila Bustos ‘21 will examine how professional responsibility rules and principles in the U.S. should be interpreted on a warming planet, particularly in the context of attorneys representing “climate wreckers” in civil matters. She will explain how dominant approaches to attorney ethics are frustrating private governance efforts to persuade attorneys to fulfill their duty to the rule of law by securing a transition away from fossil fuels. Ultimately, she will argue, climate change requires a transformation in the practice of law, namely that lawyers choosing to represent climate wreckers should be held accountable for their decision to do so.

Camila Bustos is an assistant professor of law at Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University. Her research and scholarship focus on human rights and environmental law, and her writing has appeared in N.Y.U. Environmental Law Journal, Connecticut Law Review, Albany Law Review, and Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, among others. She is a frequent presenter on climate displacement, climate law, and environmental justice, and has provided expert testimony before the Canadian Senate and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. She serves as a board member of Law Students for Climate Accountability and Save the Sound. 

Professor Bustos was previously a Visiting Assistant Professor of Human Rights at Trinity College and a Clinical Supervisor in human rights practice at the University Network for Human Rights. She also served as a term law clerk to Justice Steven D. Ecker of the Connecticut Supreme Court and as a consultant with the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP). Professor Bustos received her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she received the Francis Wayland Prize and was a Switzer Foundation Fellow and a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow. During law school, she worked at the Center for Climate Integrity, the Climate Litigation Network, and EarthRights International. She also co-founded Law Students for Climate Accountability, a national law student-led movement pushing the legal industry to phase out fossil fuel representation and support a just, livable future, and was the co-chair of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project at Yale and of the Women of Color Collective. 

This event is part of the Law, Environment & Animals Program's Fall 2025 Speaker Series. Lunch will be provided.