January 19, 2016

International LLM alum, Veronica Muriel, working at Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Veronica Muriel, LLM alum, talks about her time at Lewis & Clark as an international LLM student, and about working at Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

I have always been passionate about the environment, and Lewis & Clark was the perfect place to improve my knowledge in the environmental law field and gain the tools and experience I needed to be an environmental lawyer with an international perspective. The courses, clinical experience and other multiple events at Lewis & Clark were the perfect combination for me to have a great experience during the course of my LLM Everything I learned at Lewis & Clark prepared me for the challenges I will face during the rest of my career as an environmental lawyer in Colombia.

 

In particular, the work I did  with IELP, in which I learned about international environmental law and participated in the negotiations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, gave me the experience I needed for my current job back home.        

 

Currently, I work at the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is the governmental entity that deals with international issues in Colombia. In my job as Advisor of the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I give advice in biodiversity matters and coordinate the relations between Colombian governmental entities and the secretariats of different biodiversity-related treaties such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora-CITES. This requires, among other things, to prepare Colombia’s participation in the different international meetings and also participating in these meetings representing the Colombian government.