James Gustave Speth papers

James Gustave Speth (1942-) is a lawyer, activist, author, and advocate for the environment. He was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina, and spent his childhood there before graduating from Yale College in 1964 (Jonathan Edwards College). He then attended the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and subsequently Yale Law School (JD, 1970). Speth states that his early life in Orangeburg shaped his attitudes both towards both the environment and social policy.

Upon finishing law school, Speth became a founding member and senior attorney of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). With the NRDC, he brought civilian suits against the United States government on behalf of environmental issues. He left the NRDC, in 1977 to work for the Jimmy Carter's United States presidential administration as first a member, and then chair, of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). During this time, Speth became increasingly aware of the dangers of climate change, and in 1979 he asked prominent ecologists to write a report on global warming.

Following his work on the CEQ, Speth continued to advocate for the environment by launching and leading the World Resources Institute (WRI) in 1982 with the help of funds from a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. With the WRI, he continued to work on focusing global environmental attention on climate change and other environmental issues.

Shortly after the presidential election of Bill Clinton in 1990, Speth joined the presidential transition team as the head of the environmental team. This position led him to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), where a recommendation from Vice President Al Gore led him to become an UNDP administrator. During this time, he was deeply involved with the UNDP's Resident Coordinator Program. The Resident Coordinator Program stationed UNDP offices in underdeveloped regions around the world. Speth was also involved in United Nations Reform, particularly the reforms implemented by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in the 1990s that streamlined the development work done by the United Nations into one agency, the United Nations Development Group (UNDG).

Speth left the UNDP in 1999 to return to Yale University. He became the dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Science, where he spearheaded the building of Kroon Hall, a then-new building for the school. Kroon Hall is notable for its adherence to sustainability. As dean, Speth taught classes that outlined his concerns on the environmental crisis, which resulted in his book Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment. Speth later wrote the book The Bridge at the Edge of the World, a book that emerged from the DeVane lecture series, also at Yale University.

Speth retired from Yale University in 2009 to accept a teaching position at Vermont Law School. During his time at Vermont Law School, he wrote Angels by the River, his memoir.

In addition to his career in environmental law, Speth has also served as a fellow in research and innovation organizations, including Tellus Institute. He also received awards for his work in law, development, and environmentalism, including the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Environmental Law Institute.

Biographical information in this note is primarily drawn from James Gustave Speth, Angels by the River: A Memoir (White River Junction: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2014)