Dr. Bradnee Chambers Appointed as New Executive Secretary of CMS

Bonn, 12 March 2013 - The UNEP/AEWA Secretariat warmly welcomes Dr. Bradnee Chambers who has entered on duty as the new Executive Secretary of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS). He succeeds Ms. Elizabeth Maruma Mrema who took up her new post at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Headquarters in January 2012. Prior to his appointment, Dr. Chambers headed the Law and Governance Branch of the Division of Environmental Law and Conventions at UNEP Headquarters in Nairobi.

Dr. Chambers has worked in various capacities in UNEP including as Senior Legal Officer and Head of Policy and Synergies between Multilateral Environmental Agreements. The last few years he led the UNEP Secretariat in the Nairobi-Helsinki Ministerial Consultative Process on International Governance and at the Rio+10 Summit which led to the upgrading and strengthening of UNEP in the outcome document “The Future We Want”.

He has co-chaired, with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the Multilateral Environmental Agreement (MEA) Information and Knowledge Management Initiative (IKM) - a collaborative platform that brings together 40 global and regional agreements from 14 secretariats hosted by 4 different UN organizations and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The CMS and AEWA Secretariats actively participate in the Initiative which develops harmonized and interoperable information systems for the benefit of Parties and the environment community at large. A main focus of CMS is the Online Reporting System for MEAs, which has been developed by UNEP-WCMC and successfully used by AEWA in 2012.

Dr. Chamber’s relevant experience in examining the efficacy of Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) will be a most valuable asset for the UNEP/CMS Secretariat. He has published widely on the topic and in his publication “Interlinkages and the Effectiveness of MEAs” (2008) he developed a framework for measuring the effectiveness of MEAs, and showed how the effectiveness of MEAs can be improved through greater synergies and interlinkages between them.

Dr. Chambers contributed to various key UNEP publications such as the “Human Rights and the Environment OHCHR-UNEP Joint Report (2012)” and “Measuring Progress: Environmental Goals & Gaps” (2012) which were both launched at the Rio+20 Summit. He was also a convening lead author in the landmark Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and Global Environmental Outlook 4 (GEO4), and a lead author in the Near-term Climate Protection and Clean Air Benefits assessment.

During his academic career he was a Senior Legal Research Fellow at the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law at McGill University in Montreal, Canada and a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo and Chuo University. From 1996-2008, Dr. Chambers worked for the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS) in Tokyo, where he served in various capacities including as the Institute’s Legal Advisor, Senior Researcher and Head of its Sustainable Development Governance Programme.

From 1994-1995, he worked at the Transnational Corporation Division of UNCTAD (Geneva), developing transparency rules governing investment in developing countries in Asia. He participated in numerous diplomatic, academic and international conferences, including Conferences of the Parties and Subsidiary Body Meetings for UNFCCC and CBD, WTO ministerial meetings, the Commission on Sustainable Development and as a representative in the UN Environment Management Group.

The Convention will greatly benefit from the comprehensive professional and academic experience that Dr. Chambers brings.