Jessica Wentz

Jessica Wentz joined the Sabin Center in September 2014 as an Associate Director and Postdoctoral Fellow. Jessica is now a non-resident senior fellow at the Sabin Center. She also works as the contracts officer and business operations manager at a climate science research firm in California. Her work at the Sabin Center has spanned a variety of topics related to climate change mitigation and adaptation, sustainable development, and environmental justice. Much of her research has focused on how existing U.S. laws and common law doctrines can be used in conjunction with climate science tohold governments and private actors accountable for contributions to climate change as well as failures to prepare for the impacts of climate change. She has also written on the nexus between climate change and human rights law.

Jessica previously worked as a Visiting Associate Professor and Environmental Program Fellow at the George Washington University Law School. She is a 2012 graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was awarded the Alfred S. Forsyth Prize for “dedication to the advancement of environmental law.” She also has a B.A. in international development from the University of California, Los Angeles and an LL.M. in Energy and Environmental Law from the George Washington University Law School.

Books and Book Chapters

• Climate Science and Human Rights: Using Attribution Science to Frame Government Mitigation and Adaptation Obligations" in Litigating the Climate Emergency: How Human Rights, Courts and Legal Mobilization Can Bolster Climate Change (César Rodríguez-Garavito ed. forthcoming 2022) (co-authored with Michael Burger and Daniel Metzger)
• "Environmental Impact Assessment" in Global Climate Change and U.S. Law, 3rd Ed. (Michael B. Gerrard, Jody Freeman, Michael Burger, eds., forthcoming 2022).
• "Implementing Section 115 through the SIP revision process" in Combating Climate Change with Section 115 of the Clean Air Act (Michael Burger ed. 2020) (co-authored with Jared Snyder)
• “Corporate Social Responsibility and Climate Change” in Corporate Social Responsibility – Sustainable Business: Environmental, Social and Governance Frameworks for the 21st Century (Rae Lindsay and Roger Martella eds., 2020) (co-authored with Michael Burger)
• “Climate Change and Human Rights” in Human Rights and the Environment: Legality, Indivisibility, Dignity and Geography (James R. May and Erin Daly eds., Elgar Encyclopedia of Environmental Law series, Vol. 7, 2019) (co-authored with Michael Burger)
• “Climate Change and Public Health Impact Assessments,” in Climate Change and Public Health Law (Michael Burger & Justin Gundlach eds., 2018)
• Technical Contributor, "Reducing Risks Through Adaptation Actions" in the Fourth National Climate Assessment (U.S. Global Change Research Program 2018)
• “Nitrous Oxide,” in Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization (Michael Gerrard & John Derbach eds., 2019)
• “Scaling Up Local Solutions: Creating an Enabling Legal Environment for the Deployment of Community-Based Renewable Microgrids,” in Energy, Governance and Sustainability (Jordi Jaria i Manzano et al., eds., IUCN Academy of Environmental Law 2016) (co-authored with Chiara Pappalardo)
• “Climate Change and Environmental Impact Assessment,” in Decision Making in Environmental Law (LeRoy Paddock et al., eds., Edward Elgar 2016)
• “Debunking Revisionist Understandings of Environmental Cooperative Federalism: Collective Action Responses to Air Pollution,” in The Law and Policy of Environmental Federalism: A Comparative Analysis (Kalyani Robbins & Erin Ryan, eds. 2015) (co-authored with Robert Glicksman)
• Next Generation Environmental Compliance and Enforcement (ELI Press 2014) (co-edited with LeRoy Paddock)
• “The Netherlands,” in International Environmental Law: The Practitioner’s Guide to the Laws of the Planet (Brett Grosko & Roger R. Martella, Jr. eds., Chicago: ABA Book Pub. 2014) (co-authored with LeRoy Paddock)
• “Emerging Regulatory Frameworks for Hydraulic Fracturing and Shale Gas Development in the United States,” in The Law of Energy Underground (Donald N. Zillman et al. eds., Oxford University Press 2014)