Camila Bustos joined the faculty in 2023. Prior to joining the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, Professor Bustos was 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 is a graduate 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. Professor Bustos 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. She was also the co-chair of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project at Yale, and co-chair of the Women of Color Collective. Prior to law school, she worked as a human rights researcher at the Center for the Study of Law, Justice, and Society (Dejusticia) in Colombia.
Professor Bustos’s writing has appeared in The Guardian, the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, the ABA Human Rights Magazine, and the first legal casebook on Earth Law. Her research and scholarship focuses on human rights law, environmental law, international environmental law, and climate change law. Her forthcoming co-authored article, Climate Migration and Displacement: A Case Study of Puerto Rican Women in Connecticut, will be published in the Connecticut Law Review. She is a frequent presenter on climate displacement, human rights, climate law, climate ethics, environmental justice, and more. Currently, she serves on the Advisory Board of Law Students for Climate Accountability, and she is a Board Member of Breach Collective.
View all of Professor Bustos's publications on Digital Commons or download her CV (PDF).
Climate litigation, corporate accountability, climate migration, climate displacement, climate ethics
Haub Environmental Law Professor Camila Bustos highlights Baltimore’s legal efforts to hold Big Oil accountable in an article for The Baltimore Sun, emphasizing the right of communities to seek justice for climate impacts. “Communities like Baltimore deserve their day in court,” she writes.
On September 7, 2024, the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University hosted the inaugural Early Environmental Law Scholars (EELS) Conference. The goal of the Early Environmental Law Scholars is to foster community building, idea exchange, and professional development for emerging scholars in the field.
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Professor Camila Bustos was featured in Nature regarding the slow responses to climate change, despite it being acknowledge as a health emergency. She discusses how citizens and experts are turning to the courts as a path towards accountability, action and adaptation.