Professor Michael I. Jeffery (QC) is Deputy Chair of the IUCN's Commission on Environmental Law and a member of the Global Energy Law Working Group.
Professor Jeffery is a graduate of the University of Toronto (B.A., LL.B) and Osgoode Hall, York University Canada (LL.M ). He was appointed Queen's Counsel (1978), is a member of the Ontario Bar (1967 - 2002) and is admitted as Legal Practitioner in New South Wales (1998).
Professor Jeffery holds a Chair in Law in the Division of Law at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. He is Executive Director of the University's Centre for Environmental Law, and served briefly as Dean of Law during the Law School's recent restructuring. He was former Chairman of the Environmental Assessment Board of Ontario, Canada in the 1980s, (a position analogous to that of Chief Judge of the NSW Land and Environment Court). He has also published and lectured extensively on a wide range of environmental and administrative law issues.
He has practiced for many years at the Ontario Bar and was a senior partner of one of Canada's largest law firms, where he headed its environmental law practice group (1990 - 1995). While in private practice, he was lead counsel in several major environmental law cases and represented a wide variety of clients in the manufacturing, forestry, mining and waste disposal industries. He undertook research at the Natural Resources Law Center of the University of Colorado (CU) as its Distinguished Visiting Research Scholar in the area of public lands reform (1995).
Professor Jeffery is former Chair and Vice-Chair of the International Bar and American Bar Associations' International Environmental Law Committees. He is former advisor to the Canadian Law Reform Commission and served as Chair of the Council of Canadian Administrative Tribunals.
His research interests lie primarily in the area of international environmental law. His extensive research produced recent publications on climate change and the use of market-based financial mechanisms, bioprospecting, the impact of intellectual property rights and trade-related issues on biological diversity, and the need for intervenor funding in the context of public participation.