Dr. Achala Chandani Abeysinghe is a climate change researcher and environmental lawyer at International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Her interests are in equity & fairness issues in international climate change negotiations, adaptation to climate change and finance for climate change adaptation. She is the team leader of global climate governance programme and head of the European Capacity Building Initiative (ecbi) workshops programme at IIED. She is an adviser to the Chairman of the Least Developed Country (LDC) group in the UNFCCC negotiations and a lead author of the chapter on Climate Resilient Pathways: Adaptation, Mitigation and Sustainable Development in the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Achala obtained her LLB (with Honours) in 2002 from University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. She then taught international environmental law at the Open University of Sri Lanka until 2004 and enrolled the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka as an attorney at law. Achala completed her LLM degree in 2005 and PhD in international environmental law principles on climate change in 2010 at Kent Law School, University of Kent, UK. She worked as a Robert S. McNamara Research Fellow of the World Bank prior to joining IIED in 2009.
Recent Publications, Presentations and Reports
Publications
- Simon Anderson, and Achala Chandani. ´Adaptation in Africa: the global failure to deliver funding´, IIED Publication, December 2008 available at http://www.iied.org/pubs/pdfs/17047IIED.pdf.
- Achala Chandani (2007) ´Sustainability and Distributive Justice Aspects in New Generational International Environmental Law Principles´, Carbon and Climate Law Review 2(1), 152.
Reports
- Achala Chandani, Report of the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2008: Issues related to Sri Lanka, December 2008.
- Achala Chandani, Report of the 4th Adaptation Fund Board Meeting, December 2008, Bonn Germany.
- Achala Chandani, Report of the 3rd Adaptation Fund Board Meeting, October 2008, Bonn, Germany.
Presentations
- Achala Chandani ´Kyoto Protocol and International Climate Change Negotiations,´ Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, 14th -29th July 2007.
- Achala Chandani, ´United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: What happens at a Conference of the Parties?´ Center for Alternative Technology, Wales, 25th -26th of November 2006.
- Achala Chandani, ´Relevance of International Law Principles in Climate Change Regime´, The 13th Conference on international climate policy, University of Leeds, UK. 27th-28th of October 2006.
- Achala Chandani, ´Equity and fairness in International Climate Regime´, The 12th conference on international climate policy, University of Groningen, The Netherlands, 28th- 29th April-2006.
Manuscripts in Preparation
- Saleemul Huq & Achala Chandani ´Globalisation and Climate Change´ in Globalisation and the Quest for Social and Environmental Justice: The Relevance of International Law in an Evolving World Order, (to be published by Routledge-Cavendish).
