Environmental Legal Clinic of the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law

For 40 years, SPDA has been a pioneering organization in the expansion and dissemination of environmental law in Peru, contributing to the development and specialization of this field at both national and Latin American levels, with the aim of strengthening socio-environmental standards and the protection of environmental human rights.

In the educational sphere, for the past 25 years it has promoted the Environmental Law Workshop (TDA), a specialization space aimed at senior law students and recent graduates, as well as those from related fields, focused on training new generations of professionals committed to the environmental agenda.

To date, more than 700 individuals have graduated from the TDA, participating in a program of 23 sessions led by national and international experts. Building on this well-established, high-quality training space, in 2025 SPDA took a step toward practical learning through the creation of the Environmental Legal Clinic. This space is composed of the most outstanding TDA students, who take on the analysis, advisory, and resolution of cases that represent emblematic environmental issues today, under the guidance and mentorship of the SPDA team and environmental experts.

For SPDA, clinical legal education as a model, and environmental legal clinics as a means for action, represent an opportunity, a source of hope, and a purpose that must continue to expand, always under standards, methodologies, and contextual analyses that enable meaningful impact.

“In the context of the triple environmental crisis and emerging legal challenges, environmental legal clinics constitute a source of hope, an opportunity, and a transformative vehicle, as they energize the active practice of law and build a bridge between academia and public action, oriented toward a greater goal: the effective realization of environmental rights.”

Carol Mora Paniagua
Director of Environmental Policy and Governance at SPDA
Promoter of the SPDA Environmental Legal Clinic

Methodology

• Active learning is encouraged through interest and motivation, promoting student-led preparatory actions in the case selection process by identifying legal relevance, socio-environmental significance, and the potential to inform transformative processes. SPDA also encourages cases to be connected to current issues addressed by the organization, fostering feedback and knowledge exchange.
• Critical and reflective analysis is promoted, along with the collection of objective data and information from various sources, including field visits conducted under safety standards.
• Cross-evaluation and exchange among students and working groups are fostered, encouraging openness, meaningful learning, idea enhancement, and the co-creation of strategies and impact scaling.

Main components:

• Interdisciplinary teamwork
• Simulated hearings and personalized advisory sessions
• Ethical reflections at the beginning and end of each session
• Collaborative development of case theory and legal strategies
• Partnerships with research centers

Emerging methodological contributions:

• Cross-cutting ethical approach: ongoing reflection on responsibility and justice at every stage of the case
• Pedagogical flexibility: dynamic methodological adjustments
• Dialogical learning: knowledge construction through debate and reflective dialogue
• Real-world impact perspective: continuous linkage between learning and actual socio-environmental transformation strategies

Pedagogical structure:

• Ethical and reflective opening: connection with personal motivations and social responsibility
• Technical-clinical work: case development and construction of legal strategies
• Formative closure: feedback and collective reflection

Initial results

During the first edition of the Environmental Legal Clinic, 14 outstanding students from the Environmental Law Workshop developed legal strategies to address cases related to the construction of megaproject ports, legal gaps in pollution cases, regulatory setbacks affecting environmental institutions, among other issues.

Key facts

• SPDA is the first civil society organization in Peru to establish an Environmental Legal Clinic.
• In September 2025, SPDA, together with environmental legal clinics from six regions of the country, created the National Network of Environmental Legal Clinics of Peru, a space for co-design, cooperation, and shared learning.
• SPDA is part of the Secretariat of the National Network of Environmental Legal Clinics, alongside Universidad Científica del Sur and Universidad Nacional San Agustín de Arequipa, consolidating its role as a key institution in articulating environmental legal knowledge and action.