Climate Change and Courts

Christina Pak Principal Counsel and Team Leader, Law and Policy Reform Program, Asian Development Bank
	Christina Pak specializes in international development finance and law and policy reform. She is currently a Principal Counsel of the Asian Development Bank and is responsible for managing the Office of General Counsel’s Law and Policy Reform Program which designs, processes, and implements technical assistance projects directly to developing member countries relating to legal and judicial reforms. She oversees a diverse portfolio in the areas of environment protection and climate change, gender equality, private sector development, public-private partnerships and digital economy. Christina leads ADB’s judicial capacity building program on commercial and environmental and climate change disputes (www.ajne.org) and Developing Environmental Law Champions Program (www.teachenvirolaw.asia) which aims to improve environmental legal education in Asia and the Pacific. She also co-leads the Legal Readiness for Climate Finance and Climate Investments technical assistance which has been modernizing legal frameworks to attract greater international climate finance and climate investments into ADB’s developing member countries (https://cclr.lexxion.eu/article/CCLR/2018/1/4) and most recently, assisted with the enactment of the Fiji Climate Change Act 2021. Additionally, Christina specializes in international arbitration reform and has been assisting various countries accede to the New York Convention and/or put in place implementing arbitration law, including Fiji, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Timor-Leste and Uzbekistan. She also speaks on dispute resolution mechanisms under international trade and investment agreements. Additionally, Christina serves as ADB’s Accountability Mechanism Policy Counsel and the Office of the General Counsel’s technical assistance, partnerships and knowledge focal point and is a Steering Committee Member of ADB’s Gender Equality and Environment Thematic Groups.In her previous role as a project counsel at ADB, she worked on complex multi-sector projects across the Central West, Southeast and East Asia regions. Prior to joining ADB, Christina was a legal counsel and vice president for markets and international banking at a major UK bank in Singapore and a finance associate at a large law firm in New York City. Christina is a Steering Committee Member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law and a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. She is a US-qualified lawyer, admitted in the States of New York and New Jersey.

Christina Pak
Principal Counsel
and Team Leader, Law and Policy Reform Program,
Asian Development Bank

Christina Pak specializes in international development finance and law and policy reform. She is currently a Principal Counsel of the Asian Development Bank and is responsible for managing the Office of General Counsel’s Law and Policy Reform Program which designs, processes, and implements technical assistance projects directly to developing member countries relating to legal and judicial reforms. She oversees a diverse portfolio in the areas of environment protection and climate change, gender equality, private sector development, public-private partnerships and digital economy.

Christina leads ADB’s judicial capacity building program on commercial and environmental and climate change disputes (www.ajne.org) and Developing Environmental Law Champions Program (www.teachenvirolaw.asia) which aims to improve environmental legal education in Asia and the Pacific. She also co-leads the Legal Readiness for Climate Finance and Climate Investments technical assistance which has been modernizing legal frameworks to attract greater international climate finance and climate investments into ADB’s developing member countries (https://cclr.lexxion.eu/article/CCLR/2018/1/4) and most recently, assisted with the enactment of the Fiji Climate Change Act 2021. Additionally, Christina specializes in international arbitration reform and has been assisting various countries accede to the New York Convention and/or put in place implementing arbitration law, including Fiji, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Timor-Leste and Uzbekistan. She also speaks on dispute resolution mechanisms under international trade and investment agreements.

Additionally, Christina serves as ADB’s Accountability Mechanism Policy Counsel and the Office of the General Counsel’s technical assistance, partnerships and knowledge focal point and is a Steering Committee Member of ADB’s Gender Equality and Environment Thematic Groups.In her previous role as a project counsel at ADB, she worked on complex multi-sector projects across the Central West, Southeast and East Asia regions.

Prior to joining ADB, Christina was a legal counsel and vice president for markets and international banking at a major UK bank in Singapore and a finance associate at a large law firm in New York City.

Christina is a Steering Committee Member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law and a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. She is a US-qualified lawyer, admitted in the States of New York and New Jersey.