{{Short description|American lawyer (born 1942)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=February 2024}} {{Use American English|date=February 2024}} {{Infobox officeholder |name = Gus Speth |image = James Gustave Speth, 2008 (cropped).jpg |caption = Speth in 2008 |office = Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme |1blankname = Secretary General |1namedata = Boutros Boutros-Ghali<br>Kofi Annan |term_start = 1993 |term_end = 1999 |predecessor = William Henry Draper III |successor = Mark Malloch-Brown |office1 = Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality |president1 = Jimmy Carter |term_start1 = 1979 |term_end1 = 1981 |predecessor1 = Charles Warren |successor1 = A. Alan Hill |birth_name = James Gustave Speth |birth_date = {{birth date and age|1942|3|4}} |birth_place = Orangeburg, South Carolina, U.S. |death_date = |death_place = |party = Democratic |education = Yale University (BA, JD)<br>{{nowrap|Balliol College, Oxford (BLitt)}} }} '''James Gustave "Gus" Speth''' (born on March 4, 1942) is an American environmental lawyer and advocate who co-founded the Natural Resources Defense Council.
== Early life and education == Speth was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina in 1942. He graduated summa cum laude from Yale University in 1964, attended Balliol College at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and graduated from Yale Law School, where he was a member of St. Anthony Hall and the ''Yale Law Journal'', in 1969.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Speth |first=James Gustave |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DsebBAAAQBAJ |title=Angels by the River: A Memoir |publisher=Chelsea Green Publishing |date=October 28, 2014 |isbn=9781603585866 |location=Hartford, VT |language=en |via=Google Books}}</ref>
== Career == In 1969 and 1970, Speth served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black. He was a co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, where he served as senior attorney from 1970 to 1977.
He served from 1977 to 1981 as a member and then for two years as chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality in the Executive Office of the President. As chair, he was a principal adviser on matters affecting the environment and had overall responsibility for developing and coordinating the President's environmental program. In 1981 and 1982, he was a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, teaching environmental and constitutional law. Many conservatives considered Speth to be a radical in regards to his approach to environnmetal laws.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/12/president-jimmy-carter-death-100-environmental-legacy-conservation-solar-energy-alaskan-national-wildlife-refuge/ | title=The bold environmental vision of President Jimmy Carter }}</ref>
In 1982, he founded the World Resources Institute,<ref>World Resources Institute [http://www.wri.org/about/board/james-gustave-speth Biosketch of James Gustave Speth]. Reuters. Retrieved March 27, 2012.</ref> a Washington, D.C.–based environmental think tank, and served as its president until January 1993. He was a senior adviser to President-elect Bill Clinton's transition team, heading the group that examined the U.S.'s role in natural resources, energy and the environment.
In 1991, Speth chaired a U.S. task force on international development and environmental security which produced the report ''Partnership for Sustainable Development: A New U.S. Agenda''.
In 1990 he led the Western Hemisphere Dialogue on Environment and Development which produced the report ''Compact for a New World''.
From 1993 to 1999, he served as Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme; he served as special coordinator for economic and social affairs under Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, managed the United Nations Development Assistance Plan and also served as chair of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.undp.org/about/helen-clark-bio.shtml |title=Who we are & What we do |publisher=United Nations Development Programme |year=2011 |access-date=2011-08-24 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110826102552/http://www.undp.org/about/helen-clark-bio.shtml |archive-date=2011-08-26 }}</ref>
In 1999, Speth became the dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. He served the school as the Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. Dean and Sara Shallenberger Brown Professor in the Practice of Environmental Policy when he retired from Yale in 2009 to assume a professorship at Vermont Law School in South Royalton, Vermont.<ref>{{cite web|work=Yale Daily News |url=http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/28138 |title=F&ES unearths new dean |access-date=2009-03-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090308112439/http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/28138 |archive-date=2009-03-08 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Speth was succeeded as Dean at Yale by Sir Peter Crane.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://opac.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=6473 |title=Sir Peter Crane Appointed Dean of Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies |work=Yale Daily News |date=2009-03-04 |access-date=2011-08-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724184449/http://opac.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=6473 |archive-date=2011-07-24 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
In 2014 Speth published his memoir ''Angels by the River''. In that year, he was also board member of the New Economy Coalition.<ref name=angels/>
He currently serves on the advisory council of Represent.Us, a nonpartisan anti-corruption organization.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://represent.us/about|title=About {{!}} Represent.Us|newspaper=End corruption. Defend the Republic.|language=en-US|access-date=2016-11-02}}</ref> He is an ambassador of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ambassadors : Wellbeing Economy Alliance |url=https://weall.org/ambassadors |access-date=2025-08-24 |website=weall.org |language=en-US}}</ref>
Speth has led or participated in many task forces and committees aimed at combating environmental degradation, including the President's Task Force on Global Resources and Environment; the Western Hemisphere Dialogue on Environment and Development; and the National Commission on the Environment.<ref>{{Cite web |title=James Gustave Speth {{!}} World Resources Institute |url=https://www.wri.org/profile/james-gustave-speth |access-date=2025-08-24 |website=www.wri.org |language=en}}</ref>
==Awards== Among his awards are the National Wildlife Federation’s Resources Defense Award, the Natural Resources Council of America's Barbara Swain Award of Honor, a 1997 Special Recognition Award from the Society for International Development, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Environmental Law Institute, and the Blue Planet Prize. He holds honorary degrees from Clark University, the College of the Atlantic, Vermont Law School, Middlebury College, and the University of Massachusetts Boston.
==Publications==
===Books=== * ''Globalization and the Environment'' (as an editor), Island Press (2003) * ''Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment'' (2004) * ''Global Environmental Governance'', Island Press (2006) * ''The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability'', Yale University Press (2008) {{ISBN|978-0-300-13611-1}} * ''America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy'', Yale University Press (2012) {{ISBN|978-0300180763}} * ''Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril'' (chapter), Nelson, Michael P. and Kathleen Dean Moore (eds.) Trinity University Press, (2010) {{ISBN|9781595340665}} * ''Angels by the River, a memoir'', Chelsea Green Publishing (2014) * ''Imagine a Joyful Economy'', with Peter Denton, Wood Lake Publishing Inc''.'' (2020) {{ISBN|978-1-77343-161-1}} * ''They Knew: The US Federal Government's Fifty-Year Role in Causing the Climate Crisis'', MIT Press (2021) {{ISBN|9780262542982}}
===Articles=== * ''Beyond Reform'' Our Planet Magazine [http://www.unep.org/pdf/Ourplanet/2007/february/en/OP-2007-02-en-ARTICLE5.pdf PDF] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304091232/http://www.unep.org/pdf/Ourplanet/2007/february/en/OP-2007-02-en-ARTICLE5.pdf |date=March 4, 2016 }} * ''America the Possible: A Manifesto'', ''From decline to rebirth'' [https://orionmagazine.org/article/america-the-possible/ link] * ''America the Possible: A Manifesto'', ''A new politics for a new dream'' [https://orionmagazine.org/article/america-the-possible-a-manifesto-part-ii/ link]
== See also == *List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States (Seat 1)
== References == <references>
<ref name=angels>{{cite web|title=About the Author|url=http://angelsbytheriver.com/about-the-author/|access-date=8 February 2015}}</ref>
</references>
== External links == {{Commons category}} {{Wikiquote}} * [http://angelsbytheriver.com/ Angels by the River]{{Dead link|date=August 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} - book website * {{C-SPAN|16359}} * {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070701111600/http://environment.yale.edu/profile/240/james_gustave_speth/ |date=July 1, 2007 |title=James Gustave Speth home page }} Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies profile, Archived July 1, 2007 * [https://psmag.com/environment/james-gustave-speth-greenery-and-justice-for-all-97583 Greenery and Justice for All] - Jan 9, 2015, Pacific Standard interview *[http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-16-4j09w0978j “Focus 580; Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of Global Environment,”] 2004-06-29, WILL Illinois Public Media, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed June 5, 2021.
{{s-start}} {{s-gov}} {{s-bef|before=Charles Warren}} {{s-ttl|title=Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality|years=1979–1981}} {{s-aft|after=A. Alan Hill}} |- {{s-intgov}} {{s-bef|before=William Henry Draper III}} {{s-ttl|title=Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme|years=1993–1999}} {{s-aft|after=Mark Malloch Brown}} {{end}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Speth, James G}} Category:1942 births Category:20th-century American lawyers Category:21st-century American lawyers Category:Administrators of the United Nations Development Programme Category:Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Category:American environmental lawyers Category:American non-fiction environmental writers Category:American officials of the United Nations Category:American Rhodes Scholars Category:American sustainability advocates Category:Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs Category:Carter administration personnel Category:Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States Category:Living people Category:Natural Resources Defense Council people Category:People from Orangeburg, South Carolina Category:Yale Law School alumni Category:Yale University faculty