YEREVAN, Armenia — When Armenia assumes the presidency of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Conference of the Parties (COP 17) this October, it will take the helm of one of the most consequential global environmental processes of our time. Tens of thousands of delegates, scientists, diplomats, and advocates from around the world will converge on Yerevan for the largest international event ever hosted in the country. Behind the fanfare lies a practical question: How ready is Armenia’s professional community to engage with the legal and policy architecture that underpins it all?
A new program aims to help answer that question. The American University of Armenia (AUA) is partnering with Yerevan State University (YSU) and the Armenian International Law Association (AILA) to offer a Professional Development Program in International Environmental Law, the first of its kind in Armenia. The Program, which is an outcome of a memorandum of understanding signed in February 2026 between the three organizations, is open to receive applications until April 22, 2026.
Across 12 sessions running from May through September, participants will work through the substantive legal frameworks that govern how states manage shared resources, resolve environmental disputes, comply with multilateral treaty obligations, and hold citizens, businesses, and themselves accountable for their environmental footprint. The sessions will be held alternatively at AUA and YSU, bringing together an international lineup of legal scholars and practitioners alongside Armenian experts, policymakers, and representatives of international organizations.
“The timing is anything but coincidental. Armenia is undergoing a period of rapid regional change in which the effective and constructive management of sensitive environmental issues plays a growing role in advancing peace and cooperation. Building a professional community capable of engaging with international environmental law is as much a matter of diplomatic readiness as it is of technical expertise,” said program manager Davit Khachatryan, an AUA lecturer and researcher at the AUA Acopian Center for the Environment.
The curriculum is deliberately wide-ranging. Early sessions lay the conceptual groundwork, examining the core principles of international environmental law and their relevance to Armenia’s existing treaty commitments. Later sessions move into more contested and applied territory: transboundary water governance, the legal dimensions of environmental justice, the growing use of environmental law in inter-state arbitration, and the emerging intersection of business, finance, and nature. A closing session tackles one of the field’s more underexplored frontiers, the architecture of international environmental crime control.
Offering the Program reflects a broader ambition by the partnering institutions: to anchor in Armenia a durable community of practice capable of contributing meaningfully to international environmental law and diplomacy well beyond COP17.
Applications are open to lawyers, policymakers, civil servants, researchers, and faculty working at the intersection of law, diplomacy, and environmental governance. Designed for professionals who can commit to the full series, the program is selective, and seats are limited. The language of instruction is English.
At AUA, the initiative is led by the AUA Acopian Center for the Environment and the AUA Master of Laws program. At YSU, the leads are the Master’s Program in International Courts and Arbitration and the Environmental Law Research Center.
AILA is a highly active civil society organization with programs supporting the development of international law capacities in Armenia.
For more information and to apply, visit ace.aua.am/projects/international-environmental-law-pdp.
The program is free of charge. The application deadline is April 22, 2026.
The AUA Acopian Center for the Environment, a research center of the American University of Armenia (AUA), promotes the protection and restoration of the natural environment through research, education, and community outreach. The AUA Acopian Center’s focus areas include sustainable natural resource management, biodiversity protection and conservation, greening the built environment, sustainable energy, as well as information technology and the environment. Visit http://ace.aua.am.
