Scott W. Stern

Scott W. Stern is a Catalyst fellow with Greenpeace International’s Legal Unit, based in Amsterdam.His project is aimed at addressing a problem that lies at the intersection of environmental law, labor law, and international human rights law: “slavery at sea.” Scott will develop creative litigation strategies to complement Greenpeace’s grassroots organizing campaigns against slavery at sea in the commercial fishing industry, as well as its devastating effects on communities. He will also work with Greenpeace attorneys in other litigation to assert broad environmental rights in order to combat climate change and protect human rights. Scott is a 2020 graduate of Yale Law School, where he was an articles editor on the Yale Law Journal, co-editor-in-chief of the Yale Journal of Law & Feminism, co-president of the Yale Environmental Law Association, and a board member of OutLaws. While in law school, he spent his summers at Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council and was a student member of Yale’s Environmental Justice and Environmental Protection Clinics. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Scott graduated summa cum laude from Yale College in 2015, with a B.A. and M.A. in American Studies. In his spare time, he moonlights as a historian, and his first nonfiction book, The Trials of Nina McCall: Sex, Surveillance, and the Decades-Long Government Plan to Imprison “Promiscuous” Women, was released in 2018; it was a Boston Globe best book of the year, and it has been optioned for feature film.

Fellowship type: Justice Catalyst

Organization: Greenpeace International

Project name: Using Litigation to Challenge Slavery at Sea