Professor Joyce A. Hughes was honored in August, 2021, with the ABA’s Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award. This award recognizes outstanding women lawyers who have paved the way to success for other women in the legal profession.

As part of receiving this award, Professor Hughes wrote the following essay. The Northwestern University Law Review is honored to reprint this essay here. For more information about Professor Hughes, click here. For more about Professor Hughes receiving the Margaret Brent award, please click here.

Northwestern Law Professor and Seigle Immigration Clinic for Immigrant Youth and Families Director Uzoamaka Emeka Nzelibe presents the trailblazing history and legacy of Professor Joyce A. Hughes. Born in the segregated South, Professor Hughes overcame numerous barriers on her way to accomplishing many historic firsts. Among these firsts, Professor Hughes was the first Black woman to receive tenure in any department in the history of Northwestern University.

In her tribute, Professor Nzelibe recounts the ways in which Professor Hughes paved the way for Black women in law and legal academia—including Professor Nzelibe herself, who took over Professor Hughes’s seminar on refugee and asylum law.

It is no secret that climate change is the most pressing issue of our times. Global South countries, especially those in Africa, face challenges mitigating the worst impacts of climate change, adapting technological solutions, and continuing to develop their nation’s infrastructure and industry. Cameroon provides an archetypal example of the challenges many African countries face. Plagued by an economy that both exacerbates climate change and stands to collapse from it, Cameroon struggles with corruption that has roots in colonialism and neocolonialism. This corruption taints not only the forestry service and the executive branch, but the judiciary as well, leaving Cameroon’s most vulnerable citizens—its forest communities— without redress to affect the climate policy. This Note draws on interdisciplinary scholarship to argue that the Economic Community of Central African States must adopt a broad interpretation of locus standi, a concept similar to standing in American law, to provide an effective avenue for citizens to change forestry policy in Cameroon.