Hilal Elver is a Research Professor and co-director of the Project on Global Climate Change, Human Security, and Democracy housed at the Orfalea Center at the UCSB. She is currently serving as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food with the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights. She has a law degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Ankara Faculty of Law, and SJD (Doctoral degree of juridical Science) degree from UCLA School of Law. She started her teaching career in 1985 at the University of Ankara Faculty of Law, and during this period she was also appointed by the Turkish government as the founding legal advisor of the Ministry of Environment, and the General Director of Women’s Status in the Office of the Prime Minister. In 1994, she was appointed by the United Nations Environment Program to the UNEP Chair in Environmental Diplomacy at the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies in Malta. In 1993 she was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Michigan Law School in Arbor, and 1996-1998 she was a visiting fellow at the Center of International Studies at Princeton University. Since 1998 she has been teaching comparative law, international human rights law, and international environmental law at various universities in the U.S and Europe. Currently, she is one of the members of the Turkish negotiation team at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.