The UT Energy Symposium welcomes Monika Ehrman, Faculty Director, Oil & Gas, Natural Resources, and Energy Center (ONE C), The University of Oklahoma College of Law, to give a talk titled Human Right to Energy.
Monika U. Ehrman is Associate Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Oil & Gas, Natural Resources, and Energy Center (ONE C) at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, where she leads the energy program. Her scholarly interests are in the area of oil and gas real property issues, the intersection between law and petroleum technology, and energy policy. Her courses include Oil & Gas Law, International Petroleum Transactions, Energy Negotiations, Property, and Oil & Gas Contracts. She currently teaches in the J.D. and graduate programs at OU Law and in the Executive Energy Management Program at the OU Price College of Business.
Prior to teaching, she served as general counsel of a privately held oil and gas company in Dallas; senior counsel with Pioneer Natural Resources; and associate attorney at Locke Lord LLP. Her practice experience includes oil and gas litigation and energy transactional work. Before law school, Professor Ehrman worked as a petroleum engineer in the upstream, midstream, and pipeline sectors of the energy industry. In addition to her experience with the technical aspects of the industry, she also worked as an analyst in the areas of commodity risk management and energy trading. She is a member of the Board of Directors and a Trustee for the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation and a Trustee for the Energy & Mineral Law Foundation. She is a delegate on the Educational Advisory Board for the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators, where she is the 2018 Professor in Residence. Professor Ehrman is the faculty advisor to the Oil and Gas, Natural Resources, and Energy Journal (ONE J), published by OU Law. She received her B.Sc. in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Alberta; J.D. from SMU Dedman School of Law; and Master’s in Law from Yale Law School. During law school, she was Research Assistant to Professor John Lowe at SMU and to the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy.
Abstract: Our understanding of human rights is that they are the basic rights and freedoms that belong to every individual regardless of circumstance. The advancement of human rights begins with access to affordable and reliable energy access. A lack of energy, whether for electric power or heat, substantially restricts economic and industrial development and is a barrier to social welfare. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, drafted in 1948, recognizes these barriers in Article 25:
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
The underlying foundation of an adequate standard of living, replete with consistent access to food, clothing, housing, medical care, and social services, is energy in all its forms. However, challenges to this energy requirement and reliance arise in the forms of infrastructure, access, and climate consequences.
The UT Energy Symposium meets every Thursday during the long semesters. Come early to attend a networking session before the talk.