Please note the following consultancy opportunities are not ClientEarth contracted roles but consultancy contracts.
Terms of Reference: Consultant to support ClientEarth’s legal work in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire
Duty station: Home-based / Remote
Type and duration of contract: Consultancy contract, from 15 February to 30 April 2026
Closing date: 15 February 2026. Please note applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
Reporting to: Catherine Lalonde, Head of FOLU African Partnerships
ClientEarth’s Food, Oceans and Land Use (FOLU) African Partnerships programme works to build, implement, and enforce effective laws as a vital component of governance systems that more equitably and sustainably manage forests and other ecosystems. The programme is grounded in long-term partnerships with lawyers and civil society organisations across West and Central Africa.
The programme has been shaped by international, regional, and European initiatives aimed at addressing forest governance challenges and the drivers of ecosystem degradation, including the EU Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan and Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs), the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), the Global Biodiversity Framework, and the Paris Agreement. While each jurisdiction presents distinct challenges, the extensive expertise of ClientEarth’s local partners—combined with ClientEarth’s innovative use of the law—enables the delivery of tailored and effective legal solutions to strengthen national legal frameworks.
Under this consultancy, the Consultant will primarily support work related to forest governance, community rights, nature credits and forest-risk commodities—specifically timber, cocoa, and minerals—in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.
The Consultant will draw on their experience and skills to support in-country partners in promoting multi-stakeholder participation in policy and legal reform processes, particularly in the context of international forest policy frameworks such as the FLEGT VPA, and in light of emerging global supply-chain standards and corporate sustainability regulations (including EUTR, EUDR, and CSDDD).
Legal consultant to support ClientEarth’s fundamental rights work in Europe
Duty station: Home-based / remote
Type and duration of contract: Consultancy contract, part-time for 11 months, (approximately 25 - 30 hours/week)
Sarting date: 23 March 2026 to 22 February 2027
Closing date for applications: 9am GMT on 11 February 2026
Purpose:
Legal Research and analysis and thought leadership - conduct research and prepare analysis in relation to the integration of international environmental law and European human rights law in the intersection of biodiversity protection and social rights, in the context of specific and confidential legal interventions identified by ClientEarth.
Stakeholder Engagement – where necessary, consult and collaborate with partners and key stakeholders identified by ClientEarth.
In the last five years, there have been significant advances in the legal recognition of environmental human rights. Many national constitutions, for instance, now recognise the fundamental right to a healthy environment. At the international level, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a landmark Resolution (76/300) on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. The International Court of Justice declared the right to a healthy environment as the foundation for the realisation and enjoyment of human rights, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in a case in which ClientEarth intervened, also recognised the right to a healthy climate as a component of the right to a healthy environment. Taken together, these developments show that human rights law and human rights courts are key players in the effort to curb the triple planetary crisis.
ClientEarth’s “The Right to a Healthy Environment in Practice” Project leverages these legal developments by integrating environmental and human rights law to develop stronger obligations on States to protect people and planet, creating legal precedents and environmental justice models for other activists to use. In this way, the project seeks to achieve justice for those who suffer the severest effects of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. This contract is particularly focused on strengthening the European legal framework to protect fundamental rights against biodiversity loss.
Download the full terms of reference and application requirements
Expansion of Electricity Markets in the Philippines
Terms of Reference
Background
These instructions seek an independent legal opinion from a qualified lawyer or a team of qualified lawyers with significant power markets experience in the Philippines and abroad on how to evolve the Philippine power sector’s market architecture so that spot, reserve and capacity markets together with auction-based bilateral contracts, and retail competition mechanisms operate in a coherent, investment-attractive framework.
The Philippine Energy Plan (2023–2050) projects electricity peak demand rising from 16,596 MW (2022) to 68,483 MW by 2050. The projected 5.2% average annual growth in demand necessitates a several-fold expansion of installed capacity. To achieve this, a suite of market instruments have been rolled out: the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) for energy trading; reserve markets for ancillary services; green Green Energy Auction Program (GEAP) for long-term offtake agreements for renewable energy (RE); Retail Competition and Open Access (RCOA) for customer choice; the Green Energy Option Program (GEOP) for green customer choice; and now a capacity market to support resource adequacy. While these mechanisms each address specific needs, their roll-out raises questions around overlapping jurisdiction, contractual hierarchies, risk allocation, and incentives. Counsel should assess whether the current legal framework supports a seamless transition toward a multi-layered market that delivers a reliable, low-carbon power supply, and attracts private capital.
Briefly, counsel is requested to advise on (1) the legal and regulatory gaps, ambiguities, and jurisdictional overlaps that hinder the expansion of the Philippines’ existing power markets specifically the WESM, reserve market, and the proposed capacity market, amidst the existence of bilateral contract mechanisms such as the GEAP, power supply agreements (PSAs), RCOA and GEOP; (2) the statutory, contractual, and institutional reforms necessary to enable coherent market operations, ensure resource adequacy, and incentivize renewable energy participation while safeguarding reliability, affordability, and consumer protection; (3) how to integrate policies governing the WESM, reserve market, GEAP, PSAs, RCOA, GEOP and the proposed capacity market into a unified and coherent system accounting for the impact of one market and/or form of bilateral contracting on the others; (4) the legal and regulatory refinements required to spur participation and investment, particularly by renewable energy generators, whilst safeguarding reliability, affordability, and consumer protection, and avoiding carbon lock-in; and (5) how other jurisdictions have structured, governed and regulated multi-layered electricity markets, including lessons learned, legal safeguards, and best practices that may be adapted to the Philippine context.
Request for Advice
Counsel is requested to provide an independent legal opinion on the following matters:
1. What are the legal and regulatory gaps, ambiguities, and jurisdictional overlaps that hinder the expansion of the existing power markets amidst the existence of bilateral contract mechanisms?
a. Which laws, rules, and regulatory gaps or overlaps currently inhibit RE participation or expansion in the WESM, reserve market, or proposed capacity market, especially in a system where bilateral contracts (GEAP, PSAs, ASPAs, RESAs, RCOA, GEOP) still dominate?
a. Which laws, rules, and regulatory gaps or overlaps currently prevent these markets and bilateral contracts from operating as a unified, dispatch-consistent system, thereby reinforcing reliance on inflexible fossil generation?
b. Which laws, rules, and regulatory gaps or overlaps currently create structural advantages for fossil fuel plants (e.g., must-run rules, non-penalized outages, priority dispatch) that are inconsistent with a high-renewable system?
2. What reforms are needed to ensure coherent market operations, support resource adequacy, and incentivize RE participation while safeguarding reliability, affordability, consumer protection, and competition?
a. How do existing rules create barriers for RE, storage, or new entrants; privilege fossil incumbents; or create cash-flow disadvantages for flexible portfolios?
b. Do current retail rules (switching windows, SoLR, RESA pass-through provisions) fairly reflect the risks of RES/aggregators shifting to clean supply? If not, what reforms would lower barriers to RE-aligned retail competition and avoid unintended fossil lock-in?
c. Which market rules or omissions allow anti-competitive behaviour (e.g., withholding, opaque deratings, strategic outages), and what safeguards should be adopted to prevent fossil generators from exploiting these gaps?
d. What transparency requirements (outage data, deratings, constraint forecasts, load forecasts) and publication schedules are necessary to support RE-friendly bidding, hedging, planning, and competition?
e. Which provisions in PSAs, ASPAs, RESAs, GEAP awards, and related regulatory requirements:
i. Lock buyers into long-term fossil commitments (e.g., take-or-pay, minimum offtake, fuel indexation)?
ii. Prevent DUs, RES, or large customers from shifting to cheaper RE or new market products (reserve, GEAP, capacity)?
iii. Hinder future co-optimization of energy, reserves, and capacity or inhibit sub-hourly dispatch?
iv. What model riders or contractual reforms are needed to remove fossil lock-in, enable flexible procurement of renewables, and maintain reliability and investment certainty?
3. What must be done to integrate rules governing WESM, the reserve market, GEAP, PSAs, RCOA, GEOP, and the proposed capacity market into a unified system that accounts for how one market or contract type affects others?
a. What framework (payment priority, collateral, cure periods, invoice cycles, default waterfall) should apply across energy, reserves, capacity, retail, and bilateral charges to ensure fair and dispatch-consistent payment flows?
b. What model PSA and ASPA clauses (curtailment priority, reserve activation, deliverability definitions) are needed to align these contracts with WESM dispatch, reserve market co-optimization, and the future capacity market?
c. How should ASPA rules be updated, on scheduling, activation, settlement, and netting, to avoid overpaying fossil units and enable participation of RE-based and storage-based reserves?
4. What are the legal and regulatory refinements required to spur participation and investment, particularly by renewable energy generators, whilst safeguarding reliability, affordability, and consumer protection, and avoiding carbon lock-in?
a. What legal or regulatory refinements are needed to ensure that RE, storage, and demand-side resources can compete fairly with fossil generators in all markets (energy, reserves, capacity)?
b. What institutional reforms (governance, coordination, rule-making, oversight) are needed to ensure the Philippines can sustain a multi-market, high-renewables system?
5. How have other jurisdictions structured, governed and regulated multi-layered electricity markets?
a. What international market structures, safeguards, and rule-change processes help prevent fossil lock-in and support high levels of renewable penetration?
b. Which lessons, legal safeguards, and best practices are most relevant to the Philippines?
c. How can these be adopted into the Philippine context?
d. What international pitfalls should the Philippines avoid?
Counsel is requested to include in the analysis all relevant laws, policies, regulations, data, and domestic and international (when applicable) jurisprudence on the issue and provide relevant advice and recommendations.
Tentative Timeframe
10 December 2025: Start of Engagement
30 December 2025: Submission of preliminary analysis (first draft) and invoice
05 January 2026: ClientEarth comments
12 January 2026: Submission of final output and slide deck
As needed: Discussion/update calls.
Renumeration
There is a maximum budget of GBP 10,000 inclusive of UK VAT. Applicants are requested to include their proposed rate as part of their submission.
Application procedure
Please send your curriculum vitae to CYu@clientearth.org by 09 December 2025 23:59 PHT.
Please include at least two relevant written samples of past work in your submission. If co-authored, please describe your contribution to the written output. Please note that applications will be reviewed as soon as they are received.
Teams may also apply, provided that each team member submits an individual CV and sample written work, and the application must clearly set out the division of responsibilities among team members and the corresponding allocation of the budget.