A Ghanaian lawyer and academic, Jamaldeen Tonzua, has been awarded the 2024 United Nations Global Environment and Sustainability Law Fellowship.

He is the first Ghanaian laureate of the fellowship, and he will benefit from extraordinary professional resources and hands-on training in global environment and sustainability law, at the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

This recent award is the fourth of such professional and academic fellowships that he has received from the United Nations since 2019.

Jamaldeen is a bilingual lawyer with practice experience and specializations in international business transactions, public international law, energy and environmental law, and international arbitration and dispute resolution.

He is the managing partner of the law firm Merton & Everett and he leads the firm’s energy and natural resources practice team.

Additionally, he is a lecturer at the law faculty of the Ghana Institute of Law and Public Administration and a guest lecturer at the University of Ghana School of Law (LLM Programs).

Mr Tonzua has served as a government legal advisor and a military staff officer in Ghana.

He is passionate about human rights, environmental sustainability, and climate change policy, and he has provided professional services to foreign governments, international organisations, and policy think tanks in those areas.

Jamaldeen holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the University of Oxford and a Master of Laws degree from Georgetown Law.

He is studying for the Doctor of International Affairs at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.