Professional Affiliation

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Oceans, Fisheries and Polar Affairs, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, US Department of State

Expert Bio

Professor Maxine Burkett serves as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Oceans, Fisheries and Polar Affairs in the Department of State’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs where she oversees the formulation and implementation of U.S. policy on a broad range of international issues concerning the oceans, the Arctic, the Antarctic, and marine conservation.

Previously, Burkett served as an Expert Senior Advisor to Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry where her portfolio included climate-related migration, climate security, bilateral relationships with island nations, and Indigenous Peoples’ engagement. A professor of law, Burkett was on the faculties of the University of Hawaii’s William S. Richardson School of Law and Colorado Law, where she has taught climate law and ocean and coastal law, and is a visiting professor at Harvard Medical School’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine.

Burkett has served on numerous state and federal committees, including the Federal Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment and the Independent Advisory Committee on Applied Climate Assessment, convened by the State of New York and Columbia University. Professor Burkett was a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and was a co-founder and Senior Advisor at the non-profit Institute for Climate and Peace. She is a member scholar of the American Law Institute and the International Law Association’s Committee on International Law and Sea Level Rise, for which she served as a Co-Rapporteur from 2019 to 2021.

Prof. Burkett received her B.A. from Williams College, which awarded her the Bicentennial Medal for Distinguished Achievement in 2016, and Exeter College, Oxford University. She received her J.D. from Berkeley Law, University of California, and served as a law clerk for The Honorable Susan Illston of the United States District Court, Northern District of California.

Wilson Center Project

"Climate Change Law and Policy"

Project Summary

Professor Burkett’s research seeks to address the international implications of climate change with a focus on adaptation and resilience, particularly as it relates to the concerns of small island states and other most vulnerable communities. Her scholarship engages the emerging phenomenon of climate-induced migration and loss and damage, under which certain kinds of displacement, migration, and relocation might fall. Loss and damage seeks to address climate impacts to which a community cannot adapt, such as sea-level rise, ocean acidification, and desertification. The impacts are notably unique and potentially catastrophic, at least for the threatened regions in the near term. Professor Burkett approaches each scholarly endeavor with a spirit of integration and pragmatic problem-solving. To that end, she continues to work on interdisciplinary teams to produce cutting-edge and actionable research to better cope with climate change impacts. Burkett remains an active principle investigator in externally funded research on migration as well as and expert in consultation with negotiating blocs and community groups.

Major Publications

Lessons from Contemporary Resettlement in the South Pacific, 68 COLUMBIA J. INT’L AFFAIRS 2 (Spring 2015)
The Nation Ex-Situ: On Climate Change, Deterritorialized Nationhood, and the Post-Climate Era, 2 CLIMATE LAW 1 (Fall 2011)
Climate Refugees, in SHAWKAT ALAM, JAHID HOSSAIN BHUIYAN, TAREQ M.R. CHOWDHURY AND ERIKA J TECHERA, EDS., ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW (Routledge, Oxford, 2012)