• Steering Committee, UN Ocean Decade Coordinating Office on Connecting People and the Ocean (2024-present)

• Advisory Board (previously Executive Committee) for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN, 2018- present)

• Member of the IUCN's World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL, 2017-present)

• Named as one of 15 Youth Ocean Leaders taking on the world internationally by the Sustainable Ocean Alliance (SOA, 2018)

• Master’s in Environmental Law and Policy, Vermont Law School (summa cum laude)

• B.S. in Biology with a Marine Emphasis, Western Washington University

• Developed a robust legal assessment for the initiative to advance legal personhood for Whales in the Pacific and provided input to the He Whakaputanga Moana (Declaration for the Ocean 2024). Currently contributing to the development of a comprehensive legal strategy and draft model bills in partnership with Pacific Whale Fund and Simmons & Simmons.

• In collaboration with the Ministry of the Environment of the Republic of Panama, drafted a motion "Advancing and Ethical human-Ocean relationship” to the 2025 IUCN World Conservation Congress (accepted and pending vote).

• Led drafting and strategy of ‘We are the Ocean and the Ocean is Us: Underpinning Principles of Ocean Rights’ and the 2023 Omnibus Resolution on Oceans and Law of the Sea Proposal to initiate dialogue on Ocean Rights led by Cabo Verde and Monaco. Strategically and legally guiding the initiative towards a Universal Declaration of Ocean Rights, identified in 2023 as 1 of 5 gamechanger movements for the Ocean. 

• Created (and maintaining) the Ocean Rights Movement website, to serve as the central hub for Ocean Rights resources, collaboration and advocacy (to be launched Spring 2025).

• Assisted with campaign strategy and development, and legal drafting, for specific Rights of Nature initiatives including: the Rights of the Southern Resident Orcas in Washington State, USA, national law in the Philippines, Aruba’s proposed constitutional amendment, the rights of sea turtles in Panama and more.

• Developed a guideline for the incorporation of Rights of Nature into marine protected area governance.

• Developed and coordinated comment letters regarding the recovery of the southern sea otter and threats to delisting.

• Assisted with amicus brief preparation for successful federal court litigation on US Marine Mammal Protection Act public display criteria (a case featured in the documentary Born to be Free).

• Coordinated and co-drafted a legal assessment on alternative legal pathways to address the threat of Deep-seabed mining.

• Explored and presented ‘Opportunities for Aquariums to Address Plastic Pollution.’

• Pending publication: Bender, M, Slobodian, L, Gjerde, K M, Cullet, P, Singh, P and Olson, C, The Rights of Nature and Legal Personhood in an Ocean Context, Ocean Yearbook Vol. 39. 

• Bender M and Bustamante R, Reimagining fishing in the Anthropocene through a rights of nature lens (2024), JHRE 15:2, pp:158-182.

• Bender M, Bustamante R, Leonard K, Living in relationship with the Ocean to transform governance in the UN Ocean Decade (2022), PLoS Biol 20(10):e3001828. IFL Science video.

• Chami R, Bender M, Bramley B, Cosimano T, Iles R, Nieburg D, Rosa E, Takoko M and Fullenkamp C, How legal personhood and markets can partner to help save the whale (2024), Front. Ocean Sustain.

• Contribution to The Ocean Race Educational booklet, Generation Ocean. 

• Bender, Michelle and Evans, Jacqueline, Transforming our Relationship with the Ocean- changing values to ensure conservation (2020), Human Development Forum, A Better World Vol. 6, pp. 24-27

• Bender, Michelle, Do conservation plans to protect vital marine ecosystems need to do more? (2020), Ecological Citizen, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 115-16

• Bender, Michelle, Ocean Rights: The Baltic Sea and World Ocean Health, Sustainability and the Rights of Nature in Practice, CRC Press, 2020, pp. 237-256.

• Bender, Michelle, As nature evolves, so too does MPA management need to evolve, Biodiversity, 2018, 19(1–2), pp. 131–136.

• Pending keynote speech “Ocean Rights: human and nonhuman rights to a healthy Ocean”, One Ocean Science Congress (France, 2025).

• IUCN WCEL, Ocean Rights: The Next Frontier in Rights of Nature (2024).

• The Ocean Race Summit: Presenting Ocean Rights (2023).

• Western Washington University Environmental Speakers Series presents: Ocean Rights (2023).

• Keynote speech, Capitol Hill Oceans Week Sea: The Future, 2022 (~29:40).

• Towards a Universal Declaration of Ocean Rights, Monaco Oceans Week (2022).

• Should Orcas have rights? Port Townsend says yes, King5 Seattle news (2022).

Based in Washington State, Michelle spends her free time outside, backpacking, hiking, and paddleboarding with her pomeranian Oliver and partner. She enjoys nature photography and mentoring young professionals.