Russ Feingold
Chair of the Global Steering Committee of the Campaign for Nature.
Russ Feingold has been serving as the Honorary Ambassador and leader of the Global Steering Committee for the Campaign for Nature since 2019. The Campaign for Nature is a global effort calling on policymakers to commit to address the growing biodiversity crisis. The Campaign advocates for follow-through on the commitments made to protect 30% of the earth’s land and water by 2030, as promised in the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Kunming, China, in 2021.
The Global Steering Committee is composed of former heads of state, foreign ministers, key leaders, and diplomats from around the world. Our members are firmly united by the belief that the destruction of the natural world is an urgent issue for our economies, our health, and the overall well-being of every person and is the only group of its kind organized to address the biodiversity crisis.
Russ served as President of the American Constitution Society from March 2020 to March 2025. He served as a United States Senator from Wisconsin from 1993 to 2011 and a Wisconsin State Senator from 1983 to 1993. From 2013 to 2015, he served as President Obama’s United States Special Envoy to the Great Lakes Region of Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
During his 18 years in the United States Senate, Russ was ranked 6th in the Senate for bipartisan voting. He is a recipient of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award and cosponsored the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold Act), the only major piece of campaign finance reform legislation passed into law in decades. Russ was the only Senator to vote against the initial enactment of the USA PATRIOT Act during the first vote on the legislation and was well-known for his opposition to the Iraq War and as the Senate’s leading opponent of the death penalty. He served on the Judiciary, Foreign Relations, Budget, and Intelligence Committees. Russ was Chairman or Ranking Member of the Constitution Subcommittee.
In addition to his congressional and diplomatic career, Russ has taught extensively at various American law schools, including Stanford Law School, Yale Law School, Marquette University Law School, and Harvard Law School. He has also taught foreign policy to graduate and undergraduate students at Stanford University, University of Wisconsin, Yale University, Lawrence University, and American University.
Russ recently co-authored The Constitution in Jeopardy: An Unprecedented Effort to Rewrite Our Fundamental Law and What We Can Do About It (2022) with Peter Prindiville, Non-resident Fellow, Stanford Constitutional Law Center.
Russ is also the author of While America Sleeps: A Wake-Up Call for the Post-9/11 Era and has contributed regularly to various publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian and other media outlets.
Russ holds a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of Oxford (as a Rhodes Scholar), and a J.D. from Harvard Law School, all degrees awarded with honors.
