Jaime Ubilla, Ph.D. — Professor of Law, Director of the Conservation Right Foundation, Partner at Ubilla & Co. Santiago - Shanghai

Dr. Jaime Ubilla is a lecturer in law at the University of California at Davis, where he focuses on transnational law and international business transactions. His academic research focuses on legal theory, social theory, sociology of private law, transnational law, global law, and biodiversity law.

Dr. Ubilla is the founder of Ubilla & Co. Attorneys and Counselors, which is the first Spanish-speaking Latin American law firm with a presence in China. The firm, which provides legal services to local and international companies and organizations, specializes in transnational and global legal matters, particularly in clean technology and initiatives that bridge Asia and Latin America, such as international trade, technology licensing, and joint ventures. Dr. Ubilla has advised on projects across four continents, navigating complex multijurisdictional issues. Additionally, he has developed legal solutions that foster sustainability by integrating natural and social capital.

Dr. Ubilla’s theoretical and legislative advisory work is grounded in his Theory of Legal Forms and Reflexive Legal Forms, developed through his Ph.D. research at the University of Edinburgh in the UK. This work has recently been recognized as a new approach to reflexive law that addresses and provides a plausible solution to a fifty-year dispute in legal sociology — namely, the question of law’s capacity to steer social change — and was published in the renowned Soziale Systeme journal in Germany (December 2024). He also holds a M.A. in Law from Waseda University and a J.D. from Universidad de Chile.

In addition, Dr. Ubilla proposed and drafted legislation that enacted a new property right known as the “environmental conservation right,” or “conservation right,” in Chile. He has been a member of the Global Commission on Environmental Law of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). He is also the founder and director of the Conservation Law Center of Chile.

Dr. Ubilla has advised many ecosystem conservation and CO2 projects. In this context, he has advised various international conservation NGOs and social business entrepreneurs.