Environmental Law Seminar: Climate and Arctic

Catalog description

The Arctic is melting. How the Arctic experiences climate change is affecting all parts of the Earth. This seminar compares the laws of Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and USA, and laws of Indigenous Peoples in the circumpolar north region. It will assess how national law conforms to, or conflicts with, international law, both the principles of State Responsibility for Climate Change and the agreements such as for constituting the Arctic Council or governing the law of the seas. How does or should this analysis guide how a lawyer advises clients? What might a synthesis of laws governing the Artic reveal about how “ecological law” may be supplanting environmental law? Students each prepare a research paper, which can qualify to satisfy the Upper Level Writing Requirement (ULWR).