Environmental Law Seminar: Comparative Environmental Adjudication

Catalog description

This unique seminar course offers students the opportunity to study and do research with Judge Merideth Wright, recently retired from the Vermont Environmental Court, one of the foremost specialized environmental courts in the world. Readings and classroom work throughout the course will provide insight into comparative legal systems, and the different ways in which environmental protection and regulation can be carried out within those systems, with an emphasis on court jurisdiction and process. Each student will undertake a project of original research and analysis into judicial practices with respect to environmental issues in a chosen country, culminating in a paper and a brief oral scholarly presentation to interested judges and law professors. Qualifying research will be published on-line to help advance the understanding of environmental courts and tribunals around the world. The seminar is suitable for advanced students with an interest in judicial and administrative tribunal systems around the world, as well as those with an interest in the effectiveness of environmental regulation. Previous course work in substantive environmental law is helpful but not required. This two-credit course will be taught every other week on Wednesday from 9:00 am-12:30 pm, with office hours for individual student meetings on the Tuesday afternoons and evenings of the same week. The professor will also be available for consultation between class dates by email or Skype. Course dates will be Course dates will be 1/18, 2/1, 2/15, 2/29, 3/14, 3/28, 4/18 and 4/25; make-up classes due to weather may be scheduled on the alternate weeks.