Environmental law may be the one institution standing between us and planetary exhaustion. It is also an institution that needs to be reconciled with human liberty and economic aspirations. This course considers these issues and provides a tour though existing legal regimes governing pollution, water law, endangered species, toxic substances, environmental impact analyses, and environmental risk.

About the Course:

This course will expose students to legal reasoning, especially from the reading of cases involving real-life environmental disputes.

Course Syllabus:

Week 1: Common-law Approaches to Environmental Problems

Week 2: Property and the Environment

Week 3: Two Famous Statutory Programs: Environmental Impact Analysis and Endangered-species Protection

Week 4: Risk Analysis and Toxic Substances: Pesticides, Trade Disputes over Synthetic Hormones, and the Cleanup of Contaminated Sites

Week 5: Environmental Justice, Water Pollution, Claims to a Human Right to Drinking Water, Fracking, and Insights from an Economic Model of Regulatory Cost-Effectiveness

Week 6: Regulatory Design in Pollution Control