Course Catalogue

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This course interrogates the role of law in addressing the global environmental emergency. As humanity is experiencing the negative consequences of the Anthropocene, where impacts of human activities and consumption are felt across all natural environment in every corner of the planet, it is timely to study the extent to which internationally accepted models of environmental protection and sustainability are fit for purpose, and to evaluate what are their inherent limits are. In order to understand the potential and limits of legal interventions to environmental and sustainability issues, this course examines how law interacts with other systems of knowledge production, such as science, technology, and economics. More specifically, the course sets out to critically engage with dominant legal and policy approaches to environmental protection and sustainability, beginning with traditional international environmental law regimes, then discussing how these regimes and relevant approaches have evolved over time, finishing with a focus on specific case studies (conservation, pollution prevention, food production, etc.) and their associated legal regimes. Throughout the course, students will critically evaluate the connection between between contemporary policies and legal frameworks that promote a 'green transition' and issues of distributive justice such as poverty, violence and domination. Students will be asked to consider if and how law can navigate the tension of achieving 'just transition' while ensuring the preservation of the natural environment.

10 x 2 hour Seminars, typically offered in Semester Two.

This course is only available to LLB students.

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Mid-semester assessment is a blog post on a topical issue of environmental law (800 words, 20%). These blog posts are to be styled according to leading academic blogs in the fields of legal studies, such as the Oxford Business Law Blog (https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/business-law-blog/submission-guidelines); LPE Blog (https://lpeproject.org/blog/) ; and Verfassungsblog (https://verfassungsblog.de/blog/ ) .

The final summative assessment will consist of an individual 15min presentation from each student (with PowerPoint), followed by a 15min Q&A led by the Course Lecturers . The assessment of the slides and presentation will count for 80% of the grade.

Reassessments are normally available for all courses, except those which contribute to the Honours classification. Where, exceptionally, reassessment on Honours courses is required to satisfy professional/accreditation requirements, only the overall course grade achieved at the first attempt will contribute to the Honours classification. For non-Honours courses, students are offered reassessment in all or any of the components of assessment if the satisfactory (threshold) grade for the overall course is not achieved at the first attempt. This is normally grade D3 for undergraduate students and grade C3 for postgraduate students. Exceptionally it may not be possible to offer reassessment of some coursework items, in which case the mark achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade. Any such exceptions for this course are described below. 

■ To introduce students to different ways of regulating sustainability, including the strengths, weaknesses and ethical challenges of various regulatory approaches.

■ To provide an insight into the institutional architecture for ensuring environmental protection and promoting sustainability, with a focus on international law frameworks and transnational law mechanisms.

■ To provide a critical overview of the different theoretical and historical influences that shape dominant legal approaches to sustainability, for them to be able to identify contingencies and possible alternatives to such dominant approaches.

■ To enable students to critically evaluate both the potential and the limits of the law in approaching the most pressing issues of environmental degradation and environmental emergency

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Critically engage with prevalent sustainability discourses and pathways in public policy and the law through oral and written arguments, including the key international and transnational legal mechanisms and institutional frameworks that govern environmental protection and sustainability.

■ Critically examine how law as a system of knowledge interacts with other knowledge systems (science, technology, and economics) to produce dominant epistemic frameworks that shape governance outcomes in the field of environmental sustainability.

■ Identify and present the problems that underpin dominant legal regimes of environmental protection with a reference to specific areas of environmental and sustainability regulation, including conservation, pollution prevention, and food production.

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.