FACULTY & STUDENT RESOURCES
Environmental Courses
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School Course Catalog
LAW-35500A Environmental Law and Policy
C. Sunstein Spring M, T 10:15-11:45
This course explores the interaction between environmental policy and
environmental law. A main goal will be to provide a sense of the possible
approaches to environmental problems -- approaches that cut across
numerous domains. Special attention will be given to air pollution; climate
change; the role and limits of cost-benefit analysis; the precautionary
principle; information disclosure as a regulatory tool; and novel and
emerging approaches to environmental conflicts. The resolution of
environmental problems through private litigation, federal regulation,
economic incentive systems, and judicial review of administrative decisions is
examined.
LAW-35550C Environmental Law: Advanced
R. Lazarus Fall Th, F 10:00-11:30
This course supplements the general survey course in environmental law
and therefore assumes a basic understanding of the material covered by that
introductory course. The survey course can perhaps be best described as a
series of broad, shallow dives into the substance of federal environmental
law. The advanced environmental law course is a series, far fewer in number,
of much narrower and deeper dives into the same material. The basic
objective of the course is to teach students how to navigate and think about
an exceedingly complex regime of statutes, regulations, informal agency
practices, in the context of addressing a concrete issue. Topics more closely
identified with natural resources law rather than federal environmental law
may also be covered.
LAW-35620A Energy Law
J. Rossi Spring M 5:00-7:00
This course will examine the legal, regulatory and market oversight of the
energy sector, with an emphasis on contemporary legal and policy debates
about energy sources, use, and transmission. Topics addressed will include
regulation of the supply of energy, including siting of generation and
transmission infrastructure; the regulation of demand and use behavior;
regulatory reform in electricity and gas; sustainability and challenges
presented by new energy sources such as renewable power; energy and
climate change; other issues presented by major environmental regulations
that apply to the energy sector; and energy and national security.
LAW-38710A International Environmental Law
D. Wirth Winter M, T, W, Th, F 9:00-12:00
This course is an introduction to legal aspects of a rapidly expanding
area of increasing importance to the study of both the environment and
international relations. After introductory sessions treating basic principles,
the course will address legal aspects of substantive issues such as: (1) the
greenhouse effect; (2) trade and the environment; (3) development assistance and the environment; (4) exports of hazardous substances, such as pesticides and hazardous wastes; (5) environmental impact assessment; (6) bilateral issues with Canada and Mexico; (7) stratospheric ozone depletion; (8)
acid rain; (9) Antarctica; and (10) biodiversity. The course emphasizes
the operation and interpretation of treaties and other legal international
instruments, such as the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete
the Ozone Layer, the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change, and the Rio Declaration; legal aspects
of the structure and functioning of international organizations such as
the United Nations, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization;
and the importance of domestic legislation, regulation, and practice in the
international process.
LAW-41175A Law and China Advanced
L. Fang, Y. Shen Winter M, T, W, Th, F 9:00-12:00
This course will explore the role of law in the People’s Republic of China
today, with particular attention to legislative and judicial responses to specific
problems arising from China’s economic, political and social transition.
After a brief introduction to major legal institutions, the course will focus
in important part on the role of law in the development of the Chinese
economy and challenges spawned by this process. Topics to be covered
include the effort to reorganize state owned enterprises into business
corporations and the implications thereof for the Chinese securities market,
the on-going involvement of the state both as regulator and commercial
proprietor, contractual autonomy and its limitations, intellectual property
protection, environmental protection, consumer protection, and civil
litigation. Other topics, outside the business area, will be addressed.
LAW-45540A International Law A
P. Alston Fall M, T 8:30-10:00
This course provides an overview of international law through the lens of
the legal aspects of current international controversies. The aim is to provide
an understanding of how the doctrine, institutions and methodologies of
international law have responded to the dramatic changes that have affected
the international community over the past two decades or so. The structure
of international law, its goals, processes and institutions will be examined
through consideration of issues such as human rights, international economic
law, environmental law, terrorism, and war. Particular emphasis will be given
to the role of the United States within the overall international regime.
LAW-46565A Science and the Law: Competing Universals: Reading Group
S. Jasanoff Spring T 1:00-3:00
Science and the law are seen as the foremost sources of authority in crafting
social order, at national as well as supranational levels of governance. It
is therefore critically important for legal analysts and practitioners to
understand the ways in which the supposedly independent authorities of
science and the law are implicated in constituting, sustaining, and sometimes
challenging one another. Drawing on both legal scholarship and science
and technology studies, this reading group will examine the role of science
in the law and of law in science--with a particular eye to the evolution of
international norms and standards in areas such as intellectual property,
environment, public health, and development.
LAW-90335A Bioethics: Seminar
F. Kamm Spring T 5:00-7:00
Philosophical discussion of selected issues in bioethics, such as allocation
of scarce resources, equity in healthcare, death, euthanasia and assisted
suicide, abortion, embryonic stem cell research. Readings primarily from
contemporary philosophical sources. This seminar is jointly offered with
Harvard Kennedy School and the Philsophy Department.
LAW-93024A Environmental Law and the Supreme Court
R. Lazarus Spring T 5:00-7:00
This seminar will explore the role of the United States Supreme Court in the
shaping of the nation’s environmental and natural resources laws. Students
will review and discuss some of the most significant Supreme Court rulings
and Justices, beginning with the nation’s early years and extending to current
times and issues now before the Court. The seminar will also examine the
role of advocacy before the Court in environmental cases. Readings will
include legal scholarship on the Court’s environmental law precedent,
the Court’s opinions, and in-depth examination of the briefs and oral
arguments in significant environmental law Supreme Court cases. If there
are any pending environmental law cases before the Court at the time of the
seminar, those cases will invariably become a major focal point of study and
discussion.
LAW-93052A Environmental Law Practice: Skills, Methods, and
Controversies: Seminar
W. Jacobs Spring W 5:00-7:00
Prerequisite or co-requisite: Administrative Law, Environmental Law, or
Legislation and Regulation. This seminar will focus on the actual practice
of environmental law, introducing students to the practical skills necessary
to effectively handle a variety of environmental cases and issues in and
out of the courtroom. Students will gain an understanding of some of the
statutes and rules applicable in environmental cases; an appreciation for the
professional roles, values and ethics involved in the practice of environmental
law; and an opportunity to develop practical lawyering skills and practice
analytical techniques for the resolution of contemporary environmental
challenges and problems.
LAW-94035A Green Cities—New York: Seminar
D. Barron, G. Frug Fall/Spring M 5:00-7:00
In December 2006, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Plan New York
City, an ambitious urban agenda that includes an element called Green
NYC. This aspect of the plan involves a major focus on environmental
issues, ranging from reducing the city’s impact on global warming to
dealing with waterways and brownfields. Check it out: www.nyc.gov/html/
planyc2030/html/challenge/ greenyc.shtml. This seminar will address the
legal problems that New York City confronts in undertaking this effort.
Taught in conjunction with attorneys now working for the New York City
Law Department, the seminar will consist of two parts. The first element
will introduce basic issues of local government law and local environmental
policy. The second, which involves clinical work with the New York City Law
Department, will take place principally in the Spring. It will enable students
to help the City in its effort to resolve some of the legal issues that it now
faces.
LAW-95965A Land Use Puzzles, Natural Resource Dilemmas: Seminar
D. Kelly Spring Th 5:00-7:00
This seminar will explore various approaches for resolving several of the
classic problems of social coordination, e.g., the tragedy of the commons,
strategic holdouts, free riders, and negative externalities, by analyzing a
number of recent controversies in land use and natural resources law. Issues
will range from the assembly of fragmented parcels and the alleviation
of congested runways to managing ocean fisheries and reducing CO2
emissions. Readings will include excerpts from articles by Calabresi,
Demsetz, Ellickson, Farber, Ostrom, Radin, Revesz, Rose, Salzman, Shavell,
and Vickrey, among others. Students are required to participate in class
discussions and write a final paper (15-20 pages).
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