Law & sustainability: Tackling global environmental challenges
In brief
| Time commitment | 8 weeks |
|---|---|
| Location | Online |
| Fees | £1,500 including VAT |
| Future course dates | August & October 2023, February & May 2024 |
Overview
Be a part of the University of Oxford’s mission to tackle global environmental challenges and use the law as a tool to catalyse the sustainability transition.
The law is both a driver of the contemporary environmental, natural resource, and sustainability challenges which humanity faces today, and a critical tool for addressing them. From climate change and biodiversity loss to water scarcity and energy efficiency, the law plays a critical role in society’s ability to mobilise an effective response. This course surveys the most pressing sustainability issues and the existing and emerging legal frameworks that may address them across a range of jurisdictions.
The course will address sustainable development and the law; environmental protection and climate change; and opportunities for intervention within health and food law and corporate and securities law. Participants are introduced to a range of definitions, concepts, and themes which provide foundational knowledge in sustainability, with both theoretical and practical applications for how law can be used to mediate, prevent, and redress sustainability challenges. Participants should leave the course empowered with confidence in their understanding of sustainability and equipped with tools and perspectives to act both as individuals and within their professional roles.
Booking
Law & sustainability: Tackling global environmental challenges
Pearson website
Course details
In this course, learners will examine and develop an understanding of:
- the key sustainability challenges domestically and globally;
- legal principles and frameworks for environment and sustainability;
- the key international treaties developed to address sustainability issues like climate change and the loss of biodiversity;
- the relationships between science and the law;
- systemic lawyering for sustainability;
- the role of non-legal actors including NGOs, think tanks, and civil society;
- how corporate and securities law can address sustainability challenges.
An introduction to Law and Sustainability
Video transcript
This course is for you if you have some basic familiarity with the law and a real interest in using its tools to address contemporary sustainability challenges. You should take this course if you're a paralegal, a lawyer, an NGO advocate, if you work in government or in business. We've designed this course to leverage the advantages of the online format. This format uniquely allows students to engage with peers from all over the world, learn from leading faculty doing the most cutting edge work in these areas, and adapt course assignments and content to their own schedules. Once you finish this course you'll have a contextualised understanding of the role of law in creating, and more importantly, mediating sustainability challenges. You'll be equipped with tools that you can apply to mediate sustainability challenges from within your law firm, government office, think tank, NGO or company, and you'll understand the dynamics between different parties which will allow you to formulate effective strategies and partnerships. This course will give you the background and foundational understanding required for later courses that focus on more specialised topics like climate change and climate risk.
Modules
Introduce yourself to your fellow cohort and meet the Facilitator, who will be providing support to you throughout the duration of the course. Learn more about what the course offers and how to navigate through it. Tell us more about yourself by answering the questions and posting to the discussion board.
- Identify major sustainability challenges facing the world today
- illustrate what is unique about sustainability challenges and attempts to mediate them
- analyse the interactions between science, law, and public policy as they play out in key sustainability challenges.
- Identify some of the key legal tools available to address sustainability challenges
- illustrate dynamics within and between jurisdictions
- critique key international treaties governing global sustainability.
- Identify key scientific concepts pertinent to climate-related legal actions
- discuss leading climate change research, including attribution science, and sources of evidence
- analyse the way that science informs law and legal claims, including use of scientific evidence and expert witnesses in litigation.
- Describe systems thinking and system dynamics
- illustrate systems thinking and the impact of legal intervention and implications for law and policy
- analyse the effects of direct and indirect agents in systemic lawyering applications.
- Identify sustainability challenges for corporations and investors, including climate change and supply chain issues
- give examples of the key parties involved in corporate and securities law as it deals with sustainability – including corporate boards of directors, management, shareholders, regulators, proxy advisory services, and standards-setting agencies
- analyse different opportunities for legal involvement with corporate sustainability, including regulatory guidance, preventative steps like sustainability clauses in commercial contracts, environmental social and governance disclosures, and litigation in the form of shareholder derivatives suits and tort claims.
- Recognise the relationship between sustainability, public health and human health
- illustrate the relationship between sustainability and food access and food security
- advocate legal strategies for sustainability in the context of health and food law, focusing on farming and agriculture.
- Distinguish key challenges faced by jurisdictions in the global north versus the global south
- illustrate the priorities and perspectives of the global south
- analyse climate litigation in the global south.
- Recognise the relationship between attribution science and legal theories of causation in the context of climate change
- give examples of the aims of net zero and the tools available to achieve it
- assess the notion of climate risk governance in light of climate risk management.
Teaching team
In brief
| Time commitment | 8 weeks |
|---|---|
| Location | Online |
| Fees | £1,500 including VAT |
| Future course dates | August & October 2023, February & May 2024 |