Teaching
Overview
Communities around the world are yearning for leaders in the public, private, not-for-profit, and academic sectors who can use the law to drive the sustainability transition. Our education is designed to help you develop the knowledge and skills required to gain the knowledge and experience to better understand the intersection between law and sustainability and to work to make the planet more sustainable.
Our teaching cuts across disciplines and jurisdictions, is global in scope and covers all levels, from students to practitioners. At Oxford, we supervise DPhil (PhD) candidates in various subjects across the SLP's research domains. Our DPhil candidates become part of our vibrant and collaborative research team. We teach Oxford’s graduate students on a range of graduate courses, including the MSc in Sustainability, Enterprise and the Environment at the Smith School, as well as the world-leading BCL, MJur, and MSc in Law and Finance courses at the Faculty of Law. Dr Benjamin Franta and Dr Rupert Stuart-Smith co-convene ‘The Law and Science of Climate Litigation’ module for MSc students at Oxford’s School of Geography and the Environment.
To foster a stimulating environment for students working on sustainable finance, law, and policy at Oxford, we helped launch the Oxford Sustainable Finance Student Society.
Practitioners seeking to enhance their skills and expertise can benefit from our executive education courses (and the executive education courses we contribute to), delivered at Oxford, online, or at your organisation’s premises.
In September 2025 we will host the next instalment of our Executive Education course ‘Navigating Legal Risks and Opportunities of Climate Change’. This three-day programme is delivered in-person in Oxford by eminent Oxford faculty and practitioners and is grounded in our world-leading research. The course convenes senior stakeholders working in government, law, professional services, business and non-profit advocacy and explores the risks and opportunities that are emerging as the law changes in the context of climate change. Please visit the course webpage for further details and to apply.
We also contribute to the development of bespoke in-house education programmes, designed to become embedded within organisation’s training.
The Oxford Sustainable Law Programme has launched an online course on Law and Sustainability.
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.
This 8-week course is run in conjunction with our partner, Pearson.
In-person course: Navigating Legal Risks and Opportunities of Climate Change
Dates 24 - 26 September 2025
Duration 3 day residential
Location Oxford
Download the 2025 course brochure
Watch an introductory webinar with Dr Thom Wetzer and Dr Rupert Stuart-Smith
Link for more information, to apply, or register for future updates.
This 3-day course explores legal risks and opportunities that are emerging as the law changes in the context of climate change.
Delivered by eminent Oxford faculty and practitioners, the course is grounded in our world-leading research. Oxford’s Navigating Legal Risks and Opportunities of Climate Change Executive Education Programme will examine and discuss key legal and regulatory developments in the context of climate change in the context of relevant scientific, political, and economic developments, and the practical implications of these developments for firms and the financial system as a whole.
In a world grappling with disruptive climate change and an unprecedented and contested transition of our societies towards net zero, climate-related legal action has emerged as a critical force shaping the future of business, government, and society. Without an understanding of how law and regulation is evolving, including the science underpinning these changes and the geopolitical developments shaping them, business leaders, litigators, and government officials are flying blind in the face of shifting financial risks. Understanding the intersection of law and climate change has therefore become paramount for senior leaders and their advisors. The University of Oxford is proud to introduce the second iteration of its executive education course designed around these challenges.
Whether your work and interests lie in government, law, professional services, business, non-profit advocacy, or elsewhere, this immersive and interactive course will equip you with the knowledge, insight, and connections to understand and navigate the rapidly evolving legal landscape. You will be equipped to anticipate future directions in climate-related legal action, and thrive in a world where climate, economics, policy, and law are increasingly salient and intertwined.
Online course: 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 have 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 adopt course assignments and content to their own schedules. Once you finish this course, you'll have a contextualized understanding of the rule 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 specialized topics like climate change and climate risk.
Rankings
The Smith School and Environmental Change Institute's home department, the School of Geography and the Environment, is consistently ranked 1st globally in the QS World University Subject Rankings, including in the current 2021 ranking.
In 2020, The Faculty of Law at Oxford was ranked second in the QS World University Rankings by Subject for the second year in a row.
The University of Oxford is ranked 1st in the world in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings and has been for the last five consecutive years: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.
Graduate Students
We are open to requests to (co-)supervise doctoral work at Oxford and welcome applications from Visiting Research Students.