2018 Summer Session Classes
ADR6415/Environmental Dispute Resolution
This course explores the characteristics of environmental disputes, examines alternative dispute resolution processes - such as negotiation, mediation, arbitration, negotiated rulemaking, and facilitation - and explores how to select the most effective processes for a given situation. In this course, you will compare the advantages and disadvantages of adversarial and collaborative approaches in environmental conflicts. You will explore cases involving environmental regulations, compliance, remediation of contaminated property, land use development, and renewable energy generation.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 1ENV5115/Environmental Law
This introductory course covers the history of environmental values and policies, including a discussion of economics and the environment, common law roots, approach to federalism, and environmental justice. It compares and contrasts the major environmental statutes, such as the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Toxic Substances Control Act, and other federal statutes. It considers the goals and objectives of environmental laws, and the choices that are made both implicitly and explicitly in effecting the means of environmental protection.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 1ENV5220/Environmental Economics & Markets
The course introduces students to environmental economics and exposes them to debates over the use of market-based instruments in environmental, energy, and climate policy. It also introduces students to basic concepts in economics and finance, examines key assumptions about market behavior and efficiency, and applies these ideas to environmental problems and actual case studies.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 1ENV5408/The Law of Animals in Agriculture
State-based welfare standards for CAFO animals are on a collision course with the federal government’s expanding control of food and agriculture production. California and Massachusetts sales restrictions on non-conforming eggs and meats are poised to transform U.S.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 1ENV5423/Ocean and Coastal Law
Long neglected by lawmakers despite its essential ecological functions, the marine environment has increasingly been the focal point of conservation and natural resource management efforts. As a foundation for studying the laws that govern the marine environment, the course considers the natural components of estuarine, coastal, and marine ecosystems and the current conservation issues confronting them.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 1ENV5511/Three Essentials of the Electric Grid: Business Essentials
This course sets out, in three linked modules, the fundamental knowledge that professionals should have for working in the closely intertwined fields of energy and the environment. Students may take one, two, or three modules for one credit each.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 1ENV5512/Three Essentials of the Electric Grid: Legal Essentials
This course sets out, in three linked modules, the fundamental knowledge that professionals should have for working in the closely intertwined fields of energy and the environment. Students may take one, two, or three modules for one credit each.
MODULE B – LEGAL ESSENTIALS: With the climate crisis, we have the need to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition to a low carbon economy. This module examines how in practice we can use the power of the law to make progress on our climate goals through clean energy advocacy.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 1INT7445/European Environmental Law
The course introduces students to the important role of the principles of European environmental law in protecting our environment and to EU techniques for environmental management such as environmental authorizations, environmental impact assessment, environmental standards and other mechanisms that integrate scientific knowledge and risk assessment into environmental decision-making.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 1WRI7380/Advanced Environmental Legal Research
This one-credit course provides in-depth exposure to the most useful, efficient strategies and resources for environmental law research, including specialized science and statistical information resources, international environmental law research, advanced administrative law research, legislative history, environmental updating services, etc. The course is designed to prepare students to research environmental legal materials and non-legal materials for use in law school and in practice.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 1ENV5230/Global Energy Law & Policy
Latin America, with 590 million inhabitants, is responsible for 9% of greenhouse gas emissions globally. 80% of those emissions come from four countries; Brazil Venezuela, Mexico and Argentina. 42% of the GHG emissions come from energy. It is estimated that if global temperature rise by 2,5 C, the effect on GDP could be as much as 5% of Regional GDP. At the same time Latin America’s vulnerability to the effect of climate change is well evidenced and documented with Chile among the most at risk place.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 2ENV5383/Food Justice & Sustainability
This intensive seminar focuses on how impact litigation and political advocacy can be used to develop a sustainable food system. We will examine the existing national and local regulatory structures to consider how they facilitate and create barriers to sustainable agriculture; debate current alternative proposals, with a particular focus on local, regional and statebased policy proposals; and strategize ways in which advocates and litigators can push reforms to generate a more open, humane, environmentally sound, safe, and just food system.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 2ENV5430/Ecology
Ecology is an integrative science that can provide insight into many contemporary environmental problems. Through visits to a variety of field sites in central Vermont, readings, and lectures, this course will explore the principles of ecology using a hands-on, interdisciplinary approach. Course work stresses the inventorying of biotic and physical components of a landscape (pieces), examining how these pieces are distributed (patterns), and determining what forces drive these patterns (processes).
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 2ENV5446/Environmental Justice
Since 1979, the environmental justice movement is aimed at avoiding, minimizing, or mitigating disproportionately adverse human health and environmental impacts, including social and economic impacts, on minority, indigenous, and/or low-income communities, and for those communities to be engaged meaningfully in environmental decision-making processes. This course examines this environmental and public health problem.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 2ENV5472/Law of Ecosystem Management
The concept of ecosystem management is sweeping through federal and state resource agencies, altering their orientation toward resource use and conservation issues, but what is the law of ecosystem management? This course explores that question beginning with an introduction to the concept of ecosystem management—its history, principles, and current state of play in concrete policy settings.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 2ENV5474/Land Conservation Law
Increasingly important in our efforts to preserve ecological diversity, historic places, working lands, scenic viewsheds, open space, and public access are conservation tools and processes such as donation of conservation easements, purchase of sensitive lands, and private/public partnerships for land conservation.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 2ADR6413/Mediation Advocacy
This intensive seminar will meet for three consecutive days over one weekend: a Friday afternoon and all day Saturday and Sunday. Students will participate in one complex environmental mediation over the course of the seminar, actively playing the role of attorney and/or client. The seminar will specifically be focused on Mediation Advocacy, not how to be a mediator.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 3ENV5540/Public Health and U.S. Food and Agriculture Policy
It is often argued that individual food choice is the ultimate exercise of personal responsibility in our society. But what if that conventional wisdom was challenged, instead recognizing that a complex web of agricultural and food laws substantially influences what ends up on our plates and ultimately affects the health of individuals and communities?
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 3ENV5561/Environmental Enforcement & Compliance
This course is an introduction to the theory and practice of enforcement of the federal pollution control laws. We will first discuss the basic regulatory structure of the pollution control laws and the administrative, civil, judicial, and criminal enforcement tools available to federal and state regulators to ensure compliance with those laws.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 3ENV____/Animal Welfare Law
In recent years, a broad and rapidly evolving field of law has developed concerning the welfare of animals that are used for a variety of human purposes, including food, entertainment, research, and companionship. Animals used for these purposes often endure a wide range of abuses that diminish animal welfare while also impacting humans.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 3INT7446/International Trade & the Environment
This course is an up-to-the-minute, in-depth treatment of the intersection and frequent clash between two areas of policy and law, both of which are intended to promote human welfare and sustainable development: trade liberalization and environmental protection.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 3ENV5405/Ecosystem Conservation Strategies
This course will focus on gaining an understanding of current approaches to landscape scale conservation projects. The course will review conservation theory and examine specific conservation implementation actions. Case studies will draw conclusions for lawyers and practitioners. The course will involve lectures, class discussion, and a research project. Materials will draw on actual projects involving The Nature Conservancy as well as projects from other conservation organizations.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 4ENV5410/The Farm Bill
American farm and food policy has long been the subject of strenuous debate and criticism. In recent years, prominent criticism has come from a movement of consumer and environmental interests concerned that the way we eat and how we support producers impacts our health, natural resources and the environment. Other interests raise concerns that about Federal spending and government footprint. Regardless of the reason, all of them look to the farm bill. The farm bill, however, is difficult; hard to understand and challenging to change policies that have proven incredibly resilient over m
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Semester
2018 Summer - Term 4ENV5462/Public Lands Management: Montana Field Study
The Montana Field Study is a unique experiential learning opportunity. This class focuses on National Forest Management. Students experience forest management, wilderness, recreation, and roadless issues first-hand, in the wilds of Montana and Idaho. Almost the entire class is held in the field; we backpack into remote places. Instructor permission is required; contact the Environmental Law Center for further information.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 4ENV5468/Oil and Gas Production and the Environment
This course provides students with an understanding of the future of oil and gas as an energy resource, the framework of conservation law and property law used to produce and regulate oil and gas in the U.S., and the externalities of production. The course also reviews the nature of the typical oil and gas lease used in the U.S. on private lands and on federal leases. The federal laws related to offshore leasing are reviewed, notably the Coastal Zone Management Act and the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 4ENV5564/Peace, War, and the Environment
This course provides an overview of international environmental law, peacekeeping and state reconstruction. Its focus is states which have been damaged by conflict e.g. Afghanistan and Iraq, failed states which lack even the most basic facilities and services e.g. South Sudan, and states rich in resources but with weak or ineffective government e.g. Haiti, Western Sahara, Liberia. It begins with an overview of international environmental obligations, considers international humanitarian law, and reviews the establishment and development of peacekeeping missions.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - Term 4ADR6450/Advanced Dispute Resolution Writing Seminar
“The courts of this country should not be the places where resolution of disputes begins. They should be the places where the disputes end after alternative methods of resolving disputes have been considered and tried.” Is Justice O’Conner’s statement true? What are alternative means of dispute resolution and are they really better for parties than taking a dispute to court? This course will introduce students to a wide range of alternative dispute resolution topics so that they can answer these questions.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - 8-Week, Fridays-Only TermENV5223/Environmental Governance in the Developing World
This course will explore the challenges to developing and implementing strong environmental law and governance systems in the developing world from perspectives of rule of law, good governance and system thinking. It will examine the historical, political, and cultural influences, in addition to legal and regulatory regimes, that impact the quality of environmental governance systems. Case studies will be drawn from China and Southeast Asia.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - 8-Week, Fridays-Only TermENV5224/Environmental Governance Field Study
Following completion of the Environmental Governance in the Developing World course, students may participate in an additional field trip to Southeast Asia. This trip will enable students to experience directly environmental conditions in the region and to meet leading environmental scholars and activists. Prerequisite: Environmental Governance in the Developing World.
Professor(s)
Semester
2018 Summer - 8-Week, Fridays-Only TermENV5497/End Use Energy Efficiency
This course describes the reasons for, techniques of, and results from, energy efficiency measures in leading programs around the United States. In exploring how leaders maximize energy efficiency results from the home and business to the grid, the course will explore the systems, policy, and legal basis that legitimize energy efficiency as an energy resource and assure societal trust in the outcomes.