International and Global Environmental Law (LAWS0274)

This module will investigate environmental law in a global context, examining the main principles, instruments and approaches of international and global law that address environmental challenges.

This module will explore the range of laws and norms that impact on global environmental problems. There are diverse bodies of environmental law that regulate and affect environmental law problems globally, including classic forms of public international law and increasingly transnational, regional and networked bodies of environmental norms. The module will explore these different kinds of law and how they have developed in an environmental context. 

We will explore this rich global legal landscape through a number of case studies. These will vary from year to year, but could include topics such as the role of environmental principles, climate change governance, biodiversity conservation, international water law, international waste law, the impact of international environmental norms in domestic legal regimes, access to justice in relation to environmental matters and how issues of IGEL are decided and enforced via courts and other mechanisms.  

Recommended materials 

Module reading lists and other module materials will be provided via online module pages, once students have made their module selections upon enrolment. 

Preliminary reading 

Background reading (optional), one of: 

• Alan Boyle and Catherine Redgwell, International Law and the Environment  

(Oxford University Press, 4th edition, 2021), chapter 1; or 

• Philippe Sands and Jacqueline Peel, Principles of International Environmental Law (Cambridge University Press, 4th edition, 2018), chapter 1 

And one of: 

• Paul S. Berman, 'From International Law to Law and Globalisation' (2005) 43 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 485; or 

• Thijs Etty, Veerle Heyyaert, Cinnamon Carlane, Daniel Farber, Jolene Lin and Joanne Scott, 'Norms, Networks, and Markets: Navigation New Frontiers in Transnational Environmental Law' (2013) 2(2) Transnational Environmental Law 203. 

Some background reading in public international law is recommended if not previously studied. A good source is: M. N. Shaw, International Law (Cambridge University Press, 9th edition, 2021), chapters 2, 3 and 5 (general overview and how international law is made) and chapter 14 (on the global environment). 

Key information