Postgraduate Course: New Perspectives on International Law and the Environment (LAWS11535)
Course Outline
| School | School of Law |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | International law and governance mechanisms have not managed to avert the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. This course will introduce students to diverse alternative perspectives that have been proposed to remedy some of these systemic failings, and critically reflect on their potential and limitations. |
| Course description |
This course introduces students to a range of alternative perspectives on international law and the environment. It starts by exploring the preliminary question of how international law and governance have shaped and continue to shape human-nature relationships. Students will be introduced to a variety of alternative perspectives and proposals, such as critical approaches to sustainable development, indigenous perspectives, rights of nature, forms of commons and ¿commoning¿, ecological law, green criminology and Earth Systems Governance. Through critically evaluating the potential and limitations of these alternatives, students will learn to develop their own informed and creative approaches to thinking about contemporary socio-ecological challenges, drawing on legal arguments, legal theory, and interdisciplinary insights.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate an understanding of how human-nature relationships are shaped by international law and governance, including through the various iterations of the Sustainable Development agenda.
- Critically engage with diverse perspectives on the role of international law as both complicit in and as a potential part of the solution to the triple planetary crisis.
- Understand and analyse the complex intersections of environmental and social justice, including through de-colonial and non-western perspectives on international law and the environment.
- Understand and analyse theoretical and interdisciplinary arguments and link these to practical legal implications and proposals for law reform.
- Develop their own critical reflection and creative thinking on key socio-ecological challenges through individual research and writing and through collaborative group work.
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Reading List
Books
U Natarajan and J Dehm (eds), Locating Nature: Making and Unmaking International Law (Cambridge University Press 2022)
G Garver (ed.), Ecological Law in Practice Case Studies for a Transformative Approach (Routledge, 2024)
D French and L Kotzé (eds), Research handbook on law, governance and planetary boundaries (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021)
Articles
I Feichtner and S Ranganathan, ¿International Law and Economic Exploitation in the Global Commons: Introduction¿ (2019) 30 European Journal of International Law 541
C Blanco Vizarreta, ¿Rethinking International Law along with Amazonian Ontologies: Problematizing Human-Non-Human Divisions¿ (2024) 37 Leiden Journal of International Law 847
S Maechler and V Boisvert, ¿Valuing Nature to Save It? The Centrality of Valuation in the New Spirit of Conservation¿ (2024) 24 Global Environmental Politics 10
A Branch and L Minkova, ¿Ecocide, the Anthropocene, and the International Criminal Court¿ (2023) 37.1 Ethics & International Affairs 51
A Akhtar-Khavari, Afshin, M Lim and K Woolaston, ¿Environmental law¿s extinction problem¿ (2020) 29:4 Griffith Law Review 493
Chapters
KP Whyte, ¿Time as Kinship¿ in J Cohen and S Foote (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Environmental Humanities (Cambridge University Press 2021)
J Gilbert and others, ¿The Rights of Nature as a Legal Response to the Global Environmental Crisis? A Critical Review of International Law¿s ¿Greening¿ Agenda¿ in D Dam-de Jong and F Amtenbrink (eds), Netherlands Yearbook of International Law 2021 (TMC Asser Press 2023);
K Birrell and J Dehm, ¿International Law and the Humanities in the Anthropocene¿ in S Chalmers and S Pahuja (eds), Routledge Handbook of International Law and the Humanities (Routledge 2021). |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Research and enquiry skills: students will learn to critically engage with diverse alternative perspectives on the role of international law in relation to the triple planetary crisis. They will learn to enquire into the assumptions underpinning dominant legal structures and forms of argument.
Personal and intellectual autonomy skills: students will be able to develop their own critical reflection and creative thinking on key socio-ecological challenges within a safe learning environment. Through in-class debates, collaboration in small groups and authentic assessment, students have the opportunity develop a sense of individual and collective agency.
Personal effectiveness skills: students will learn to formulate and motivate their ideas effectively, and to constructively and meaningfully engage with those of others. Through collaboration in small groups, students will develop relational and reflexive ways of learning and co-developing ideas.
Communication skills: students will develop their oral and written argumentation and communication skills. |
| Keywords | international law,global environmental governance,environmental humanities,sustainability |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Rozemarijn Roland Holst
Tel:
Email: r.rolandholst@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms Susanna Wickes
Tel:
Email: Susanna.Wickes@ed.ac.uk |
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