Course Description

The world is facing triple planetary crisis- climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. The ever-expanding quest for economic development, justified by poverty eradication and the increasing needs of a burgeoning population, has resulted in the exploitation of nature and its resources and in unwanted disruptions to ecosystem balances. This has also resulted in unsustainable consumption patterns and uncontrollable waste generation. These problems are not confined to a country but spread across the globe without distinction between the global north and the global south.  Hence, it is essential to understand how the global community responds to these dynamic issues through the development of treaties, customary principles, state practices and judicial decisions.

This course will help students explore this aspect and understand the interaction between domestic environmental law and the international regime, serving as a companion to the Environmental Law and Policy (ELP) course, offered as a core course at the university. But learning ELP is not required to attend this standalone course.  The course shall not discuss any domestic aspects of environmental regulations that are in the domain of the ELP.

The idea of this course is to provide students with a fundamental foundation in the evolving legal domain that addresses the dynamic issues of the environmental sector.

Diverse topics in IEL shall be discussed in this course, ranging from understanding the foundations of development, sources, theories, approaches, and discourses, to analysing how IEL has responded to and addressed key environmental issues.

The course shall be taught through a mix of different approaches- lectures, seminar-style discussions, and student participation. It is expected that students will read the assigned material prior to class and come prepared to discuss and engage critically.