030247 KU International Environmental and Climate Change Law (2024S)

Protection of the environment and tackling climate change are the most pressing concern faced by the international community today. This course aims to equip students with a detailed knowledge of the international law regime that seeks to protect the environment and tackle climate change. The course will take students through the role of international law in the ‘protection’ of the environment, ‘prevention’ of harm to the environment and ‘consequences’ of causing damage to the environment in the form of international responsibility and compensation. In relation to climate change, the course will focus on international treaties and practices, particularly the Paris Agreement and evolving developments from the perspective of international law. The course will be an opportunity to study and critically analyze international environmental and climate change law. Most importantly, the question whether international law is capable of addressing threats to environment and climate change.

The goal of the course is to equip students with necessary skills to understand the existing legal regime for the protection of environment and addressing climate change applicable to States. The course would take a general approach within the specialized field of international environmental and climate change law, with the aim of making them skilled to handle these issues in any capacity that they may face them professionally: working in the private sector, government, public policy, think tanks, NGOs etc.

The course will be taught in weekly class sessions. Each class session will be a combination of lectures and class discussions. The teaching and the discussions would be based on the course material set out in this syllabus. Students are expected to do the readings in advance and participate in the class discussions based on their understanding of the reading material and their own critical approaches to the topics intended to be taken up in the class. To facilitate discussions in the class, a set of questions is provided in this syllabus. Students are expected to think about these questions towards preparation for the class.