From marginality to mainstream: the evolution of teaching and learning in environmental law

Abstract

A book on teaching and learning in environmental law is justified, given the emergence of environmental law as a regular component of the law curriculum in many countries and the widespread use of innovative and distinctive teaching methodologies in courses on this subject. In addition, an examination of the challenges in designing and delivering an environmental law course can assist scholars who are at an early stage of teaching in this area. Environmental law has evolved from having status as a marginal aspect of legal education to become a new and dynamic sub-discipline that constitutes a part of the mainstream of legal scholarship and education in many parts of the world. This evolution is reflected in the burgeoning body of publications in this field and in the emergence of an expanding community of environmental law scholars, particularly through the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law. examines ways of addressing the challenges that arise in designing and delivering an environmental law course, both at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. It focuses particularly on the purpose, scope and content of such courses. It also outlines a wide range of innovative teaching methodologies that have been deployed by environmental law teachers, including to deal with the interdisciplinary nature of the subject. It also covers the teaching of international environmental law and the supervision of doctoral dissertations in this area. Finally, the chapter identifies two broad challenges that remain with respect to the future direction of environmental law teaching: first, to find the resources to enable an expansion of the number of legal scholars equipped to teach environmental law in those parts of the world where it is not yet a mainstream subject in the law curriculum; and second, the need to manage the impacts of technological innovation on the teaching of environmental law, from expanding access to digital technologies in the classroom and effectively utilizing such technologies in distance learning to determining the role of technologies such as remote sensing, data analytics, algorithms and artificial intelligence.