Prospects for integrating an environmental sustainability perspective within the university law curriculum in England

Abstract

This paper postulates an integrative method for acquiring a foundational environmental law knowledge base, composed of the relevant environmental principles and techniques, within the “core”/compulsory modules of the standard university law curriculum in England. The proposal is to introduce an environmental sustainability agenda within the teaching of the university law degree. This would entail the incorporation of no more than two or three lecture contact hours within each of the “core”/compulsory subjects to induce an appreciation of the ways in which environmental protection issues are being integrated into every major field/area of law. It involves the introduction of selected environmental law case studies within the standard lecturing/teaching schedule for each of the “core” modules within the university law school curriculum, following a foundational introduction to the main principles and techniques of environmental law. These case studies are expressly chosen to align with significant elements of the teaching of individual “core” law subjects. In this way, the entire cohort of undergraduate LLB students will be appraised of environmental law developments within the specific contexts of the “core” subjects of the law curriculum, rather than environmental law being taught to a much smaller group of students who choose it as a “stand alone”, specialised, niche, but thereby arguably also marginalised, optional module within the undergraduate law curriculum. It is hoped that this approach will transcend the specialist but arguably marginal way in which environmental law is currently being taught within English universities generally.