Besides the wide range of CUSL courses, the Chair of US-American Law is offering regular courses in national (German) and international environmental law.
German Environmental Law: Deutsches Umweltrecht
Prof. Dr. Kirk W. Junker will be teaching German Environmental Law at the UoC this WS 21/22 together with practicing environmental lawyers. The lecture includes an introduction to national environmental law, as well as an introduction to specific fields of environmental law like ground protection or climate protection law. The lecture will be held online and if possible, also include live excursions. The lecture time is Wednesdays from 5:00–6:30 pm. It is possible to count this course for the Environmental Law Certificate. Places are limited! Please register now by stating your name, semester and matriculation number via e-mail to: environmental-law-center(a)uni-koeln.de
Environmental Law: Basics and Comparative Studies
"Environmental law is a discipline of its own since approximately 1970. Since that time, one can find laws made by the state in India, Germany, the United States and many other countries of the world. What one should realize from this date in time is that environmental law was produced by the social events of the 1960s, which themselves were a product of social unrest. Some of the social unrest was due to worldwide awareness that the industrial processes that enabled rapid growth in wealth, also came with great costs to the social and natural worlds. In its first generation, environmental law thus came about as an attempt to provide specific legal tools to conserve natural resources and protect human health and the natural world. In its second generation, through the principle of sustainable development, environmental law now also includes economic and social concerns. And it is also in this second generation of environmental law that we realize that environmental problems are worldwide and may be solved in a variety of ways by different states through law."
- Prof. K. Junker
International Environmental Law
International Environmental Law - has been deemed the most interdisciplinary course of the law faculty. The course's participants' origins couldn't be more diverse. Besides law students a large number of scientists come from the IMES program and anthropologists from the master program „Culture and Environment in Africa“, which is taught by Professor Bollig.
US Environmental Law
In the United States of America, environmental law has been a discipline of its own since approximately 1970. Since that time, one can find constitutional provisions, statutory law, administrative regulations and binding court case decisions in US Federal and State legal systems that are exclusively characterized as “environmental.” Prior to that time, some of the same problems were addressed, but not addressed under one label, and instead were part of the law of obligations or real property, for example. What one should realize is that this body now known as public environmental law, like all law, was produced by concretely-identified social needs—domestically and internationally. Some of the needs were social unrest due to new awareness that the industrial processes that enabled rapid growth in wealth, also came with great costs to the social and natural worlds. These themes have again surfaced, most pronouncedly due to the climate crisis.
In its first generation, the discipline of environmental law thus came about as an attempt to provide specific legal tools to conserve natural resources and protect human health and the natural world. In its second generation, through the principle of sustainable development, environmental law now also includes economic and social concerns.
Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, U.S. Environmental Law, a student should:
1. Understand the function of law in solving the U.S. society’s problems concerning human exploitation of the natural world, as those problems are presented to society through the natural and social sciences.
2. Learn some U.S. sources of environmental law, including federal and state constitutions, statutes, administrative regulations and binding case decisions of federal and state courts.
3. Learn some U.S. institutions of environmental law, including federal and state legislatures, executive administrative agencies, and scientific bodies.
4. To make yourself a better lawyer in your own system by having studied a foreign system. This is a main goal of all comparative law study.
European Environmental Law
As with so many areas of the law, many people—including lawyers—in the twenty-seven states of Europe do not know the influence that European Law has on their own domestic system. The EU’s ‘constitution’ commits it to achieving a high level of environmental protection. In keeping with this, the EU has developed a fascinating but complex set of institutions, procedures and laws to govern the protection of the environment within the EU and beyond. This course will introduce and explore selected — often controversial — aspects of these institutions, procedures and laws. Specific case studies will be included to concretize discussion and to bring the various themes and topics alive. In view of the international make-up of the group of students anticipated to attend the course, focus will be placed upon the role of the EU as a global environmental actor. The course will be of value both to EU students who wish to deepen their knowledge in this area and to non-EU students who have an interest in international environmental law.
Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, European Environmental Law, a student should:
1. Understand the legal basis for environmental law in the various EU sources of law and institutions.
2. Understand some of the measureable successes and failures of EU environmental law.
3. Understand the relationships of EU environmental law to the environmental law of the EU member states and to the rest of the world’s environmental law.