Center for Agriculture and Food Systems

CAFS Summer Scholar Robin Kundis Craig

Robin Kundis Craig
William H. Leary Professor of Law
University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law

ROBIN KUNDIS CRAIG is the William H. Leary Professor of Law at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she is also affiliated with the Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources, and the Environment. Professor Craig specializes in all things water, including the relationships between climate change and water; water and energy; the Clean Water Act; the intersection of water issues and land issues; marine biodiversity and marine protected areas; water law; and the relationships between environmental law and public health. She is the author or co-author of five books: The Clean Water Act and the Constitution (ELI 2nd Ed. 2009), Environmental Law in Context (Thomson/West 3rd Ed. 2012), Toxic and Environmental Torts (Thomson/West 2010), Comparative Ocean Governance: Place-Based Protections in an Era of Climate Change (Edward Elgar 2012), and Modern Water Law (Foundation Press, forthcoming 2013). She has also written over 50 law review articles and book chapters. She was appointed to three successive National Research Council committees on the Clean Water Act and the Mississippi River; has consulted on water quality issues with the government of Victoria, Australia, and the Council on Environmental Cooperation in Montreal, Quebec, Canada; and was one of 12 marine educators chosen to participate in a 2010 program in the Papahanamokuakea Marine National Monument, spending a week on Midway Atoll. Professor Craig also serves on the ABA Section on Environment, Energy, and Resources’ Executive Council; as Supreme Court News Editor for the ABA’s Administrative & Regulatory Law News; and as a consultant to the Environmental Defense Fund. At the University of Utah, she teaches Environmental Law, Water Law, Ocean & Coastal Law, Toxic Torts, and Property.

In connection with her appointment as a Distinguished Summer Scholar, Professor Craig’s work in water quality, water law, and ocean management has piqued her interest in food security and the multiplicity of dimensions of “sustainable food systems.” For example, in working as a consultant to the Environmental Defense Fund, she co-authored a 50-state report on state agricultural nonpoint source programs. In addition, Professor Craig has recently completed several projects on improving ocean governance, a substantial portion of which relates to food security in the form of improving fisheries management and the use of marine protected areas to rebuild fish stocks. Nevertheless, several reports (Oceana, UN FAO, publications in Science) now question whether fish will continue to be a viable source of protein for the world’s populations, creating a world-wide food security crisis that is expected in some quarters by the middle of this century.

At Vermont, therefore, Professor Craig will be engaged in researching a subject to which she has returned periodically throughout her academic career: aquaculture and mariculture. Specifically, she plans to work on the current state of aquaculture (including mariculture) and its role in providing security to food systems. In addition, she has also recently been completing articles that question the continuing viability of sustainability goals in environmental and natural resource law in a climate change era, but she suspects that sustainability may still have great meaning for agricultural systems and food security—a topic that she intends to explore while in residence at the Vermont Law School.