About This Class
This seminar is a research and writing seminar that will provide a framework and faculty supervision for students to engage in comparative environmental law research. While the seminar is designed primarily to support VLS students participating in the U.S.-Asia environmental law research projects, the seminar is sufficiently broad to accommodate students interested in researching the environmental law systems of other countries. The seminar will provide some basic introduction and background on comparative law and methodology, a brief introduction to Chinese environmental law and governance, and other environmental laws in Southeast Asia countries, and research methods and resources. Students will learn basic comparative law methodology and research skills related to navigating a foreign legal system and generate a series of research reports or a publishable paper at the end of the course.
This course will focus on helping students design/refine their research project proposals and critiquing their research and draft papers.
This course is a two-semester sequence (fall 2-credits, spring 1-credit), though the fall semester may be taken independently. Students are required to write a paper or a series of research reports of 30-35 page equivalent (for 3 credits) or a paper or a series of research reports of 20-25 page equivalent (for 2 credits) as their final exam.
Spring 2016; ENV5306; 1 credit continuation-registration must be added with faculty sponsor.
Method of evaluation: class performance (10%) and the final paper (90%).