Prerequisite: None

Exam Type: One-Day Take-Home

Can law save the planet? This course, offered jointly at HLS and FAS/GSAS, investigates a legal movement known as the Rights of Nature. Beginning from the premise that existing environmental law is inadequate to the problems of climate change, mass extinction, and habitat loss, this movement proposes strategies that include granting rights to nature through legal personhood and assigning property rights to wildlife. The course explores both the promise and problems with this mode of thought while also excavating the field’s origins, which lie in many places, including, importantly, in Indigenous Law. In a semester-long project, students will be assigned to delegations representing human and nonhuman constituencies and the course will then culminate in a mock constitutional convention.