Environmental

In April, Harvard Law School participated in festivities commemorating Earth Month at Harvard, an inaugural initiative featuring university-wide events and activities to celebrate and raise awareness about environmental issues.  

The Harvard Office of Sustainability hosted their second annual Green Carpet Award Ceremony in Sanders Theater on Monday, April 11. Complete with an actual green carpet, community members from across the University gathered to celebrate the achievements of individuals and teams contributing to campus sustainability.

Richard J. Lazarus ’79, one of the nation’s foremost experts on environmental law and also a leading practitioner in the U.S. Supreme Court, will join the Harvard Law School faculty this summer as a tenured Professor of Law.

Harvard Law School continues to strengthen its commitment to environmental sustainability and to make progress towards Harvard’s university-wide greenhouse gas reduction goal to reduce emissions 30% by 2016. In January, Harvard Law School recorded its 18th straight month of energy reductions.

In a Jan. 27 talk titled “Line of Fire: On Being a 'Fortune 10' General Counsel," sponsored by the HLS Program on the Legal Profession, Stephen F. Gates ’72 (M.B.A. ’72) addressed the role and responsibilities of in-house counsel in today’s changing world of legal practice, and he spoke candidly about some of the specific situations he has faced in the “line of fire.”

In a November lecture marking his appointment as the Henry N. Ess III Professor at Harvard Law School, Professor John G. Palfrey ’01 called for a new legal information system "grounded in a set of open data."

On Dec. 3, an all-day conference marking the 40th anniversary of the Environmental Protection Agency's creation was held at Harvard Law School. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson was the keynote speaker; also among the speakers and panelists was former Vice President Al Gore, who addressed the luncheon. The event was sponsored by the Law School, the Harvard Kennedy School, the Harvard School of Public Health, and the Harvard University Center for the Environment.

Top practitioners, heads of state, academics, and theoreticians in international development came together with more than 200 students and community members for “Rebuilding After the Storm: The Role of Law in Development Post Natural Disasters,” the HLS Law & International Development Society’s inaugural symposium, held on Nov. 19, 2010.

In his essays, Samuel Moyn considers topics such as human rights and the Holocaust, international courts, and liberal internationalism. Skeptical of humanitarian justifications for intervention, he writes,“[H]uman rights history should turn away from ransacking the past as if it provided good support for the astonishingly specific international movement of the last few decades.”

Harvard Law School Professor Jody Freeman has been selected as a public member of the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), an independent agency of the United States government tasked with improving the efficiency and fairness of federal agencies.

Tyler Giannini has been appointed as a clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School. He was formerly a lecturer on law at HLS.

Last year, as part of Harvard’s International Human Rights Clinic, Susannah Knox ’10 and Lauren Pappone ’11, traveled to British Columbia with Lecturer on Law and Clinical Instructor Bonnie Docherty '01 to investigate how mining affects the Takla Lake First Nation people.

Environmental law expert Richard Lazarus ’79 has been appointed the executive director of a new bipartisan commission created by President Barack Obama ’91 to examine the causes of the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

"The Good Driller Award,” an op-ed by Professor Jody Freeman LL.M. ’91 S.J.D. ’95, appeared in the July 1, 2010 edition of the New York Times.

Two Harvard Law School professors have been appointed to faculty chair positions: Jody Freeman LL.M. ’91 S.J.D. ’95 is the Archibald Cox Professor of Law, and Henry Smith is the Fessenden Professor of Law. Freeman and Smith took their new chairs on July 1.

On Earth Day, the Wasserstein Hall, Caspersen Student Center, Clinical Wing project gained a set of new bicycle shelters at the Lewis Lot, south of Pound Hall. There are 26 bicycle racks within the two enclosures. Additionally, four new bicycle racks have now been added under the Pound Hall overhang facing Lewis International Law Center, and three new bicycle racks now sit under the Holmes Hall west entrance. All the bicycle racks are ready for use.

The special rights guaranteed to First Nations receive inadequate attention in British Columbia when compared to mining interests, the International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) at Harvard Law School said in a report released on June 7.

In an address to the Harvard Law School community, HLS Dean Martha Minow offered a survey of "The Past, Present, and Future of Legal Education: HLS and Beyond.” After discussing the historical evolution of legal education up to the present "time of innovation and renewal,” she offered a preview of future trends and developments.

Every unit, division, and School at Harvard is in a race to meet a pledge: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2016, with 2006 as the baseline year. Harvard Law School is gaining ground on its goal. Buildings on its campus now use about 22 percent less energy than four years ago. The result is a 15 percent drop in greenhouse gas emissions between fiscal year 2006 and fiscal year 2009.

Harvard Law School has awarded prizes for outstanding written work to Cassandra Barnum ’10, Jonathan Bressler ’10 and Ryan Park ’10.