About this course: Environmental law may be the one institution standing between us and planetary exhaustion. It is also an institution that needs to be reconciled with human liberty and economic aspirations. This course considers these issues and provides a tour though existing legal regimes governing pollution, water law, endangered species, toxic substances, environmental impact analyses, and environmental risk.
Created by: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Taught by: Donald Hornstein, Aubrey L. Brooks Professor of Law
| Commitment | 4-6 hours/week |
| Language | English |
| How To Pass | Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. |
| User Ratings |
Syllabus
WEEK 1
Common-Law Approaches to Environmental Problems
As the course does not presume any previous knowledge of the law or legal experience, it begins by teaching students how to “read” cases, to learn from judicial opinions in real-life disputes how judges articulate and apply legal principles. We focus on the la...
7 videos, 3 readings
Graded: Week 1 Quiz
WEEK 2
Property and the Environment
It’s impossible to understand environmental law without also understanding the important role that private property plays in people’s lives and the way in which property law recognizes these values. After using two cases involving property rights to water to i...
7 videos, 4 readings
Graded: Week 2 Quiz
WEEK 3
Two Famous Statutory Programs: Environmental Impact Analysis and Endangered-Species Protection
This week we start with perhaps the most influential American environmental statute ever enacted, the National Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA"), and its requirement for environmental impact analysis of certain actions that might significantly affect the envir...
7 videos, 3 readings
Graded: Week 3 Quiz
WEEK 4
Risk Analysis and Toxic Substances: Pesticides, Trade Disputes over Synthetic Hormones, and the Cleanup of Contaminated Sites
This week we shift from land-use-related issues to the central role that “risk” plays in the regulation of toxic substances, pollution-control, and environmental law generally. We begin with an analysis of a regulatory decision involving 2,4,5-T, the active in...
7 videos, 3 readings
Graded: Week 4 Quiz
WEEK 5
Environmental Justice, Water Pollution, Claims to a Human Right to Drinking Water, Fracking, and Insights from an Economic Model of Regulatory Cost-Effectiveness
This week, we pivot mostly into issues involving fresh water and water pollution, but not before continuing our discussion of risk distribution by exploring further the concept of environmental justice. We start with legal approaches to transboundary shipments...
7 videos, 3 readings
Graded: Week 5 Quiz
WEEK 6
Pollution, Climate Change and Course Conclusion
This week, we continue discussing aspects of water-quality regulation, including especially elements other than the technology-based systems in the American Clean Water Act. We then shift to air-pollution control, not only introducing the environmental-quality...
7 videos, 3 readings
Graded: Week 6 Quiz
(Optional) Research Exercise
This module is optional.
3 readings, 1 practice quiz
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The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the nation’s first public university, is known around the world for innovative teaching and research. Regularly ranked as the nation’s best value for academic quality, UNC has produced the most Rhodes Scholars for the past 25 years among U.S. public research universities.
Ratings and Reviews
An introduction to environmental law that I think will be comprehensible for people without any background in law while at the same time will also be able to hold their interest because of the relevance of the issues presented to current environmental problems. I'm a lawyer with a background in economics and appreciated the fact that the course melds the two subjects together in some instances when talking about policy considerations. I am not from the US so it was also interesting to find out more about US environmental law and most importantly, how it was shaped. It encouraged me to reflect on the state of environmental law in my own country, the Philippines, and to think about how environmental legislation could be improved in the future.
At first I was a little concern about taking an online course, but after this experience my opinion has changed. The course is informative, the professor is qualify and the support from Coursera is uncritisizable. Great job!
Really helpful course on environmental laws.
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I really enjoyed this course! I wish it had lasted longer! I'm hoping for more to come in the future, since this field is growing and becoming more and more detrimental to our success in saving the environment.