Please join us February 25, 2012, for the second foundational New Directions in Environmental Law Conference Series, and help spread the word to [re]claim environmental accountability in our legal system and beyond. The Conference Series provides an opportunity to inquire into the problems, challenges, and potential new directions evolving in environmental law and policy. Through inclusive and even uncomfortable conversations, we hope to establish novel conceptualizations of the pressures that many communities face in theory and in practice. This one-day, student-run Conference features a blend of panel conversations, workshops, networking and social events, and a keynote speech.

This year’s Conference will critically examine the meaning of environmental accountability in the modern era and amongst evolving legal mechanisms—from the local to the global, from litigation to regulation to market-based opportunities and norm-shifting movements. It will critically examine the meaning of environmental accountability in the modern era and amongst evolving legal mechanisms. We will ask questions such as: Who are individuals, governments, and other actors accountable to; on what scale; and for what harms? How can we hold people or governments accountable to environmental goals across different implementation levels? And perhaps most crucially, can novel conceptualizations of legal tools or regulatory regimes help us to better hold actors accountable?

The Conference provides a discursive moment to bring together students, academics, policymakers, and practitioners immersed in the environmental field to take a hard-hitting look into the values and rationales that underpin our system of environmental laws and regulations. We hope the Conference will forge new connections and opportunities for coordination between present and future leaders transforming the field.

Registration is available here.

HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:

Keynote Speaker Mary Nichols: Chairman of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and former Assistant Administrator for the U.S. EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. A pathbreaker at for clean air solutions at CARB, a pivotal leader towards implementing California’s landmark Global Warming Solutions Act, AB 32, and a bold advocate for environmental and public health throughout her career, Chairman Nichols puts a face to the force and future of this Conference. Through her service across government and in the non-profit legal arena, Chairman Nichols has ensured pollution reduction accountability within a patchwork of common-sense partnerships; she continues to prove that environmental law is a field rich with practical purpose and principled foundations.

Panel Conversations: Nature in Brief—Creative Legal Mechanisms for Accountability

Further information forthcoming.

Workshops: Led by experts in their fields and designed to be round-table discussions that bring participants into the discourse—bridging communities of inquiry and practice amongst students, professors, and practitioners.

Further information forthcoming.

The Conference will also feature social events, a reception, and an Environmental Law Society programming lunch.

Register Now!
Free for members of Yale and Quinnipiac Universities, and New Haven Residents

$30 for Students (with a need-based waiver option)

$50 for Professionals and Practitioners