|
所在平台: Coursera |
课程主页: https://www.coursera.org/learn/environmental-law
课程评论：没有评论
课程名称：环境法与政策入门 概述：环境法可能是阻止我们走向地球衰竭的关键制度。同时，该制度也需要与人类自由和经济愿望相协调。本课程将探讨这些问题，并对现有的法律体系进行深入了解，涵盖污染、水法、濒危物种、有毒物质、环境影响分析及环境风险等领域。 课程通知：环境法与政策课程将于2019年2月22日停止新学员注册。已经注册的学员在保持注册状态下，将继续在他们的Coursera仪表板上看到该课程。如您已注册，请参阅2019年2月19日发送的公告以获取更多信息。 课程大纲： 1. **普通法应对环境问题的方法** 课程始于教导学生如何“阅读”案例，了解法官如何在现实争端中表述和适用法律原则。内容涵盖滋扰法及空气和水污染等相关案件，最后探讨法院制度在应对环境问题中的相对优缺点。 2. **财产与环境** 理解环境法必须了解私人财产在生活中的重要作用。通过财产权案例探讨美国宪法中对政府在环境要求侵害私人财产权时的赔偿义务，并引入“公共悲剧”模型，分析市场对共同资源保护的局限。 3. **两项著名的法定程序：环境影响分析与濒危物种保护** 讨论美国的国家环境政策法（NEPA）及其环境影响分析要求，以及美国濒危物种法（ESA），并探讨这两项法律如何在私人财产与环境保护之间引起紧张关系。 4. **风险分析与有毒物质** 探讨“风险”在有毒物质和污染控制中的核心作用，包含来自越南战争的“橙剂”案例分析以及美加与欧盟在合成生长激素上的贸易争端。 5. **环境正义、水污染与饮水人权** 本周主要讨论新鲜水源及水污染问题，探讨环境正义的法律方法以及美国安全饮水法和联合国关于饮水人权的措施。 6. **污染、气候变化与课程总结** 继续讨论水质法规及其对空气污染控制的影响，介绍温室气体的监管及应对气候变化的努力，总结当前环境法律体系的优缺点，以及未来系统改进的必要性。 7. **可选研究练习** 该模块为可选内容。 通过这一系列课程，学员将全面理解环境法的多维面向及其与人类社会和经济活动的交互作用。
Name:Common-Law Approaches to Environmental Problems
Description: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 law of nuisance, starting with cases involving simple disputes between neighbors, and then move to cases involving air and water pollution and even a very recent case on the introduction of exotic species into a river system! We end the week, as we’ll end every week, with a session spent on legal theory and policy, considering, this week, the relative strengths and weakness of the court system as an institution addressing environmental problems, in comparison to other institutions such as administrative regulators and the free-market system.
Name:Property and the Environment
Description: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 introduce ourselves to property law, we’ll use the American constitutional approach to “takings” of property to determine when governments are forced to pay property-holders when environmental requirements infringe too much on private property rights. These cases are at the crux of an evolving philosophical dispute between whether we look at land merely as a personal commodity or as part of larger ecosystems that, often, demand recognition and require changes in personal behavior. In our “theory” session, we’ll introduce ourselves to a very powerful and famous economic model, the tragedy-of-the-commons model, that explains why markets often cannot adequately protect commonly held resources such as the oceans and atmosphere, and how legal regimes may be needed to correct the problem. We also post this week a peer-review essay exercise, which is mandatory for students wishing to obtain a Statement of Accomplishment with Distinction.
Name:Two Famous Statutory Programs: Environmental Impact Analysis and Endangered-Species Protection
Description: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 environment. Over 70 countries have enacted programs similar to this one. Then, we study perhaps the strongest American environmental statute ever enacted, the federal Endangered Species Act (“ESA”) and study cases under the ESA that are, among other things, at the cutting edge in the tension between private property and environmental protection. In our theory session, we begin to discuss issues of politics and political economy, and consider a range of topics in the political economy of environmental law.
Name:Risk Analysis and Toxic Substances: Pesticides, Trade Disputes over Synthetic Hormones, and the Cleanup of Contaminated Sites
Description: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 ingredient in herbicides (and in the notorious “Agent Orange” herbicide used by the United States in the Vietnam War), and learn how concerns over the “risk” of harm amplify the power of environmental law. We then analyze the role risk played in an ongoing dispute between the United States and Canada (on the one hand) and the European Community (on the other) over synthetic growth hormones given to cattle in North America. We shift to considerations of risk in the clean-up of sites contaminated with hazardous substances under a famous American statute, the so-called “Superfund” statute. in our theory session, we look at two economic dimensions of risk that explain why people rationally concern themselves with worst-case possibilities and also concern themselves with how risk is fairly (or unfairly) distributed.
Name:Environmental Justice, Water Pollution, Claims to a Human Right to Drinking Water, Fracking, and Insights from an Economic Model of Regulatory Cost-Effectiveness
Description: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 of waste, using both the United States and international trade as case histories, using both examples to illustrate the challenge posed to environmental law by claims of environmental racism and injustice. Shifting to drinking water, we introduce ourselves to the American Safe Drinking Water Act and to recent United Nations measures articulating a human right to drinking water, and also consider the worldwide phenomenon of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) and its intersection with fresh water resources. We introduce ourselves to the technology-based regulatory design of the American Clean Water Act. In our theory session, we explore the concept of economic cost-effectiveness and its role in pollution-control regimes generally and in the Clean Water Act in particular. We also see how this concept explains some of the interest in the design of “markets” for pollution control. This is also a week in which we post a research exercise, especially relevant for those interested in obtaining a Statement of Accomplishment with Distinction.
Name:Pollution, Climate Change and Course Conclusion
Description: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-based philosophy of this landmark statute, but also explaining how it coordinates with common-law approaches to pollution that we studied at the very beginning of the course. We then introduce ourselves to the dawning era of greenhouse-gas regulation under both the Clean Air Act and embryonic international climate-change efforts. In our theory session, we highlight the strengths and weaknesses overall of current systems of environmental law, and underscore the need for more effective, more insightful, and more resilient systems.
Name:(Optional) Research Exercise
Description:This module is optional.
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. Note: The Environmental Law & Policy Course will close for new learner enrollment on February 22, 2019. Learners who have already enrolled will continue to see it on their Coursera Dashboard as long as they remain enrolled in the course. If you are currently enrolled in this course, please see the announcement sent on February 19, 2019, for additional details.
