EL 401 | Environmental Law

This is a core subject which is mandatorily to be taught for the undergraduate programme. It logically extends from the Natural Resource Management Course (Land Laws) taught in the second year of the B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) programme.

Since environmental law owes its roots to a number of legal discourse besides disciplines outside law, the course aims to ensure that a transdisciplinary approach is followed. This would enable the students to gain much needed insight as regards the context and rationale for the making of this area of law & its working.

Since the basics of natural resource management has already been covered in the second year the course on hand takes off from the fundamental norms of environmental governance. The focus is primarily on Indian Policy and Law. However, international inspirations and basis would also find appropriate place in the enquiry. Against the backdrop of the environmental crisis and an international assessment of India’s environmental performance, the course unfolds with the basic theories of environmental management. This is followed by an analysis of the fundamental principles of environmental governance. The rest of the course is about an enquiry into the extent of accommodation and internalization of the theories and principles in the legal order. The issues covered include browner aspects like: pollution control, wate management, impact assessment, and green aspects like forest, wildlife, bio-diversity etc. In addition there would be reflections on management of eco-sentivive zones and costal area management. Environmental justice and its dispensation at various levels would permeate the entire discourse. This would be to equip the students with both the theoritical and practical skills and tools that are required for this specialized area of law and practice.

Primary materials like plicy documents, statutes etc. would be relied on, amply supported by critical and evaluation studies supplied as part of reading material and case laws.

Since, the course is offered online, the approach is essentially to initiate reflections on various issues on a predetermined topic with the help of a few tools of presentation like PPT, short video clips etc. Towards the end of the lecture the students are encouraged to interact and participate in the discussions and efforts also will be made to identify some students to initiate or to make strategic interventions.