CPC214 | Politics And Law in the Climate Crisis

While this course is a standalone offering, it draws on and builds upon concepts covered in courses like international law, environmental law, and jurisprudence. It offers students an opportunity to critically examine the intersections between the politics of climate change and legal frameworks, engaging them to think beyond traditional approaches. The course is designed to engage students from diverse academic backgrounds, enabling them to explore the climate crisis from both legal and political perspectives.

The course takes a law and political economy approach, situating legal frameworks as a critical structure that shapes the climate crisis. The focus is threefold: first, to understand the climate crisis as a poly crisis, second, to examine law’s role in perpetuating unequal impacts, particularly on vulnerable populations, and third, to explore alternative paradigms of justice. The course draws from both primary and secondary materials, including case law, legislative texts, and scholarly articles, and books with special attention to readings that borrow from disciplines such as critical gender studies, materialist analysis of energy and so on. Case studies are frequently used to apply theoretical learning to real-world contexts.

While the course is grounded in critical legal theory, it avoids overly technical or niche climate science literature. Instead, the emphasis is on social, political, material and legal dimensions of the climate crisis. This approach equips students with a multi-disciplinary perspective, allowing them to think critically about climate change as a “wicked” problem that requires radically different solutions.

The primary teaching method for this course is the Socratic dialogue complimented by mini lectures for select sessions. Response papers will further promote active learning and deeper engagement with the course materials. Students will also work on a term paper throughout the course, allowing them to apply what they have learned to a chosen topic, under the guidance of the Instructor. Case studies, often focusing on socio-environmental challenges both in India and the globally, will provide practical contexts to apply theoretical insights.