Climate Change and the Rule of Law

 A symposium held in London (King’s College London Dickson Poon School of Law and the Supreme Court) 17-19 September examined climate change and the rule of law. Professor Philippe Sands QC gave a public lecture on the role of international law and judges in addressing legal issues relating to climate change. Professor Sands' talk was followed by comments from Professor James Crawford, Judge of the International Court of Justice, and Professor Lavanya Rajamani of the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. 1 h, 31 min, transcript available for Professor Sands’ talk here. The UKL website for the symposium has short interviews (7 - 12 min) with some symposium speakers, no transcripts available for these interviews.

Climate change refugees?

Can climate change enable someone to acquire refugee status? Public Radio International (PRI) had a story on November 8 about the case of a man from Kiribati seeking refugee status before the High Court of New Zealand. Susan Martin, director of the Center for International Migration at Georgetown University, says New Zealand will probably not give the man refugee status, but she underlines the need to address the problem of migration in the context of global warming.
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A new website, Academic Earth, has started a collection of links to online video lectures from major U.S. universities. So far there are only two law courses : one on copyright and one on climate change and the law from UC Berkeley. The Berkeley lectures include one on the International Climate Regime. 1h40min., no script, FlashPlayer.

Global warming and the U.S. Constitution A conference organised by the University of Arizona Law School (Feb. 11, 2008) discusses how the U.S. Constitution restrains states from enacting global warming legislation. The principles of statutory interpretation and the relatively obscure constitutional concept of preemption are at the heart of these discussions. Not for the fainthearted. Part 1, (WMP or Flash, 57 min. no transcript) is here. Part 2 (40 min) with Justice Stephen Breyer is here.

Global Warming at the U.S. Supreme Court This week the U.S. Supreme Court was asked to interpret a federal law, the Clean Air Act, concerning CO2 emissions. You can hear two news reports about this complicated case, with transcripts, at NPR and at PBS's Newshour.

More podcasts and audio downloads You can find another collection of links to legal podcasts here. The excellent Washington School of Law podcast series has just posted recordings about Rights of Guantanamo Detainees and a series of talks about the Legal Dimensions of Climate Change. For in depth coverage of the news on American "public" (non-commercial) television, you can to to PBS Newshour. You can get the transcript for these recordings by going here and then clicking on the title of the story.