S. Extractive Industries and Sustainable Development

Course Information

Course Number
L8454
Curriculum Level
Upperclass
Areas of Study
Environmental Law, Human Rights, Interdisciplinary Legal Studies, International and Comparative Law
Type
Seminar

Section 001 Information

Instructor

Section Description

As the world intensifies efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century, we will see a massive deployment of renewable energy generation, distribution and storage, electric vehicles, and mobile platforms for telehealth and remote education, among a proliferation of new technologies for our carbon-neutral and increasingly digitized future. This leap to the future will increase demand for minerals and metals, and require a rapid phase-out of coal, oil, and gas. This transition presents both tremendous opportunities and overwhelming challenges, especially but not only for countries dependent on these resources for their economic development.

Extractive industries have always been at the heart of the sustainable development challenge. Investments in natural resources have the potential to catalyze sustainable development, through taxes and royalties, local procurement or processing, expanded access to infrastructure, capacity building, industrialization, and so on. Yet rather than serving as a springboard to development, investment in extractive industries have often been a source of corruption, social degradation, conflict with local communities, and environmental catastrophe.

The Decade of Action brings a clarion call to extractive industry actors, and those who support, finance, and govern them. Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, averting cataclysmic climate and other environmental crises, protecting the rights and interests of local communities, and meeting the material and technological needs of our growing population depend on how our global natural resources are managed and governed.

School Year & Semester
Fall 2021
Location
JGH 105
Schedule
Class meets on
  • Thursday
11:00 am - 12:50 pm
Points
2
Method of Evaluation
Paper
J.D Writing Credit?
Minor (upon consultation)
LLM Writing Project
Upon consultation
Writing Credit Note
Minor credit and LL.M writing project credit are available upon consultation with instructor

Course Limitations

Instructor Pre-requisites
None
Instructor Co-Requisites
None
Recommended Courses
None
Other Limitations
2L, 3L and LL.M students only.