The Tulane Environmental and Energy Law program is one of the largest and most diverse in the world.
The program’s strengths include its faculty, the Environmental Law Clinic, the scholarship of the Tulane Environmental Law Journal, projects of the Institute on Water Resources Law & Policy, the enthusiasm of the Environmental & Energy Law Society and the engagement of its JD, LLM and SJD students.
Located in the extraordinary setting of post-Katrina New Orleans, the Lower Mississippi River and the Gulf Coast, Tulane provides a unique academic experience in environmental, energy and sustainable development law and policy.
Read the Environmental Law Center's Newsletter
Louisiana Coastal Update 2017: The Litigation and the Plan
The prognosis for the Louisiana coast is grim: fast disappearing, industry canals widening, sea levels rising, storm floods increasing, and a state agonizing slow to acknowledge even the fact of climate change. Responses have come on two fronts, in lawsuits seeking restoration monies from oil and gas companies for their contribution to coastal loss (up to 80 percent of it in some parishes), and in state master plans that, with increasing focus, attempt to stem the tide. Both feature Tulane law alums on all sides. Read More.
Tulane Hosts Symposium on the (Legal) Rights of Nature
Something is happening. A court in Argentina grants a writ of habeas corpus to a chimpanzee, held in captivity. A court in Columbia follows, this time with a bear, characterizing it as a “sentient being” A court in New Zealand ratifies a consent agreement according the Whanganui River its own right to life. The Constitutional Court of Columbia follows with the Atrato River, and the courts of India with the Yamuna and Ganges. Where this all comes from and where it may be going, is the subject of a symposium on the Rights of Nature, Policy and Law, hosted by Tulane Law School on October 27, 2017. Read more.
This summer I stepped down from directing the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic to become a full-time classroom teacher. I became TELC’s director in May 2000—three years after the EPA Shintech order. The case was still a hot topic. Had TELC gone too far? Were TELC student attorneys heroes for protecting their clients? Villains for thwarting industrial development?
Energy Law News: New Team at the Helm
The Tulane Environment and Energy Program will receive a shot in the arm with the arrival of Kim Talus, Co-Director of the University of Helsinki Center for Climate, Energy and Environmental Law, and his wife Sirja-Leena Pettinen, a lecturer at the University and instrumental at the Center. Read more.
Students Place 1st in Writing Contests
Two Tulane students received top honors for essays on environmental issues of considerable importance, and controversy: Brian Broussard (’18) won the Public Lands Student Writing Contest, while Coleman Torrans (‘18) won first prize in the Louisiana Bar Association Environmental Essay contest. Read More.
Taking Back Eden Tops the Charts in China
In its first two months of publication in 2017, the Chinese translation of Professor Houck’s legal histories of environmental cases around the world was reported to be the number one best-seller on Amazon/China and several leading bookstores. Read More.
TELJ Celebrates Its Thirtieth Anniversary
The Tulane Environmental Law Journal is currently ranked in the top ten of environment, natural resources, and land use journals in the country for student articles and case notes, in part due to its mentorship program to facilitate connections with local attorneys and Journal alumnae. Read More.
Our Masters and PhD programs in Environmental and Energy Law embraced students from 31 countries on seven continents in the past five years.
We opened opened with a bang this year, including an Opening Bike Trip to Lake Pontchartrain in August 2017.
More than 350 attendees, lawyers, environmental groups, scientists, corporations, law students and policy wonks attended this year.
