MA in Environmental Justice in South Asia

The dissertation is a supervised piece of research on a topic to be agreed between the student and the chosen supervisor. The dissertation provides students with the opportunity to develop an original piece of academic work in an independent, albeit supervised, way.

This module aims to acquaint you with various issues bearing on research in the social sciences in general, and economics and political economy, in particular. It introduces a range of approaches to
research and seeks to help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of different methodological approaches. The objective of the module is to equip you with the basic tools to undertake independent research and rigorously evaluate different research methods.

This module provides an overview of the developments in environmental law, policy and jurisprudence in India. It provides an in depth understanding of the key principles that govern environmental law, provides an overview of the laws that protect air, water, land, forests, wildlife and biodiversity in India. It is designed to provide an advanced introduction to the contemporary challenges within the Indian context, provide critical insights into the changing nature of the legislative approach and also the approach adopted by the judiciary over the years. The module also provides insights into the challenges of implementation and compliance, including institutional challenges that hamper the effective enforcement. The modules also provides an overview of current challenges in the field while also highlighting innovations that address the ground level realities.This module is a foundational course for the environment justice clinic.

This course is an introductory module to environmental justice that aims at giving students a solid and comprehensive foundation of key concepts of environmental justice and law and a grounding in some of the most topical and foundational debates with special reference to South Asia. These include the role of justice frameworks in relation to environmental protection, as well as key debates in environmental legal regulation. The aim is to provide a platform from which to better appreciate some of the central tensions and dynamics in the study of environmental justice and law generally. The course will introduce environmental justice in its South Asian context, in historical perspective, in a domestic, comparative and regional context from a theoretical and practical perspective.

This module offers a introduction to the legal, policy and institutional aspects of the protection of the environment at the international level.

In a context where international environmental law and policy has been framed around a global North-South axis, this course focuses more specifically on the place and contribution of South Asia in these broader discourses. The course explores the range of laws and norms that impact on global environmental problems, focusing more particularly on those that are of particular relevance to South Asia.

The course provides an introduction to the principles of international environmental law (such as the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and the precautionary principle), human rights and participatory rights, examines questions related to compliance, effectiveness and enforcement of international environmental law; the governance and institutional framework governing the environment at the international level and links with other branches of international law, such as human rights.

This module examines international, regional and national legal and institutional arrangements concerning the conservation and use of natural resources. It introduces legal principles relevant to the conservation and use of natural resources in international and national law. This module focuses on the international law aspects of natural resource use and conservation, with particular emphasis given to the South Asian region. This module examines simultaneously economic development aspects of natural resource regulation, social development aspects and environmental aspects. This module specifically seeks to make the links between the exploitation of natural resources for macro-economic development and subsistence and other uses of natural resources for food security and health needs as well as the links between use for economic development and conservation, for instance, in the context of broader policy challenges such as climate change. This module starts with a background of natural resource regulation, including basic principles of international law relevant to natural resources, such as sovereignty and related concepts for natural resource appropriation, sustainable development and human rights. The module then moves on to examine a number of more specific issues in the South Asian region, within the context of selected natural resources. Natural resources considered may include water, genetic resources, forests, minerals and energy.

This module is designed to benefit vulnerable individuals by improving their access to justice and promoting the rule of law and therefore contributing to closing the gap on the inequality in accessing justice. The module embraces the pedagogical and community value of legal clinical education, including its emphasis on critique and reflection. It aims at making a broader use of clinical legal pedagogy to provide valuable learning experiences to students.

This course focuses attention to social movements in relation to civil society and to the development project itself. It examines some current positions on theorising 'civil society' and 'new social movements'.

This module examines ‘water justice’ in the global South from a combined Law and Development Studies perspective. The three main themes in the course are water rights/right to water, the modalities of access to water, and social movements on water issues. The course discusses examples from Asia, Africa and Latin America, and selected examples from the global North. It seeks to provide students with a broad understanding of the multi-faceted issues arising in the water sector from the local to the international level.

Students will be able to demonstrate the ability to understand and analyse issues concerning water law and policy, conflicts and governance from a broad perspective encompassing their economic, social and environmental dimensions. Students will acquire knowledge of basic concepts and principles underlying the regulation, management and conservation of water, focusing on national, regional examples in the international context in which governance evolves and the increasing importance of conflicts in the water sector.

This module is concerned in the broadest sense with nature protection and concerns around the sixth mass extinction. It addresses specifically law and policy around the broad themes of biodiversity, wildlife & habitats. It examines theoretical and practical dimensions of international and national legal and institutional arrangements concerning some of the most crucial environmental issues of our time. This includes the various dimensions of the biodiversity regime, including the Convention on Biological Diversity, its protocols, related legal instruments and related developments at the national level. These cover a wide variety of issues ranging from conservation and use of biodiversity in general to specific implementation mechanisms like ‘access and benefit sharing’, measures addressing environmental safety in the context of the release of genetically modified organisms (biosafety), and proposed measures to take into account social and cultural dimensions of biodiversity conservation and use. This module also addresses law and policy focused on the protection of nature and animals (wildlife), including a focus on the protection of migratory species and specific conservation techniques, such as the regulation of trade (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species). The course also covers measures for the protection of specific habitats, ecosystems and biomes, including forests and polar areas, where distinct legal regimes have made a significant contribution to the development of environmental law.