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| Organization | Readings | Notes | Requirements | Glossary | Exams |
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This is the home page for the 2003 offering of Environmental Law. Use the links in each page of the course web, in the headers, like the one above, and in the footers, at the bottom of each page, to navigate to the rest of the course web and to other links outside the course web. IMPORTANT BROWSING CAVEAT: This Web site should be viewed using a current version of the standard Web browser, which is now Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0. Students who use older versions of this or other browsers, whether on their own machines at home or in some of the less well-equipped campus computer labs, will have difficulty reading properly all of the information provided, here. The small white image immediately to the left is hyper-linked to a web site from which the current version IE 6.0 can be obtained. If necessary, please upgrade your browsing software. The 2003 offering of Environmental Law sustains and extends the new look and feel given six years ago to a course that has a twenty-five year history and strong traditions as the largest general education course in resource and environmental law offered on the UC Davis campus. With this new look, Environmental Law takes advantage of a growing migration of college and university courses to the Web, a trend in which the Department of Political Science and the teacher of this course are leaders, specifically in courses dealing with environmental law, policy, and politics but also in undergraduate instruction more generally. The same gradual shift has been under way for some time and is increasingly in evidence across the country in graduate and professional schools, including law and medicine.
The Need for Early Decision Making about the Course. Because this course has a somewhat unconventional structure and makes unusual demands on students, it is important to think hard and to decide very early in the term whether this course is really for you, this year. As the old saying has it, "forewarned is forearmed." And there is a ten day drop deadline. As will be obvious from publication of this document on the Web, those who teach and learn environmental law need to master new tools. People who practice law assimilated this lesson quite some time ago, and the legal profession is now among the most sophisticated in its use of modern information technology to conduct research, access documents, and share data. Be sure to take a tour of the CERES Web, mentioned in study tip 1, above. More specifically, the rich legal resources placed at the disposal of students and teachers of modern environmental law include (a) the law itself, (b) copies of decisions made by state and federal courts, (c) an increasing number of on-line journals and discussion papers, including many of the leading national and international environmental law journals, (d) case study materials for environmental law problem solving, and (e) a wealth of other information that helps us understand the political, economic, and scientific background to decisions about the environment and its resources that are shaped in the courts of the United States by environmental law, and by environmental lawyers. In the index at the foot of this page, and at the foot of every page in the course Web, are links to some of these resources, such as the LawCrawler and Environmental Law Net, as well as links to the most important public interest groups that have helped shape the development of American environmental law over the last thirty years. People in law schools, in law firms, and in the legal offices of public and private corporations have been using computer and network resources for research and analysis for quite some time, chiefly in the form of expensive and exclusive subscriber services offered by Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis. These commercial resources have until recently been generally unavailable to undergraduates, although the University's provision of access to electronic database sites such as Academic Universe and Congressional Universe, Lexis-Nexis resources, is beginning to change this. [If you have a non-UC Davis internet service provider and want to configure a proxy server in your web browser so you can access electronic databases provided by the University, such as Academic Universe, follow the instructions here.] At an increasing number of law schools, such as Chicago-Kent, Cornell, Indiana, and Berkeley (Boalt Hall), for example, the migration of academic and non-academic functions to the Web is well-advanced and clearly signals the direction for the new century. Among the community of environmental lawyers, around the world, the Web and its networks are now a chief means of exchange and communication. Quite clearly, undergraduates headed for law school, probably including at least some of the students in this course who are looking to enhance their general education, will be unable to function effectively without developing and practicing their Web skills, as well as their legal reasoning and analysis skills. This general context has two very specific implications for this class, this term: (1). From the outset, the class will be operating on the assumption that each and every student is familiar with the Web, at least in the sense that he or she knows how to access and navigate the Web through a standard Web browser. It is assumed that a current copy of one or the other of these browsers, preferably IE 6.0, will be used to complete work in this course, either at home or in one of the campus computer labs. It is further generally assumed that students are comfortably familiar with the efficient and effective use of computers to perform work, such as the use of a modern e-mail program that readily allows the attachment and transmission of files with mail. (2). Legal materials on the Web will have to be accessed to complete research and writing assignments and examinations. As part of this course, no instruction will be provided either on access to the Web or in the use of standard search engines. Reliance will be placed, therefore, on prior knowledge and on the ability of individual students, acting on their own initiative and responsibility, to exploit and learn quickly from resources readily available on the Web itself. If these seem like unreasonable expectations, given all the other things you will have to worry about, this term, you should drop the course, promptly. In addition, students in Environmental Law this term will be asked to complete an environmental problem solving exercise as a member of a small study group. It has long been customary for students of law to form study groups. Students in this class, this term, should form their own study groups as quickly as possible, and not later than the end of the first full week of term (i.e. the week of January 6th). A study group must have at least two but may not have more than three members. The commitment to participate in a study group is serious and, once made, may not be broken. All group members will place reliance on the good faith and performance of the others. It is, therefore, important that stable and agreeable groups be formed early. This is not something that can be put off until the second or third week of term. And, again, students who do not wish to work in groups should drop the class, promptly. It also follows from the preceding statements that adding the class after the end of the first week of term is not recommended, at all, and permission to add the course after the early drop date occurs will not be granted.
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