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Environmental Law and Public Law (LAWS90116)
Graduate courseworkPoints: 12.5On Campus (Parkville)
About this subject
Contact information
April
Teaching staff:
Liz Fisher (Subject Coordinator)
For current student enquiries, contact the Law School Academic Support Office
Overview
| Availability(Quotas apply) | April - On Campus |
|---|---|
| Fees | Look up fees |
In national legal systems, much of environmental law consists of legislative schemes. To practice environmental law requires a mastery of public law. This subject introduces students to the public law skills needed to work in the specialised field of environmental law. The subject focuses on environmental laws in a range of common law jurisdictions and the skills that the course fosters can be deployed in any legal system. Each topic is taught through in-depth focus on legal materials, particularly case law.
Indicative list of principal topics:
- A basic framework of environmental law
- The distinctive nature of different types of environmental problems and how those features require the development of a particular type of legal expertise.
- The role that law (legislation and common law) plays in framing and defining environmental problems and the legal significance of this.
- The classic types of legal obligations and duties in environmental law and how they are enforced.
- The ways in which environmental law gives rise to a range of public law questions concerned with constitutional and administrative governance.
- The types of legal and other disputes that environmental law gives rise to and the implications for courts and tribunals
- How accountability in environmental law operates.
- Each topic is taught through a focus on a particular topic in environmental law including climate change, water quality, waste, environmental assessment, natural resource management, air quality, and nature conservation.
Intended learning outcomes
A student who has successfully completed this subject will have the following skills.
- Analyse complex environmental problems to identify legally material facts, frame justiciable issues and select appropriate forums and remedies
- Evaluate the key legal features, their coherence, effectiveness and enforceability of different environmental law regimes and accountability mechanisms
- interpret and apply environmental statutes, regulations and case law, with a particular focus on identifying relevant legal issues in novel scenarios across common law jurisdictions.
- Synthesise complex primary and secondary materials (legislation, case law, policy and scientific evidence) to develop defensible legal positions.
- Construct clear, persuasive written legal arguments and advice, and propose defensible law-reform or governance options for domains such as climate change, water, waste and biodiversity.
Generic skills
- Advanced research and synthesis: locate, evaluate and integrate complex primary/secondary legal sources (and relevant scientific/policy material) to support defensible positions.
- Analysis and problem-solving: you diagnose legally material facts, apply doctrine across jurisdictions, and design defensible compliance, litigation or reform strategies.
- Communication and advocacy: you craft precise, audience-appropriate written advice and arguments, and justify methods and conclusions to specialist and non-specialist stakeholders.
- Professional judgement and collaboration: you exercise ethical reflexivity, work effectively with others, and manage workload independently with high accountability.
Last updated: 13 March 2026