ASU hosting 1st sustainability conference for legal educators

Sustainability itself must be sustainable.

To do that requires finding a balance between environmental and economic needs, and the law plays a key part in that.

Arizona State University’s inaugural Sustainability Conference of American Legal Educators on May 8 will explore such topics as:

• preserving water resources without harming local economies

• encouraging rooftop solar energy without threatening electric utilities

• promoting urban agriculture in struggling cities

More than 60 law professors from around the country will convene at the conference for panels on issues at the intersection of sustainability and law, including climate-change policy, natural-resources law, agricultural and food regulation, and disaster law.

By assembling together many of the nation’s preeminent legal scholars in these fields, the conference – hosted by the Program on Law and Sustainability at ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law – seeks to spur new research ideas and collaborations.

“Sustainability-related policy innovation is occurring at a rapid pace throughout the country, but there are limited opportunities for legal scholars researching in this area to come together and share ideas,” said Troy Rule, Program on Law and Sustainability faculty director. “This conference will help to fill this gap.”

The conference’s keynote speaker will be Daniel Esty, the Hillhouse professor of environmental law and policy and director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy at Yale Law School.

The event at Armstrong Hall on ASU's Tempe campus is open to the public, and registration is free for attendees not seeking continuing legal education credit.

ASU’s Program on Law and Sustainability is a comprehensive program designed to train students to address sustainability-related issues in their legal careers and to help drive sustainability-related policy innovation. The program’s partnerships with the ASU Global Institute of Sustainability and School of Sustainability also give students access to ASU’s vast, world-class network of sustainability education resources.

For more information on the upcoming conference, visit conferences.asucollegeoflaw.com/scale2015.