Katrina M. Wyman

Courses

• Natural Resources Law and Policy

  This seminar provides an opportunity to learn about the legal frameworks governing important natural resources in the United States. The seminar will focus mainly on federal law, but there will be some discussion of state law. Themes for the seminar will include: 1) the implications of how the U.S. acquired important natural resources, such as land and water, from Native Americans for how resources should be governed; 2) the implications of thinking of nature as having rights, and not merely as a resource for humans to exploit or enjoy; and 3) how natural resources law needs to change to limit and adapt to climate change.

• Property

  A study of the institution of property: property interests in land and in wealth other than land; formation of interests in land; the estate concept; possessory and non possessory interests; concurrent interests; the landlord-tenant relation; the allocation and development of land resources by private arrangement and through community planning devices such as zoning and eminent domain.

• Selected Topics in Environmental and Energy Law Seminar

  The seminar is for students in the Environmental and Energy LLM program. It meets roughly 7 times over the entire academic year. In the fall, we discuss non-US approaches to environmental law. This complements the study of U.S. environmental law in which students are engaged in the "Environmental Law" class required for the LLM. In the spring, students present their draft theses for the LLM in the seminar. Environmental and Energy LLM students write their thesis in conjunction with taking the seminar (directed research credit is received for the thesis).

• Urban Environmental Law and Policy Seminar

  This class will provide an overview of contemporary urban environmental law. It will focus on environmental initiatives in New York City, but also address pioneering environmental initiatives elsewhere. The seminar will begin with an overview of the framework in which local governments make environmental law, with an emphasis on the threats of preemption that they face from federal and state law. Then the class will focus on issue areas where local governments have been active in developing environmental law, including climate change mitigation and adaptation, transportation, waste management, preserving open green spaces, and water quality protection. Several themes will cut across our discussion of these issues including: the links between municipal initiatives and state and federal environmental law, and the extent to which higher levels of lawmaking impinge on municipal initiatives; and the distinct tools that local governments use to pursue environmental objectives.