As an introductory course for undergraduate students, environmental law provides a framework for understanding the environmental issues which humans are faced with today and the implications of these issues for law making and policy. Although environmental law is a relatively new subject, it has grown dramatically in scope and complexity in the last 25 years, playing an increasing important role in diverse aspects. This course sets out to, by exploring relevant aspects, including global governance, policy tool, targeted issues, and legal norm, assess and evaluate the present legal system’s capacity in dealing with climate change, and depict and construct a legal paradigm qualified in the climate change era.

    From this course, students will have insight into the following issues: the context of the rising regulatory regime and methodology; regulatory framework; economic incentive and other regulatory tools; separate regulatory regimes of environmental law; international environmental issues and the challenge of recent environmental law development. The objectives of this course are observing substantial influence of institutional factors and discussing the role of the legal system in addressing environmental problems. This fundamental course provides participants with a comprehensive examination of key environmental law and policy areas, paying particular attention to practical questions emerging from Taiwan’s regulatory policies, administrative institutions and judicial decisions.