Climate Change, Coasts, and Precaution

Call for Participation & Abstracts:

“Climate Change, Coasts, and Precaution”

2018 Pace Environmental Law Review Symposium

 April 25-26, White Plains and New York City, New York, USA

Host institutions: Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, White Plains, New York, and

 K.G. Jebsen Centre for the Law of the Sea at UiT The Arctic University of Norway

The Pace Environmental Law Review, Haub Environmental Law Program at Pace University, and the K.G. Jebsen Centre for the Law of the Sea (JCLOS) are pleased to announce the upcoming symposium entitled “Climate Change, Coasts, and Precaution.” The symposium seeks to re-examine legal and policy approaches dealing with coastal communities and resources in light of global climate change.

Climate change impacts how we deal with our coasts, including issues of urban planning, climate resilience and adaptation, and protection of coastal marine resources and habitats. Development of responses to climate change impacts will be vital for the ability to protect coastal communities, in both urban and rural settings, manage sustainable fisheries, and protect natural resources. This symposium aims to address the shortcomings of existing legal and policy regimes of today, and discuss alternative models and other improvements. Relevant issues on which abstracts can be submitted include:

• Current legal and policy regimes – benefits and shortcomings
• The role of the precautionary approach/principle in determining coastal/climate policy
• Coastal community adaptation and resiliency to climate change
• Sectoral challenges, including fishing (e.g. climate change induced shifts in abundance and distributional range) and shipping
• Inequality and distributional consequences of climate change impacts, and adaptation and resiliency options
• Modern marine regulatory approaches and tools, including marine protected areas and ecosystem based management
• Alternative regulatory tools, such as private environmental governance

In addition to keynote speeches by invitation from the organizers, the symposium calls for abstracts and statements of interest from lawyers, scientists, professors, and researchers with a background in law, political science, environmental science, and/or environmental economics. Based on these submissions, the steering committee will invite speakers to present their papers at the symposium on the above topics. All accepted papers will have the opportunity to be published in the Pace Environmental Law Review. Funding for airfare and lodging is available for invited speakers. 

Abstract Submission deadline:                  1 November 2017

Notification of acceptance:                         15 November 2017

International Symposium:                           25-26 April 2018

Please email your Abstracts and Statements of Interest to the Steering Committee: Jason J. Czarnezki (jczarnezki@law.pace.edu), Elise Johansen (elise.johansen@uit.no), Jessica Steinberg Albin (jalbin@law.pace.edu), James Creech (jcreech@law.pace.edu), and Zach Berliner (zberliner@law.pace.edu).

Administration: Lorraine Rubich (lrubich@law.pace.edu)