SEES501 POLITICAL ECONOMY AND LAW IN SUSTAINABILITY

Course Objectives

On completion of this course students will be able familiar with the basic conceptual vocabulary, derived primarily from the social science disciplines, that have come to define the notions of sustainability and sustainable development. Equally, they will become familiar with the associated basic conceptual vocabulary, derived primarily out of law, which has informed the legislative and regulatory promotion of sustainable development.

Building on this familiarity, students will be expected to understand and utilise the concepts, associated theories and substantive evidence in political economy and law to describe, explain and analyse the environmental economy with a view to improving their policy and planning capacities. The main objective of the course is thus to ensure that students are confident and fluent in the basic conceptual language and theories of sustainability and which will then deployed by them in later courses, thesis research and professional life.

In fulfilling this main objective students will be expected to develop their critical and problem-solving skills, to be able to express their skills in both written and oral forms. The ability to specify the essential political-economic and/or legal characteristics of an environmental problem, to subsequently trace the origins of that problem, to assess the effect of that problem and to outline possible sustainable responses to that problem 

Course Content

This course introduces the principal concepts and principles from political economy and law (especially international law) which have come to inform sustainability strategies and sustainable development. These concepts and principles have their origins across the natural and social sciences and include, but are not limited to, such notions as ecological crisis; metabolic rate; thermodynamics; discount rates; environmental Kuznets curve; market failure and market absence; transaction costs and public goods; tragedy of the commons; common property resources; moral hazard; socialization of risk; intergenerational equity; the precautionary principle; the polluter pays principle; liability; prior informed consent; and many others, as well as sustainability itself

Course Learning Outcomes

• A familiarity and appreciation of the principal theoretical and conceptual developments in the study of sustainability and sustainable development.

• A familiarity and appreciation of the historical development of the main concepts and principles which have come to inform the political economic and legal analysis of sustainability and sustainable development.

• A familiarity and ability to properly identify and utilise the key theoretical and conceptual vocabulary of sustainability and sustainable development.

• An appreciation of the relationship between a political-economic and legal analysis and conceptualisation of sustainability and the other social and engineering science disciplines and problems.

• An ability to critically review publications in the field.

• An ability to write essays and extended pieces of written analyses.

• An ability to give a spoken presentation of a problem in sustainability and sustainable development.