JJUS00009U Climate change challenges in developing countries - and regulatory ways to address them - NOTE: THE COURSE IS CANCELLED IN SUMMER 2017

Volume 2016/2017
Content

The regulation of the world’s increasingly scarce natural resources has long been a challenge for international, regional, domestic and local policy-makers. It is now well-recognised that climate change will continue to drastically impact the world, with the worst effects felt in the Global South. Amongst the impacts caused by climate change are drought, changed precipitation and salination of freshwater resources with huge consequences for food production and the availability of potable water. Climate change also directly and indirectly affects wildlife habitats. Climate change has amplified the need for effective solutions but developing such solutions is complicated by the fact that water regulation not merely concerns daily life but also produces impacts on security and prosperity at local, national and international level.

This summer course will provide students with an introduction to the theories and practices of effective governance towards water regulation. It offers participants an insight into the regulatory challenges associated with regulating the world’s water resources in the age of climate change and encourages critical reflection on water regulation or the lack thereof, especially in the Global South.

The course will progress over two weeks with lectures followed by case studies in which students will get a sense of the challenges in practice. The course will illustrate the regulatory challenges at international, transnational, regional, national and local levels, as well as provide students with a sense of the challenges associated with their mutual interaction. Case studies will include, among others, the management of transboundary water resources in the Lake Victoria region of Africa, the work of the Mekong River Commission, and other local and international examples of regulatory approaches

Learning Outcome

Knowledge:

  • Knowledge about contemporary insights into climate change – including the different predictions of future climate change.
  • Knowledge about the different models for how climate change may affect societies (including knowledge about `multiplier models', ‘synergistic models’ and models based on `point of no return' as well as `tipping points').
  • Knowledge about the (existing) principal international legal measures for addressing climate change (in particular the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change/UNFCCC) as well as how these measures operate (eg. that the UNFCCC is a framework convention).
  • Knowledge about the interplay between regulation and climate change. 
  • Knowledge about the interaction (or lack of interaction) between international legal measures and actual implementation at the national/local level (including the question of `enforcement' of international legal measures).

 

Skills:

  • Ability to analyse a societal challenge (posed by climate change) with a view to identifying measures that may counter these challenges.
  • Ability to identify and distinguish regulatory and non-regulatory aspects of a societal challenge.
  • The ability to identify interdisciplinary approaches, methodologies and analyses - while at the same time paying particular attention to their possibilities and limitations.
  • Ability to construct (and to de-construct) a legal argument.
  • Ability to argue `pro et con' of different regulatory solutions to a specific challenge.
  • Ability to identify short-comings (between the available measures and stated objective) within a given regulatory framework.

 

Competences:

  • Ability to develop a policy to address a specific societal challenge - and to identify the regulatory and non-regulatory aspects inherent in this policy (`non-regulatory' refers to for example cultural issues).
  • Ability to draft a regulatory response towards a well-defined societal challenge.
  • Ability to apply comparative approaches to complex problems (for example by searching for existing responses to a given/similar challenge and thereupon draw on this/these responses as well as on the experience already gained with regards to this/these responses when developing a response to the specific challenge the student is now faced with).
  • Ability to identify ways that may remedy short-comings (eg. underpinning the `classical legal measures' by fiscal measures).
  • Ability to communicate regulatory challenges and regulatory solutions in a precise language and in a way that is both structured and coherent.
  • Ability to consider the ethical aspects of the solution(s) that has/have been developed.
This is a graduate-level course, open to master-students only. Students from the UCPH MSc Global Development and UCPH Faculty of Law will have priority.
The students must master English at a high level – and this includes mastering written English.
The course will be taught as distance learning over two weeks through interactive learning, facilitator-led presentations, real-life case studies and self-assessment exercises.
Students will come from different countries and have different disciplinary backgrounds allowing for fruitful and multidisciplinary perspectives. The course is offered in English.
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Preparation
  • 241
  • Seminar
  • 34
  • Total
  • 275
Credit
10 ECTS
Type of assessment
Written assignment, 1 day
Assigned individual written assignment, 1 day
Censorship form
No external censorship
Exam period

Summer 2017: July 10 (hand-in date)

Re-exam

Please see the 'Academic calendar' on KUnet