Environmental Law Symposium

Overview

The University of Kansas School of Law will host the first bienniel Environmental Law Symposium on Friday, March 6, 2026, entitled "The Nexus Symposium: Crosscutting Environmental Issues and Intersections."

From the 1960s through the 1980s, Congress and the states established environmental, natural resources and energy laws largely on a medium-by-medium (e.g., Clean Air Act vs. Clean Water Act), resource-by-resource (e.g., water vs. energy), sovereign-by-sovereign (United States vs. states vs. Tribes), and/or place-by-place basis (e.g., federal public lands vs. anywhere else). While these laws generally made a good first cut at reducing pollution, managing resources and providing reliable energy, we have now reached the point where the need for new linkages and cooperations both among these legal regimes and between these regimes and other laws and developments has become increasingly obvious.

This symposium brings together prominent environmental, natural resources and energy law scholars from around the United States to discuss their favorite legal intersections and cross-cutting issues. Topics range from the food system to public lands to multiple water nexuses to climate change tipping points.

Scholarship associated with the symposium will be published  in a special issue of the Kansas Law Review.

Registration will open in January.

Speakers

• Cynthia Barnett | Author; Journalist
• Robin Kundis Craig | University of Kansas School of Law | Robert A. Schroeder Distinguished Professor of Law
• Holly Doremus | UC Berkeley School of Law | Associate Dean, Faculty Development and Research; James H. House and Hiram H. Hurd Professor of Environmental Regulation; Co-Director, Law of the Sea Institute; Co-Faculty Director, Berkeley Institute for Parks, People, and Biodiversity
• Robert Glicksman | George Washington University Law School | J. B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Environmental Law
• Burke Griggs | Washburn University School of Law | Professor of Law; Director, Center for Resources Energy and Environmental Law
• Lisa Heinzerling | Georgetown University Law Center | Justice William J. Brennan Jr. Professor of Law
• James May | Washburn University School of Law | Richard S. Righter Distinguished Professor of Law
• Sharmila L. Murthy | Northeastern University School of Law | Professor of Law and Public Policy; Faculty Co-Director, Center for Public Interest Advocacy and Collaboration
• Uma Outka | University of Kansas School of Law | William R. Scott Law Professor
• J.B. Ruhl | Vanderbilt University Law School | David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair in Law; Director, Program on Law and Innovation; Co-Director, Energy, Environment and Land Use Program