Date: Friday January 31, 2020
Time: 11:30am - 1:00pm
Venue: Faculty Conference Center (FCC), Jacob Burns Law Library, 5th Floor, GW Law School
Light lunch will be served.

Join the GW Law Environmental & Energy Law Program and the Comparative & International Law Program in welcoming Professor James May from Widener University Delaware Law School, who will be presenting on the topic of "Overlooking Human Dignity in Environmental Outcomes".

Environmental outcomes and human dignity – that is, the recognition that every human being has equal worth that is inherent and inalienable – are inexorably linked. Adverse environmental conditions can adversely affect realization of the spectrum of civil, political, and socioeconomic rights that advance human dignity. Lack of access to potable water, for example, diminishes the ability to work or learn, care for family, or participate in governance.

International law has danced with environmental dignity, but only episodically and perfunctorily without much benefit to either the environment or those adversely affected by it. Most progress at the junction of dignity and the environment has been jurisprudential. Instead of languishing somewhere offstage, Professor May argues that human dignity ought to play a prominent role in influencing environmental policy and outcomes internationally, regionally and domestically.

BIO: Professor James R. May is Distinguished Professor of Law and co-Founder and co-Director of the Dignity Rights Project and the Environmental Rights Institute at Widener University Delaware Law School. Prof. May is also Adjunct Professor of Graduate Engineering and inaugural and immediate past Chief Sustainability Officer at Widener University, where he founded the Widener Sustainability Initiative. May has taught 20 courses, founded or co-founded three law centers, four non-profit environmental organizations and a joint degree program, directed an environmental law clinic, and held numerous visiting appointments. May is also a former national defense engineer and litigator who has prosecuted hundreds of public interest claims in federal court.

Would you like to contribute to the GW Environmental and Energy Futures Fund? Designate your gift to the Environmental and Energy Law Program here: https://securelb.imodules.com/s/960/index.aspx?sid=960&gid=1&pgid=1451&cid=2804