LLM Environmental Law and Sustainable Development

Overview

The LLM in Environmental Law and Sustainable Development provides a unique specialisation in a rapidly evolving area of law that covers a range of issues at the heart of major contemporary developments and debates. This programme offers a wide range of distinctive modules that combine a focus on core subjects in the field alongside a critical inquiry into the theory and practice of environmental law, particularly as they relate to the global South.

Why SOAS?

The SOAS degree offers a distinct and unique mix of modules that covers the main areas of environmental law in their international and national dimensions, with a focus on the global South.

At SOAS, we understand environmental law as deeply connected with human and social issues. This is why our compulsory introductory course is a course on Law Environment and Social Justice. This also explains why human rights dimensions find repeated place in our courses.

Our international environmental law focused courses (International Environmental Law, Climate Change Law and Policy, and Law and Global Commons) will offer you a strong bases in some of the main challenges arising at the international and global level and provide you particular insights in the global South-global North aspects of relevant regimes that are on the whole structured around a North-South dichotomy.

We also offer courses focusing more specifically on the resource dimension of environmental law. At SOAS, we take a broad view of the subject matter and our Law and Natural Resources course addresses a broad variety of natural resources beyond the traditional focus on oil and gas and does so in particular in terms of the livelihoods and human rights consequences of natural resource use. Our water courses (Water Justice: Rights, Access and Movements and Water and Development: Commodification, Ecology and Globalisation) address the increasingly crucial and under-studied field of water and do so from an inter-disciplinary perspective in collaboration with the department of Development Studies.

Why you?

The programme is ideal for LLB graduates or legal professionals with an interest in the theory and practice of environmental law and related fields, particularly as they relate to the global South.

After you graduate, you will join graduates from the LLM at SOAS, many of whom are now working as environmental lawyers, in environmental NGOs and consultancies, in government, in policy work at the national or international level (UN or other) or in academia.

Employment

Students have gone on to take up a variety of exciting opportunities. Some graduates have decided to carry on with further academic studies and have undertaken a PhD in environmental law; some have gone on to practice environmental law in their own countries; some have worked for environmental consultancies, such as Milieu in Brussels or specific environmental law advisory organisations, such as ClientEarth and Climate Law and Policy; some have gone on to work on environmental issues in international organisations; and some have gone on to work more broadly on sustainable development in international NGOs and inter-governmental organisations. A postgraduate degree in environmental law and sustainable development thus opens up many doors, reflecting the broad scope of the course and the multiplicity of ways in which it can be applied in the workplace.

We will consider all applications with a 2:2 (or international equivalent) or higher in a relevant Social Sciences subject. In addition to degree classification in a relevant subject we take into account other elements of the application such as supporting statement. References are optional, but can help build a stronger application if you fall below the 2:2 requirement or have non-traditional qualifications.