Public Trust Seminar

Fall 2009
LAW 607
Credits: 2

Instructor: Mary Wood

Explores an area of the law that arises from the common law, widely thought to be the doctrinal foundation of our modern environmental and natural resources statutes. Public trust law is drawing widespread attention for its potential to allow judicial oversight of the legislative and executive branches' disposition of natural resources. The major strands of public trust law are evident in other cases dealing with streambeds, water, and wildlife, but more recently the doctrine has expanded to other resources, including historic resources, wetlands, beachfronts, and forests. The unresolved questions of public trust law reach deep into constitutional theory, comparative international law, remedies, judicial function, property rights, takings law, and preemption.