HIST 1936: The Rights of Nature

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HIST 1936 is the same course as HLS 3248.

This new course explores an emerging field known as the Rights of Nature (RoN). RoN is at once a legal argument and a political movement. The course will consider its plausibility, usefulness, and application, while also excavating its historical and philosophical origins. The movement is global and strongest in the Global South, especially in New Zealand and parts of Latin America. Its more visible international initiatives include the drafting of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth and the establishment of the International Rights of Nature Tribunal. If you’re keen to get a glimpse of the field before the course meets, you might poke your nose in David Boyd, The Rights of Nature: A Legal Revolution that Could Save the World (2017).

This course, offered to FAS, GSAS, and HLS students, is jointly taught by Jill Lepore, the David Kemper Professor of History and Law, and James Salzman, the Jeremiah Smith Visiting Professor of Law. The course is necessarily comparative but because HLS students will primarily be practicing in the U.S., the cases we consider will be disproportionately American; three of the eight cases we will study come from the U.S.

Please note that this is a draft syllabus. A final version will be posted in August.

Meeting Times and Course Format

The course meets once a week Mondays from 6-8 PM, in a mix of engaged lecture and discussion, including small-group work. Each week both professors will deliver a short lecture and then together we’ll moderate a class-wide discussion. After the first two weeks of introduction, each week’s reading will center on a legal case, past or present, but will also include primary historical documents and examples of nature writing that has a bearing on the storytelling in the case itself. Over the course of the semester we will be joined by several guests, both from lawyers and activists working in this field, and from critics of it. There will also be a movie night!

Enrollment

Enrollment is capped at 40 students, divided evenly between HLS and FAS/GSAS. HLS enrollment is by lottery. Auditors are not allowed. Seats in the FAS/GSAS are now full. Please email jlepore@fas.harvard.edu if you would like to be added to the wait list. If you have not gotten into this course and want to take a course with Professor Lepore, there is no cap on History 10.

WAIT LIST (in order)

  1. Merchan
  2. Hamm
  3. Fitzsimons
  4. Adler, Hannah
  5. Toklu
  6. Adler, Jax
  7. Kurtz
  8. Curran, Caroline
  9. Paulson, Giselle
  10. Pallota, Ava
  11. Banerjee, Aditya
  12. Haviland, Ciel

Assignments and Grading

Your principal work for this course is the careful reading of course materials and preparation for class discussion. Class participation will be worth 30% of your grade. You will also form research teams to investigate a Rights of Nature concern and prepare a position, for or against, for an in-class Nature Summit, to be held over the final two class meetings. For this project, your group will be assigned a role (representing, for instance, a river, or a developer, a landowner, or an insect population). Before the summit, you will submit a short white paper. That paper, plus your participation in the Nature Summit will be worth 40% of your grade.  There will also be a very straightforward take-home final exam, worth 30% of your grade: it'll cover course material and also give you a chance to reflect on the Nature Summit.

Professor Salzman will grade HLS students; Professor Lepore will grade non-HLS students. Neither absences nor late work will be accepted without a written medical excuse.

Class Topics

The syllabus below sets out each week’s topic. All reading materials will be found under the Modules section of Canvas.Please note that we have listed, on this draft syllabus, more reading than we will, in the end, assign!

Sep. 9           The Law and History of Nature 

Sep. 16          The Law and History of Rights

Sep. 23          Case #1:         Sierra Club v. Morton, 1972

Sep. 30           Case #2:         Los Cedros, 2021  

Oct. 7              Case #3:         Happy the Elephant, 2022

Oct. 14           [No Class, Indigenous Peoples' Day/Columbus Day]

Oct. 21           Case #4:         Whanganui River, New Zealand, 2017

Oct. 28           Case #5:        Mar Menor Lagoon, Spain, 2022

Nov. 4             Case #6:        Held v. Montana, 2023 and Juliana v. U.S., 2023

Nov. 11           Case #7:       White Earth Band of Ojibwe, Manoomin rice, 2018

Nov. 18           Case #8        Robot rights

Nov. 25           Nature Summit I

Dec. 2             Nature Summit II

Final exam

 

 

 

 

Course Summary:

Date Details Due