W&L Law Symposium to Explore Property and Climate Change in Former Colonies
This month, the Center for Law and History at Washington and Lee University, in partnership with Virginia Sea Grant, will host a symposium exploring the impact that the colonial legal experience continues to have on eastern states.
The symposium, titled “History, Property & Climate Change in the Former Colonies,” will take place on Oct. 12 in the Millhiser Moot Court Room, Sydney Lewis Hall on the grounds of Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. This event is free and open to the public. CLE credit will be available.
The symposium will focus on the application of legal historical research to contemporary problems and opportunities in the areas of policy-making, property rights, and hazard resilience in coastal communities. Topics discussed at the symposium will include an intellectual history of climate, colonies and water; the impact of climate change on water quality; the relationship between water and property in the former colonies, and modernizing law for climate challenges. A complete schedule for the symposium is available online at law.wlu.edu/climatehistory.
The W&L Center for Law and History encourages and supports the interdisciplinary study of law in its historical context. It aims to achieve that mission by bringing together scholars from W&L and throughout the world to promote research and teaching in all areas and periods of legal history. The center is focusing its immediate efforts on bringing history into dialogue with geography, particularly in the context of critical, emerging issues.
The Center is also the home of the distinguished Hendricks lecture series in legal history. The 2012 lecture in this series was delivered by Lauren Benton, professor of law and history and dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at New York University. Past lectures were delivered by Alfred Brophy, Judge John J. Parker Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law, G. Edward White, the David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, William Thaddeus Coleman, Jr., one of the lead strategists and coauthor of the legal brief in Brown v. Board of Education, and William E. Nelson, the Judge Edward Weinfeld Professor of Law at New York University Law School.
