Environmental Legal Education as if Earth Really Mattered: A Brief Account from Japan

Abstract

How can environmental legal education engage with the Anthropocene? Focusing on the Japanese higher education context, this article interweaves the author’s own biographical experience (i.e., a recent professional move from the Graduate School of Law to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences) with an analysis of how international non-monodisciplinary teaching frameworks can contribute to the development of environmental legal studies beyond the School of Law and its disciplinary focus. In this regard, what is considered is the extent to which a cross-listed course, Law and the Environment, designed for a mixed body of Japanese and international undergraduate students enrolled in different tracks (Environmental Sciences and Humanities & Social Sciences), may help both break down familiar approaches to environmental problems and turn the classroom into a new ‘community of inquiry’.