Environmental Justice Clinic
The Environmental Justice Clinic was founded in 2001 with the goal of advancing the cause of environmental awareness, policy making and activism through legal counsel, research and education. The Clinic offers legal aid to organizations and vulnerable communities suffering from environmental problems, and seeks to combine in-depth legal research with practical legal work in the environmental sphere, emphasizing the link between environmental problems and issues of social justice.
The Clinic handles projects which are designed to raise awareness of the importance of protecting the environment, such as legislation to increase the transparency of planning processes, collaboration with various organizations to reduce risks ensuing from industrial pollutants, and environmental education projects for children.
Every year, third-year law students join the Clinic to work on environmental projects. The students receive ongoing professional and academic support as well as participating in academic enrichment courses at the Clinic. In addition to their field work, the Clinic students participate in lectures and workshops on environmental law and policy, from legal, philosophical and economic perspectives.
The clinic integrates academic study with practical work and encourages initiative and independent thought on the part of its students. We believe that through personal involvement, the clinic's students learn to recognize the importance of environmental values and social justice, as well as acquire important skills which will benefit them in their legal practice.