Environmental Law, Policy and Governance (LLM)

Our new LLM degree in Environmental Law, Policy and Governance is timely in an era of accelerating environmental crises: climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, conflicts over natural resources as a result of pollution, overconsumption, inequality and poverty, and the impacts of advancing technology. Habitat destruction threatens our species and communities. It also affects public health due to the increased risk of zoonosis transmission, as emphasised by the coronavirus pandemic.

Individuals and societies have increasingly turned to the law for solutions. While legal responses have been innovative and creative, challenges persist in the use of law to respond to complex environmental problems.

Our LLM in Environmental Law, Policy and Governance is an innovative research-led programme that will introduce you to the core themes, principles and theory underpinning environmental law. It offers you the theoretical and practical knowledge crucial for a solid understanding of the ways in which policy, the law and governance structures respond to environmental problems.

Together, we engage with contemporary legal policy discussions and evaluate legal, regulatory and policy proposals. We focus on a critical understanding of environmental problems as well as their intersection with other challenges such as racial and economic inequalities.

This degree is ideal for both law and non-law graduates, including those already in employment as legal practitioners. It will help establish an advanced understanding of the subject area and aid career progression.

CAREERS AND EMPLOYABILITY

Graduates may use this qualification to help them advance an existing career or develop a new career path, for example in policy development, practice, and analysis, within organisations across public, private and non-governmental sectors, including local and national government bodies, regulators, law enforcement and justice agencies, think-tanks, media outlets and universities.

We offer a comprehensive Careers Service to help you advance your career, while our in-house, professional recruitment consultancy, Birkbeck Talent, works with London’s top employers to help you gain work experience that fits in with your evening studies.