The University of Miami Law Review has announced this year's symposium, "An Unequal Burden: Exploring Environmental Justice and the Climate Crisis," to be held February 10 and 11 on the Coral Gables campus.
The symposium will focus on the increasingly crucial legal field of environmental law. The discussion throughout the two-day event will look at the unequal burden shouldered by different communities from the climate crisis and how the environmental justice legal movement is working to correct historical wrongs.
The program will examine various subjects, such as Miami-centric issues, labor and immigration, Indigenous approaches, climate racism and human rights, and just energy transitions.
Shalanda H. Baker, the director of the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity at the U.S. Department of Energy, will deliver the opening keynote. Before her appointment at DoE, she was a Law, Public Policy and Urban Affairs professor at Northeastern University. She was the co-founder and co-director of the Initiative for Energy Justice, which provides technical law and policy support to communities on the front lines of climate change.
Mary Kathryn Nagle, a lawyer, playwright, and citizen of the Cherokee Nation, will deliver the second-day keynote. Nagle works at the intersection of justice and drama to secure the rights and sovereignty of Native nations. She has drafted and filed numerous briefs in the Supreme Court of the United States. She has also published multiple law review articles and written plays performed across the country.
The symposium will also feature the first global preview of artist Xavier Cortada's video installation "Underwater Florida." Cortada will deliver a lecture “Mobilizing Climate Constituencies through Socially Engaged Art” to close the first day.
Through the Climate Resilience Academy, the University of Miami has demonstrated a renewed determination to address the climate crisis on the UM campus. The 2023 symposium will bring the University community and the legal community together and provide a platform for these critical issues with global impact for the coming decades.
The event, which will take place at the Lakeside Expo Center, is open to the public with registration and includes CLE credits — 1.0 in ethics and 9.0 general – from The Florida Bar.
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