Symposium 2022 – Southern California Law Review

Chris Stone Symposium on Environmental Law

April 1, 2022

The Southern California Law Review is pleased to announce that we will be presenting a symposium to honor the intellectual legacy of Gould’s, late Professor Christopher D. Stone—the J. Thomas McCarthy Trustee Chair in Law, Emeritus. The symposium will be featured in the final issue of the Law Review’s 95th volume.

Date: Friday, April 1, 2022, from 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM

Location: USC Gould School of Law, Musick Law Building, Faculty Lounge (4th Floor)

Register: here. Lunch will be served to those who register. Lunch spots are limited.

Contact: please contact Brooke Kopel at brooke.kopel.2022@lawmail.usc.edu for further inquiries

Structure of Presentations: Each speaker will have individual, twenty- to thirty-minute presentations, which may include PowerPoints. Presentations will be followed by a short Q&A, time permitting.

11:30-12:30: Lunch
12:30-12:40: Opening Remarks and Introductions (Dean Guzman, Mindy Vo & Professor Altman)
12:40-1:20: Professor Daniel Esty (Zoom from Copenhagen)
1:20-2:00: Professor David Takacs
2:00-2:40: Professor Karen Bradshaw
20-Minute Break
3:00-3:40: Professor Hope Babcock (Zoom from Georgetown)
3:40-4:20: Professor Robin Craig
4:20-5:00: Professor Richard Lazarus
5:00–5:10: Closing Remarks

We hope you can join us in tribute and engage in conversation with his influential scholarship and the nation’s leader in environmental law, including Gould’s very own Professor Robin Craig. We are thrilled to be hosting some of the nation’s leading environmental scholars, including:

Robin Craig (Robert C. Packard Trustee Chair in Law, USC Gould School of Law)
- “Fish, Whales, and a Blue Ethics for the Anthropocene: How Do We Think About the Last Wild Food in the 21st Century?”

Daniel Esty (Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy, Yale Law School)
- “Should Humanity Have Standing? Broadening Environmental Rights to Combat Climate Change and Regear Capitalism for a Sustainable Future”

Richard Lazarus (Howard and Katherine Aibel Professor of Law, Harvard Law School)
- “Justice Breyer’s Friendly Legacy for Environmental Law”

Hope Babcock (Professor of Law, Georgetown Law)
Karen Bradshaw (Professor of Law, ASU Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law)
- “Contemporary Rights of Nature in the United States”

David Takacs (Professor of Law, UC Hastings Law)
- “Standing for Rivers, Mountains—and Trees—in the Anthropocene”

Attendance is open to all. For those outside the Gould community who are interested in attending, please make sure to register to receive parking reservations. Parking spots are limited.

Christopher D. Stone, J. Thomas McCarthy Trustee Chair in Law, Emeritus

Professor Stone joined USC in 1965 and remained a part of the faculty until he passed away in May 2021. Professor Stone was one of the most highly respected environmental law professors in the country, and his article, “Should Trees Have Standing?—Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects,” is one of the most famous articles the Southern California Law Review has ever published. Justice Douglas cited the article and adopted Chris Stone’s arguments in Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 742-43 (1972) (Douglas, J., dissenting), and Justice Scalia also cited Professor Stone’s article in a footnote in his concurring opinion in Minnesota v. Carter, 525 U.S. 83, 98 n.3 (1988) (Scalia, J., concurring). Professor Stone later adapted his work into a book, which has influenced environmental law and policy around the country. To this day, his book, Should Trees Have Standing?: And Other Essays on Law, Morals & the Environment, remains one of the field’s most prominent works.