Athens, Ga. – The University of Georgia School of Law’s 27th Annual Red Clay Conference, titled “Balancing Public Interests and Private Rights in Environmental Law,” will take place Feb. 27 beginning at 9 a.m. in the Larry Walker Room of Dean Rusk Hall. Pre-registration is requested at http://www.law.uga.edu/red-clay-conference.
The daylong symposium will address the balance of the public interest and private rights in environmental law. Professor Eric T. Freyfogle, Swanlund Chair of Law at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will deliver the keynote address at 1 p.m. The author of more than one dozen books, Freyfogle has taught in the areas of environmental ethics, environmental law and conservation, natural resources law, property law, water law and wildlife law. His presentation will explore the longstanding tension between private property and public interest through revisiting the basics of property ownership and identifying how understanding modern-day ownership can ensure institutions may effectively function while sustaining human communities and natural systems.
There also will be three panel sessions featuring 12 speakers with diverse backgrounds discussing topics such as water supply, energy regulation and coastal development.
“There are many factors to balancing the interests of the public with the rights of individuals in regard to environmental law,” said Hunter L. Jones, conference co-organizer and a third-year law student. “The goal of this year’s conference is to address some of these issues and further advance this facet of environmental law through our keynote presentation and panel discussions.”
The event is $10 or free for members of the UGA community. The conference will offer 4.5 continuing legal education credits for attorneys at a cost of $45.
Sponsored by the law school’s Environmental Law Association, the Red Clay Conference was established to increase public awareness of environmental issues of regional, national and international significance through a series of educational presentations and open forum discussions.
UGA School of Law
Consistently regarded as one of the nation’s top public law schools, the UGA School of Law was established in 1859. With an accomplished faculty, which includes authors of some of the country’s leading legal scholarship, Georgia Law offers three degrees-the Juris Doctor, the Master of Laws and the Master in the Study of Law-and is home to the renowned Dean Rusk Center for International Law and Policy. Its advocacy program is counted among the nation’s best, winning four national championships in 2013-14 alone. For more information, see www.law.uga.edu.