Greening the Legal Curriculum: A Framework for Establishing Environmental Justice Clinics in Indian Law Schools

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-725-5_5How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Clinical Legal Education; Environmental Justice Clinic; Green Clinic; Legal Aid Clinics; Legal Clinics

Abstract

Environmental degradation and unequal exposure to environmental harms remain major challenge in the 21st century. Although it is undoubtedly true that the Indian legislative environment presents a substantive body of environmental legislation, there are still considerable impediments to the realisation of environmental justice, inspired in large part by the complexity in the procedure involved, as well as the lack of legal specialisation. This paper explores the possibility of law schools to enhance environmental governance and access to environmental justice by establishing Environmental Justice Clinics or also called Green Legal Clinics. Encompassing the methodologies of experiential learning, approved by the National Education Policy of 2020 and the Bar Council of India Legal Education Rules, 2008, the study proposes an institutional framework through which environmental advocacy, regulatory engagement, and community participation can be integrated into legal education. Using a doctrinal and comparative research design, the paper is critical in reviewing the available literature on environmental justice and clinical legal education. It looks at the models of environmental law clinics in different jurisdiction including transnational clinical networks and evaluates their relevance to the Indian legal and institutional context. The paper establishes that the Environmental Justice Clinic is able not only to reinforce the experiential legal education but also to expand access to environmental justice in the general populace. In so doing, these clinics provide law students with the practice skills needed to operate and impact environmental governance processes within the real world.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Khushwant Pawar
AU  - J. M. Mallikarjunaiah
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/07/07
TI  - Greening the Legal Curriculum: A Framework for Establishing Environmental Justice Clinics in Indian Law Schools
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Conceptualizing Legal Framework and Policies for Domestic Animal and Wildlife Conservation: Issues and Challenges in Hybrid Mode (ICAR 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 47
EP  - 59
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-725-5_5
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-725-5_5
ID  - Pawar2026
ER  -