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Faculty
Robert Percival
Robert F. Stanton Professor of Law and
Director, Environmental Law Program
Phone: (410) 706-8030
Fax: (410) 706-2184
E-mail:
Office: 481
BA, 1972, Macalester College
MA, 1978, JD, 1978, Stanford University
Professor Percival joined the Maryland faculty in 1987 after serving as senior attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund. While in law school, he served as managing editor of the Stanford Law Review and was named the Nathan Abbott Scholar for graduating first in his class. Percival served as a law clerk for Judge Shirley M. Hufstedler of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White. Percival also served as a special assistant to the first U.S. Secretary of Education.
Percival is internationally recognized as a leading scholar in environmental law. He is principal author of the country's most widely used casebook in environmental law, Environmental Regulation: Law, Science & Policy, now in its sixth edition. He has written extensively on several topics, including environmental law, regulatory policy, federalism, presidential powers, and legal history. Percival has taught as a visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School in 2000 and 2009 and at Georgetown University Law Center in 2005. He currently teaches Environmental Law, Comparative Environmental Law, Constitutional Law, and Administrative Law at Maryland. In 2007 he was named the University's 'Teacher of the Year.'
During the spring semester 2008 Percival taught as a J. William Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. He previously taught as a Fulbright scholar at Comenius University Law School in Slovakia. Percival has lectured and presented environmental law workshops on six continents in countries including Australia, Chile, India, Iran, Japan, Mongolia, Uganda, Ukraine, and the former Soviet Union. He also has lectured at 15 universities and before several professional associations and government agencies in China. In 2009 he served as a Citizen Ambassador to China for the U.S. Department of State. Percival has served as the Natural Resource Law Institute Distinguished Visitor at Lewis & Clark College of Law and as a visiting professor of law at the University of Chile where he helped establish South America's first environmental law clinic. He also has taught summer courses at the University of British Columbia and at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.
Percival currently is working on the first casebook on 'Global Environmental Law.' He maintains a website developed for the casebook (www.globalenvironmentallaw.com) on which his weekly blog appears. The blog also is available at http://globalenvironmentallaw.blogspot.com. Percival is a member of the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law. In April 2009 he delivered Pace Law School's Lloyd K. Garrison Lecture on 'The Globalization of Environmental Law.'
Percival has served on the Board of Directors of the Environmental Law Institute and as co-chair of the steering committee of the D.C. Bar's Section on Environmental, Energy and Natural Resources Law. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute. Percival has served as the contributing editor for Environment and Natural Resources for the Federal Circuit Bar Journal, as a special master for the U.S. District Court of Maryland, and as a member of the state of Maryland's Environmental Restoration and Development Task Force.
Books
Environmental Regulation: Law, Science & Policy (1992; 2d ed. 1996; 3d ed 2000; 4th ed., 2003; 5th ed. 2006; 6th ed. 2009) (with others).
Environmental Law: Statutory and Case Supplement (2006-2009 eds.) (with Christopher Schroeder)
Law and the Environment: A Multidisciplinary Reader (1997) (editor, with Dorothy C. Alevizatos).
The Roots of Justice: Crime and Punishment in Alameda County, California, 1870-1910 (1981) (with Lawrence M. Friedman).
Articles
The Globalization of Environmental Law, 26 Pace Environmental Law Review 451 (2009). [Full Text]
Massachusetts v. EPA: Escaping the Common Law’s Growing Shadow, 2007 Supreme Court Review 111 (2008). [Full Text]
Environmental Law in the 21st Century , in International Environmental Law and Comparative Environmental Law Review 204 (Wang Xi ed., 2008) (translated into Chinese by Professor Li Yanfang). [Full Text]
El Surgimiento del Derecho Ambiental Global (The Emergence of Global Environmental Law), in Desarrollo Sustentable: Gobernanza y Derecho 11 (V. Duran, S. Montenegro & P. Moraga eds., 2008) (translation into Spanish by Ada I. Diaz-Hernandez). [Full Text]
Environmental Law in the Twenty-First Century, 25 Virginia Environmental Law Journal 1 (2007).
Who's Afraid of the Precautionary Principle?, 23 Pace Environmental Law Review 21 (2006). [Full Text]
Environmental Law in the Supreme Court: Highlights from the Blackmun Papers, 35 Environmental Law Reporter 10637 (2005). [Full Text]
Forum: Is Chinese Environmental Law up to the Task?, Environmental Forum, Sept. - Oct. 2005, at 44.
The Clean Water Act and the Demise of the Federal Common Law of Interstate Nuisance, 55 Alabama Law Review 717 (2004).
Resolucion de Conflictos Ambientales: Lecciones Aprendidas de la Historia de la Contaminacion de las Fundiciones de Minerales, in Prevencion y Solucion de Conflictos Ambientales Vias Administrativas, Jurisdiccionales y Alternativas 399 (2004).
Global Environmental Accountability: The Missing Link in the Pursuit of Sustainable Development?, in The Moral Austerity of Environmental Decision Making: Sustainability, Democracy and Normative Argument in Policy and Law (J. M. Gilroy & J. Bowersox, eds. 2002).
"Greening" the Constitution: Harmonizing Environmental and Constitutional Values, 32 Environmental Law 809 (2002).
Skeptical environmentalist or statistical spin-doctor?: Bjorn Lomborg and the Relationship between Environmental Law and Environmental Process, 53 Case Western Reserve Law Review 263 (2002).
Separation of Powers, the Presidency and the Environment, 21 Journal of Land, Resources and Environmental Law 25 (2001).
Escaping the Common Law’s Shadow: Standing in the light of Laidlaw, 12 Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum 119 (2001) (with Joanna B. Goger).
Presidential Management of the Administrative State: The Not-so-Unitary Executive, 51 Duke Law Journal 963 (2001).
Water Pollution Control: Lessons from Transnational Experience, in Derecho Del Medio Ambiente Congreso Internacional 273 (1998).
Environmental Legislation and the Problem of Collective Action, 9 Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum, 9 (1998).
Regulatory Evolution and the Future of Environmental Policy, 1997 University of Chicago Legal Forum 159.
Responding to Environmental Risk: A Pluralistic Perspective, 14 Environmental Law Review 513 (1997).
Environmental Federalism: Historical Roots and Contemporary Models, 54 Maryland Law Review 1141 (1995).
Overcoming Interpretive Formalism: Legislative Reversals of Judicial Constructions of Sovereign Immunity Waivers in the Environmental Statutes, 43 Washington University Journal of Urban and Contemporary Law, 221 (1993).
The Ecology of Environmental Conflict: Risk, Uncertainty and the Transformation of Environmental Policy Disputes, 12 Studies in Law, Politics, and Society 209 (1992).
Checks without Balance: Executive Office Oversight of the Environmental Protection Agency, Law and Contemporary Problems, Autumn 1991, at 127.
Protecting Coastal and Estuarine Resources: Confronting the Gulf between the Promise and Product of Environmental Regulation, 47 Maryland Law Review 341 (1988).
Restoring Regulatory Policy to Serve the Public Interest, in Winning America: Ideas and Leadership for the 1990s, at 48 (Raskin & Hartman, eds. 1988).
The Organometals: Impact of Accidental Exposure and Experimental Data on Regulatory Policy, in Neurotoxicants and Neurobiological Function: Effects of Organoheavy Metals 328 (Tilson & Sparber, eds. 1987) (with Ellen K. Silbergeld).
The Processing of Felonies in the Superior Court of Alameda County, 5 Law and History Review 413 (1987) (with Lawrence M. Friedman).
The Bounds of Consent: Consent Decrees, Settlements and Federal Environmental Policymaking, 1987 University of Chicago Legal Forum 327 (1987).
Conservation and Renewable Energy Sources as Supply Alternatives for New York’s Electric Utilities, in The Future of Electrical Energy: A Regional Perspective of an Industry in Transition 126 (Saltzman & Schuler eds., 1986).
The Role of Attorney Fee Shifting in Public Interest Litigation, Law and Contemporary Problems, Winter 1984, at 233.
Who Sues for Divorce?, 5 Journal of Legal Studies 61 (1976) (with Lawrence M. Friedman).
A Tale of Two Courts, 10 Law and Society Review 267 (1976) (with Lawrence M. Friedman).
