HESBURGH LECTURE SERIES 2013 Program - Alumni Association ...

John C. Nagle, J.D.
Professor; The John N. Matthews Chair, Law
Biography
John Nagle is the John N. Matthews Chair at the University of Notre Dame Law School,
where he teaches legislation, property, and a variety of environmental law courses. He is
the co-author of three casebooks: The Practice and Policy of Environmental Law, Property:
Cases and Materials, and The Law of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management. His book
Law’s Environment: How the Law Affects the Environment, was published by Yale University
Press in 2010. He also is writing about the relationship between environmental pollution,
cultural pollution, and other kinds of pollution, and about how religious teachings influence
environmental law.
Nagle’s articles on statutory interpretation, the legislative process, campaign finance, and
environmental law have been published in journals such as the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia
Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the
New York University Law Review. His article on the history of the 20th Amendment was featured during the debate on the ability
of a lame-duck Congress to impeach President Clinton in 1998. His other writings have explored topics such as the scope of
congressional power to protect endangered species, alternative approaches to campaign finance reform, and the competing
roles of Congress and the courts in correcting statutory mistakes. Nagle has lectured on legislation and environmental issues at
numerous forums in the U.S. and around the world.
Before joining the Notre Dame faculty, Nagle was an associate professor at the Seton Hall University School of Law from 1994
through 1998. He also worked in the U.S. Department of Justice, first as an attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel where he
advised other executive branch agencies on a variety of constitutional and statutory issues, and later as a trial attorney conducting
environmental litigation. Nagle served as a law clerk to Judge Deanell Reece Tacha of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th
Circuit, and he was a scientific assistant in the Energy and Environmental Systems Division of Argonne National Laboratory. He
is a graduate of Indiana University and the University of Michigan Law School.
Lectures
China’s Environmental Disaster
The familiar downside to China’s unprecedented economic growth is an equally unprecedented amount of pollution and
environmental destruction. China’s central government is trying to address the country’s environmental problems, but it struggles
with a surprising inability to actually regulate what happens outside of Beijing.
Making Law Humble
President Obama has articulated the importance of humility on frequent occasions during the beginning of his presidency, yet his
detractors accuse him of arrogance – the opposite of humility. Much of this controversy involves conflicting understandings of
humility, which is especially challenging when the law is employed to coerce people into taking (or not taking) certain actions.
Scenic
Americans love our scenery. Protecting that scenery is challenging, though, because “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and also
because we love to build things that happen to interfere with our scenery. The history of the Great Tetons provides a particularly
helpful illustration of our efforts to preserve scenic areas while permitting appropriate development.
Thinking Christianly About Climate Change
Categories
The Catholic Church, evangelical leaders, and a host of other religious leaders, have objected to the science and politics of
efforts to mitigate climate change. An examination of the climate change debate helps illuminate how Christians from different
traditions think about not only climate change, but about broader issues of science, the environment, and law.
Church, Environment,
Government, Law
The Hesburgh Lecture Series, 2013 Program 69