Randall S. Abate

For three decades, Professor Abate has taught courses and published books and articles addressing domestic and global environmental governance (with a recent emphasis on climate change law and justice), human rights and the environment (including the protection of future generations, indigenous peoples, climate displaced peoples, and disproportionately burdened communities), ocean and coastal law, constitutional law, and the parallels and synergies between animal law and environmental law. 

His work seeks to center and uplift the underrepresented human and non-human communities in the climate crisis through strategic litigation against governmental and private sector entities, and exposing and combating greenwashing and climate washing. It also explores new ways to advocate for and implement climate justice and ocean equity protections for coastal and Indigenous communities. 

Professor Abate has lectured and taught courses in more than 25 countries on six continents and has published six books and more than 40 law journal articles and book chapters. Previously, he was a Haub Visiting Scholar at Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University and a Fulbright Specialist in Odessa, Ukraine; served as Assistant Dean for Environmental Law Studies at the George Washington University Law School; and held full-time law teaching positions at six U.S. law schools and one university. In his teaching, he embraces a student-centered approach, mentoring and challenging students to research and write on cutting-edge issues in environmental law, climate governance, and animal law. In working under his supervision on seminar papers and directed research projects, Professor Abate's students have been published in more than 50 academic law journals and have presented their scholarship around the nation and the world.