Hari Osofsky, JD

Hari Osofsky, JD
Interim Director, Consortium on Law and Values and Joint Degree Program

In summer 2010, Hari Osofsky became an associate professor with tenure at the University of Minnesota Law School and the Associate Director of Law, Geography & Environment of the University of Minnesota's Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences. She received her BA and JD from Yale University. She also is a PhD student in the Department of Geography at the University of Oregon.

After clerking for Judge Dorothy Nelson of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, she worked as a Fellow at Center for the Law in the Public Interest, with a focus on environmental justice advocacy. In 2001-02, she served as a Yale-China Legal Education Fellow and Visiting Scholar at Sun Yat-sen University School of Law, where she taught U.S. Civil Rights Law and helped the school launch its clinical legal education program. In 2003-04, she was a non-residential fellow with the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs and engaged in a project on international environmental rights. She also has been a faculty member at Washington and Lee University School of Law, University of Oregon School of Law, and Whittier Law School, and in addition has taught courses at Loyola Law School-Los Angeles and Vermont Law School.

Professor Osofsky's scholarship brings an interdisciplinary law and geography perspective to climate change governance questions. Her current writing projects include several articles, a co-edited book on climate change litigation with Cambridge University Press, and a casebook on climate change law and policy forthcoming with Aspen Publishers. Her articles have been published or are forthcoming in a variety of journals, including the Alabama Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy, Washington University Law Quarterly, Villanova Law Review, Chicago Journal of International Law, Climate Law, Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, Michigan Journal of International Law, Stanford Environmental Law Journal, Stanford Journal of International Law, Virginia Journal of International Law, and Yale Journal of International Law.

Her recent articles have been awarded the Daniel B. Luten Award for the best paper by a professional geographer by the Energy and Environment Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers and first place in the Association of American Geographers' Climate Specialty Group's Student Paper Competition. Her publications also have twice been runner-up for inclusion in Land Use and Environment Law Review's annual compilation of the top land use and environmental law articles.

Professor Osofsky's advocacy work has included assisting with Earthjustice's annual submissions to the U.N. Human Rights Commission on environmental rights and with the Inuit Circumpolar Conference's petition on climate change to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. She also has supervised student coursework helping both the Western Environmental Law Center and the Southern Environmental Law Center on climate change litigation.

She is a member of the Climate Legacy Initiative's Consultants Working Group, the International Law Association's Committee on the Legal Principles of Climate Change, the Executive Committee of the American Association of Law School's Section on International Law, the Executive Committee of the American Association of Law School's Section on Property, the Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation's National Advisory Board, and the Board of Governors of the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT). She also is the inaugural treasurer of the Association for Law, Property, and Society and served as co-chair of the American Society of International Law's 2010 Annual Meeting.

Email: hosofsky@umn.edu

• Rebecca Boxhorn, JD
Research Associate
 
• Audrey Boyle
  Project Manager
   
• Martha Coventry, MA
  Communications Manager
   
• Cortney Jones, JD
  Adjunct Professor, Research Associate
   
• Ralph Hall, JD
  Faculty Editor-in-Chief
   
• Steven Kranz, JD
  Project Manager
   
• Mary Moreno Lien
  Program Assistant
   
• Hari Osofsky, JD
  Interim Director
   
• Carol Rachac, MA
  Associate Program Director
   
• Erin Sikkink
  Student Support Assistant
   
• William Toscano, PhD
  Associate Director, JDP
   
• Susan Wolf, JD
  Founding Chair