Event Profile

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The Mid-Year Meeting consists of two workshops - Workshop on Torts, Environment and Disaster, June 8-10 and the Workshop on When Technology Disrupts Law: How Do IP, Internet and Bio Law Adapt, June 10-12.

AALS Workshop on Torts, Environment and Disaster

Why Torts Law Teachers Would Attend?   Tort scholarship and tort practice has been concerned with large-scale losses since the advent of the class action.  Recent events, such as the attacks of 9/11 and the BP oil spill, have illustrated that the tools of aggregate litigation may not be enough to handle the job of ascertaining both responsibility and compensation after a disaster.  The Torts and Compensation Law Section will take advantage of its joint meeting with the Environmental Law Section to provide a fresh look at the special problem that disasters pose for tort law in the 21^st Century.

The topics covered by the torts portion of the joint meeting will include whether tort law should be limited in times of disasters, the role (if any) of tort principles in the design of public compensation and private settlement funds, and the relationship between tort and insurance law in times of disaster.  At the end of the program there will be a session on the incorporation of issues relating to disaster in the torts curriculum.  The program will provide torts and insurance scholars of all levels of seniority with new insights into their own research and teaching.

Why Environmental Law and Natural Resources Law Teachers Would Attend?   Rather than a singular catastrophic event, Hurricane Katrina seems more and more like the opening act in what will become known as an age of disaster.  Since Katrina, not only hurricanes, but also oil spills, earthq