Robert Percival, professor and director of the Environmental Law Program at the University of Maryland School of Law, has written extensively on “the globalization of environmental law.” Professor Percival powerfully notes that “as the forces of globalization bind the world more closely together than ever before, environmental law is developing on a global scale in important new ways.” Robert V. Percival, The Globalization of Environmental Law, 26 Pace Envtl. L. Rev. 451, 452 (2009).

I understand what Professor Percival, a friend and frequent speaker at Section programs, means when he reflects on the more international nature and scope of our practices as compared to environmental law’s early days. Some of us began our practice with an international or global component, but I, for example, cut my legal teeth on domestic clean air and Superfund law, later moving into U.S. water quality law. My day-to-day practice did not require much knowledge of European Union trends, developments in Asia, or resource extraction in developing nations.