February 08, 2022
Lucia A. Silecchia, Assistant Director of International Summer Law Program in Rome and Professor of Law, was recently the lunch speaker at the Legal Humanities Fellowship Program hosted by the Collegium Institute for Catholic Thought & Culture at the University of Pennsylvania. Her talk entitled, "Environmental Law and The Common Good," explored the ways in which environmental law internationally and domestically serves the common good—or has difficulties doing so. It covered the various ways in which "environment" may be defined, and the challenges in determining what legal and policy approaches will best advance the common good. Various answers to this question, taken from the National Environmental Policy Act, the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm Convention), Pope John Paul II's Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All Creation, Pope Benedict XVI's If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation, and Pope Francis' Laudato Si,' were also discussed.