Student Affairs
Summer in Costa Rica
University of Florida/University of Costa Rica Joint Environmental Law Program
June 15- July 28, 2008
Law and graduate students from throughout the United States sit side by side with their Costa Rican and Latin American counterparts, enriching the learning experience for students. This six week program, accredited by the American Bar Association, is Latin America’s most intensive environmental law study abroad program. Visit the program website.
The UF/UCR joint summer program is greatly enriched by a number of educational and research opportunities. Some of these include:
- Cases and controversies handled by Costa Rican Environmental Law Institutions and NGOs like the National Environmental Ombudsman, the Environmental Prosecutor’s Office and CEDARENA, the Center for Environmental and Natural Resources Law (one of Latin America’s oldest environmental law not for profits.
- The Sala Constituctional, Costa Rica’s Constitutional Court, a relatively new institution in Latin American jurisprudence, which has recognized Costa Rican citizens’ fundamental right to a healthy environment.
- The Interamerican Court for Human Rights, the dispute resolution forum within the Organization of American States, which hears an increasing number of cases involving human rights and the environment.
- The U.S. State Department’s Environmental Hub for Central America and the Caribbean, an initiative responsible for advancing United States environmental diplomacy. The Central American hub is one of four regional offices throughout the world.
- Latin American Environmental Law Fellows. The Program works with E-LAW, the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (www.elaw.org), to offer fellowships to early career Latin American environmental attorneys. The participation of the E-LAW fellows and selected law students from the University of Costa Rica greatly enriches the cross-cultural and comparative law experience for all students of the program.
Tortuguero Research Station field trip
The Program fee includes an educational field trip by boat to the Tortuguero Sea Turtle Research Station on Costa Rica’s most remote Caribbean Coast, managed by the Florida-based Caribbean Conservation Corporation (CCC). Tortuguero is home to the Western Hemisphere’s largest nesting population of endangered Green Sea Turtles. The turtles will be at the height of their nesting season in June and July, and you can witness their annual migration to Tortuguero, while applying knowledge learned in the classroom about policies to protect sea turtles in both Florida and Costa Rica.
The UF Law Costa Rica Program has worked for more than a decade with the CCC and the Costa Rican government to protect this international migratory resource. For more information on CCC’s Tortuguero programs, visit www.cccturtle.org.
Universidad de Costa Rica Faculty of Law
The beautifully landscaped Universidad de Costa Rica is located in Ciudad Universitaria Rodrigo Facio on the outskirts of San Jose, the nation’s capital. UCR has 30,000 students enrolled in five colleges. The Faculty of Law has 2,000 students who attend classes in a five-story building containing a law library, bookstore, copy center and cafeteria. The UF summer program coincides with UCR’s traditional summer break. To learn more about UCR, visit its Web site: www.ucr.ac.cr.