The Frank J. Guarini Center on Environmental and Land Use Law was established in 1991. It is directed by Professor Richard Stewart and is named for the Hon. Frank J. Guarini ’50 (L.L.M.’55), a former member of Congress who advanced progressive environmental legislation.
The Center is the focal point for faculty and student activities in environmental and land use law. It promotes legal research and policy problem-solving through collaborative work by faculty, students, and research fellows. The Center sponsors conferences and publications on cutting-edge topics in environmental law. Recent examples include the Climate Change: Financing Green Development conference in Abu Dhabi in May 2009 and the Breaking the Logjam symposium in March 2008. The conferences have generated reports and books.
The Center funds summer internships for law students interested in practicing environmental and land use law at NGOs and government agencies in the US and abroad. Faculty associated with the Center hire and work closely law students as research assistants on Center projects. In addition, the Center offers paid fellowships to recent law graduates who are interested in pursuing academic careers.
The Center was the first of three related initiatives that NYU took to make the Law School the leading national law school for the study of environmental and land use law. Together with The Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy - directed by Professor Vicki Been of NYU Law and Associate Professor Ingrid Gould Ellen of NYU’s Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service - and the newly established Institute for Policy Integrity - directed by Dean Richard Revesz and former Center fellow Michael Livermore - the Center works to advance scholarly inquiry and writing, enhance legal training, and develop and implement innovative solutions to environmental protection and land use problems at the national, regional, and global levels.
