Robert V. Percival is the Robert F. Stanton Professor of Law and the Director of the Environmental Law Program at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law. He has a B.A. summa cum laude from Macalester College, an M.A. in economics from Stanford University, and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. Percival served as managing editor of the Stanford Law Review and he was named the Nathan Abbott Scholar for graduating first in his law school class. Following graduation, he served as a law clerk for Judge Shirley M. Hufstedler of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White. Prior to joining the Maryland faculty Percival served as a senior attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund.
Percival is internationally recognized as a leading scholar and teacher in environmental law. Since 1992 he has been the principal author of the most widely used casebook in environmental law in the U.S., Environmental Regulation: Law, Science & Policy, now in its eighth edition. He is the author of more than 100 publications on topics that include environmental law, federalism, presidential powers, regulatory policy and legal history. Percival has taught as a visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School in 2000 and 2009 and at Georgetown University Law Center in 2005 and 2011. He received the University System of Maryland Board of Regents’ ‘Faculty Award for Collaborative Teaching’ in 2005 and in 2007 he was named the University's 'Teacher of the Year.’ In 2014 Percival received the ‘Senior Distinguished Education Award’ from the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law in recognition of his outstanding teaching and contributions to the field of environmental law. Among the courses he has taught are Environmental Law, a seminar on Global Environmental Law, Administrative Law and Torts.
During the spring semester 2008 Percival taught as a J. William Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. In 1994 he taught as a Fulbright scholar at Comenius University Law School in Slovakia. Percival is a highly popular guest lecturer who has given hundreds of guest lectures, paper presentations, and workshops in more than 30 countries on six continents. In 2009 he represented the U.S. Department of State on a lecture tour of China. He has delivered guest lectures at more than 40 U.S. academic institutions, at 30 Chinese universities and before numerous professional associations and government agencies. Percival has served as the Natural Resource Law Institute Distinguished Visitor at Lewis & Clark College of Law, as a visiting professor of law at the University of Chile where he helped establish South America's first environmental law clinic, and as a high-level visiting foreign expert at Shanghai Jiaotong University’s KoGuan Law School. He has taught summer courses at Shandong University, Vermont Law School, the University of British Columbia and the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.
Percival has played a leading role in conceptualizing the field of global environmental law.
Percival has led a dozen environmental law student field trips to China, the Middle East and Africa. He is a member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law and one of the founding members of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law. In 2009 he delivered Pace Law School's Lloyd K. Garrison Lecture. In 2015 he delivered the Wallace Stegner Lecture at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law and in 2016 he delivered the Distinguished Environmental Lecture at Florida State University College of Law.
Percival is a member of the Board of Regents of the American College of Environmental Lawyers. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Environmental Law Institute and as co-chair of the steering committee of the D.C. Bar's Section on Environmental, Energy and Natural Resources Law. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute, the American College of Environmental Lawyers, and the National Committee on U.S./China Relations. Percival has served as the contributing editor for Environment and Natural Resources for the Federal Circuit Bar Journal, as a special master for the U.S. District Court of Maryland, and as a member of the state of Maryland's Environmental Restoration and Development Task Force.
Robert Percival will participate in the World Justice Forum working session Legal Tools for Advancing Environmental Justice and Public Health.