Professor Joseph Dellapenna
Beijing University School of Transnational Law
Are Markets Better Than Law in Achieving Sustainability and Water Security in the Face of Climate Disruption?
Beijing University School of Transnational Law
Are Markets Better Than Law in Achieving Sustainability and Water Security in the Face of Climate Disruption?
Professor Joseph Dellapenna: Joseph W. Dellapenna was a Professor of Law at Villanova University in Pennsylvania for 40 years, retiring in 2016. He has taught at law schools in the United States and abroad for 57 years, including being selected as a Fulbright Professor three times. Since retiring at Villanova, he has been a visiting professor nearly every semester, usually abroad. He was a Visiting Professor of Law at Beijing University School of Transnational Law in Shenzhen, PRC, from 2020-2024. He has practiced, taught, and written about water, both in the United States and internationally, for this entire period. Among other courses, he has taught Admiralty, Chinese Law, Comparative Law, Conflicts of Law, Contracts, International Environmental Law, Managing the Water Environment, and Transnational Litigation. He has been a consultant to governments on four continents regarding water law reform and on transboundary water disputes. He represented the Connecticut Water Works Association in City of Waterbury v. Town of Washington, 260 Conn. 506, 802 A.2d 1102 (2002), persuading the Connecticut Supreme Court to adopt a significant reinterpretation of Connecticut water law. Professor Dellapenna is Director of the Model Water Code Project of the American Society of Civil Engineers and served as Rapporteur of the Water Resources Committee of the International Law Association. As Director of the Model Water Code Project, he led the drafting of the Appropriative Rights Model Water Code and the Regulated Riparian Model Water Code, and supervised the preparation of Model Agreements for Sharing and Use of Transboundary Waters and Model Water Regulations for Administration and Trading Water Rights in Humid Areas. As Rapporteur, he led the revision of the Helsinki Rules on the Uses of Waters of International Rivers, the generally recognized summary of the customary international law on water resources, resulting in the International Law Association’s Berlin Rules on Water Resources that replaced the Helsinki Rules. He chairs the Water Regulatory Standards Committee and has chaired the Standards Development Council of the Environment and Water Resources Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He has chaired several ABA committees, including the ABA Committee on International Environmental Law of the Section of International Law. He contributed about half of the five-volume treatise WATERS AND WATER RIGHTS, the standard reference on water law in the United States. He is the only contributor whose works appears in all five volumes. He has also written numerous other books and articles. Professor Dellapenna received a B.B.A. with distinction from the University of Michigan in 1965, a J.D. cum laude from the Detroit College of Law in 1968, an LL.M. in Public International and Comparative Law from the George Washington University in 1969, and an LL.M. (Environmental Law) from Columbia University in 1974. |
Lecture: The lecture is available here. The List: Professor Dellapenna will join the discussion list for the Guest Speaker Program from February 9-13. You can access the list here. Tune In: Schedule of Speakers for Spring 2026 |