Adam Abelkop joined the Santa Clara faculty in 2025 to teach Legal Analysis, Research, and Writing. He is an expert in environmental law, administrative law, and tort law focusing on the public regulation and private governance of toxic chemicals. Professor Abelkop has written on chemical risk regulation, international and domestic climate change policy, and the role of tort law in environmental and health governance. He earned his Ph.D. in Public Policy from Indiana University and his J.D. from the University of Iowa College of Law. From 2016 to 2019, he served as a teaching fellow supervising Stanford Law School's Environmental Law and Policy LLM program. From 2019 to 2025, he was a faculty member at the University of San Francisco School of Law and director of the Legal Research and Writing program for three years. In addition to legal research and writing, he has taught environmental law, administrative law, torts, and remedies.
J.D., University of Iowa College of Law
B.A., Sociology & History, Wake Forest University
environmental law
administrative law
tort law
chemical risk regulation & public health
legal research and writing
Books
- Chemical Risk Governance (Encyclopedia of Environmental Law Vol. XII, Edward Elgar Publishing Co. 2023) (lead editor with Lucas Bergkamp, Lynn L. Bergeson, and Bethami Auerbach)
- Persistent, Bioaccumulative, and Toxic (PBT) Chemicals: Technical Aspects, Policies, and Practices (CRC Press 2016) (lead author with Todd V. Royer & John D. Graham)
Articles
- Regulation of Chemical Risks: Lessons for Reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act from Canada and the European Union, 32 Pace Environmental Law Review 108(2015) (lead author with John D. Graham)
- Tort Law as an Environmental Policy Instrument, 92 Oregon Law Review 381 (2014)
- Reining in Phaëthon’s Chariot: Principles for the Governance of Geoengineering, 21 Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems 763 (2013) (lead author with Jonathan C. Carlson)
- Forty Years after NEPA’s Enactment, It Is Time for a Comprehensive Farm Bill Environmental Impact Statement, 4 Harvard Law & Policy Review 201 (2010) (with Carrie La Seur)
- Regulating Industrial Chemicals: Lessons for U.S. Lawmakers from the European Union’s REACH Program, 42 Environmental Law Reporter: News & Analysis 11042 (2012) (lead author with Ágnes Botos, Lois R. Wise & John D. Graham)
Chapters
- Introduction to Volume XII, in Chemical Risk Governance (Abelkop, Bergkamp, Bergeson, and Auerbach eds., 2023)
- The US Toxic Substances Control Act as Amended by the Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the Twenty-First Century Act, in Chemical Risk Governance (Abelkop, Bergkamp, Bergeson, and Auerbach eds., 2023)
- Policy Instruments in Chemical Risk Governance, in Chemical Risk Governance (Abelkop, Bergkamp, Bergeson, and Auerbach eds., 2023) (lead author with Kenneth R. Richards)
- International Law, in Chemical Risk Governance (Abelkop, Bergkamp, Bergeson, and Auerbach eds., 2023) (with Noah R. Sachs & David A. Wirth)
- The Role of Tort Law in Public Health and Environmental Governance, in Policy Instruments in Environmental Law(Encyclopedia of Environmental Law Vol. VIII, Kenneth R. Richards & Josephine Van Zeben eds., 2020)
- Regulation of Chemicals, in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Environmental Law(Emma Lees & Jorge E. Viñuales eds., 2019) (with Lucas Bergkamp)
- How Can REACH be Improved?, in The European Union REACH Regulation for Chemicals: Law and Practice 390 (Lucas Bergkamp ed., 2013) (lead author with Ágnes Botos, Lois R. Wise & John D. Graham)