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Sustainable Development Law & Policy

The Sustainable Development Law & Policy Brief (ISSN 1552-3721) is a student-run initiative at American University Washington College of Law that is published twice each academic year. The Brief embraces an interdisciplinary focus to provide a broad view of current legal, political, and social developments. It was founded to provide a forum for those interested in promoting sustainable economic development, conservation, environmental justice, and biodiversity throughout the world.

Gmos, International Law And Indigenous Peoples, Casandia Bellevue

Pace International Law Review

This Article sprung from a desire to discover why—despite scientific uncertainty and the oft-cited precautionary principle in international law—genetically modified organisms are still allowed to spread via international trade and natural ecological cycles. While exploring this topic, it did not take long to come across the environmental justice impacts of genetically modified crops, and their particularly disparate impact upon indigenous peoples across the globe. Not only are GMOs threatening biodiversity and our planet, but also the very existence and cultural foundations of many indigenous groups.

This Article seeks to answer the following questions: What are the international agreements that can …

A Window Of Opportunity For Gmo Regulation: Achieving Food Integrity Through Cap-And-Trade Models From Climate Policy For Gmo Regulation, Gabriela Steier

Pace Environmental Law Review

GMOs are the links of our centralized food system, largely dependent on international trade. GMOs are inherently unsustainable because they reduce biodiversity, harm the environment, and empower positive feedback loops between monocultures, industrial agriculture, and biodiversity depletion, thereby jeopardizing food safety, security, and sovereignty. Conglomerates of multi-national companies, in short BigAg, shape multi-lateral food trade and flood international markets with their small array and enormous volumes of crops, while controlling large aspects of agriculture and food production world-wide. Zooming in on the trans-Atlantic dispute about GE crops, this paper uses comparative law to explore how a cap-and-trade model borrowed from …

A Future For A Forgotten Predator: Assessment Of The Global And Regional Legal Frameworks For Protection And Recovery Of The Caribbean Sawfishes Pristis Pristis And Pristis Pectinata And Recommendations For The Course Forward, Olga Koubrak

LLM Theses

Two species of sawfish, Pristis pristis and Pristis pectinata, used to be common in the coastal waters of the Caribbean Region. However, due to direct and incidental fishing pressures, national and international trade in body parts, and habitat loss, the populations of these ecologically and culturally significant species have drastically declined. This thesis identifies and reviews global and regional, binding and non-binding legal instruments in effect in the Caribbean Region that encourage states to protect biodiversity in general or address identified threats to sawfishes specifically. Despite the presence of obligations that call upon states to adopt sawfish conservation and habitat …

International Economic Law And The Right To Food, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Carmen G. Gonzalez

This chapter examines the historic and current policies and practices that have contributed to food insecurity in the global South. It analyzes the impact of international economic law on the patterns of trade and production that perpetuate food insecurity, and recommends concrete measures that the international community might take through law and regulation to promote the fundamental human right to food. Part I provides a short introduction to the right to food framework and its implications for international trade, investment, and finance. Part II places the current food crisis in historical perspective by discussing the trade and aid policies that …

Why International Catch Shares Won't Save Ocean Biodiversity, Holly Doremus

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Skepticism about the efficacy and efficiency of regulatory approaches has produced a wave of enthusiasm for market-based strategies for dealing with environmental conflicts. In the fisheries context, the most prominent of these strategies is the use of “catch shares,” which assign specific proportions of the total allowable catch to individuals who are then free to trade them with others. Catch shares are now in wide use domestically within many nations, and there are increasing calls for implementation of internationally tradable catch shares. Based on a review of theory, empirical evidence, and two contexts in which catch shares have been proposed, …

The Global Food System, Environmental Protection, And Human Rights, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Carmen G. Gonzalez

The global food system is exceeding ecological limits while failing to meet the nutritional needs of a large segment of the world’s population. While law could play an important role in facilitating the transition to a more just and ecologically sustainable food system, the current legal framework fails to regulate food and agriculture in an integrated manner. The international legal framework governing food and agriculture is fragmented into three self-contained regimes that have historically operated in isolation from one another: international human rights law, international environmental law, and international trade law. International trade law has taken precedence over human rights …

The Global Politics Of Food: Introduction To The Theoretical Perspectives Cluster, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Carmen G. Gonzalez

The corporate-dominated, fossil-fuel dependent model of agricultural production has produced chronic undernourishment, an epidemic of obesity and diet-related diseases, and unprecedented ecological devastation. In May 2010, the Universidad Interamericana in Mexico City hosted an international conference on The Global Politics of Food: Sustainability and Subordination. Sponsored by Latina and Latino Critical Legal Theory, Inc. and by Seattle University School of Law, the conference took place under the auspices of the South-North Exchange on Theory, Culture and Law (SNX), a yearly gathering of scholars in the Americas that seeks to foster transnational, cross-disciplinary and inter-cultural dialogue on current issues in law, …

New Paradigms For Protection Of Biodiversity, Srividhya Ragavan

Faculty Scholarship

The most successful bioprospecting venture was established in 1989 in Costa Rica. Interestingly, the distinction of being a forerunner in exploiting bioprospecting goes to India. In 1979, a full decade before Costa Rica, India established the TBGRI (Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute) at Trivandrum.

Yet, the TBGRI venture with the Kani Tribes, which had the potential to become a beacon of bioprospecting success, is showcased as the exemplar of failure. In this era of trade regime, the following paper asserts, bioprospecting ventures are important tools for developing countries. Countries like India and organizations like the TBGRI should learn from …

Toward A Vibrant Peruvian Middle Class: Effects Of The Peru-United States Free Trade Agreement On Labor Rights, Biodiversity, And Indigenous Populations, Stephen J. Powell, Paola A. Chavarro

Stephen Joseph Powell

Past research confirms that trade and human rights are inextricably linked by trade's effects on poverty, labor, women, indigenous populations, health, and the environment. We identified surprisingly direct linkages between these two vital policies in WTO agreements as well as that regional trade agreements add positive indirect contributions by to rules-based governance through their emphasis on transparency, accountability, and due process by governments, as well as timeliness, inclusive record keeping, and impartiality in the administrative decisional process. The present research examines a particular country and a single trade agreement, Peru and the trade agreement between Peru and the United States. …

Biodiversity Prospecting: Fulfilling The Mandate Of The Biodiversity Convention, Edgar J. Asebey, Jill D. Kempenaa

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

After a brief overview of biodiversity prospecting, the authors review the historical context of biodiversity prospecting, including the common heritage doctrine, international patent law, and the Biodiversity Convention. The authors analyze the four major United States prospecting initiatives to date and identify their strengths and shortcomings. The authors then investigate two possible alternatives: (1) biological resource cartelization and (2) the development of a new type of biodiversity enterprise. The authors advocate the latter as a means of complying with the Biodiversity Convention.