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From Schweizerhalle To Baia Mare: The Continuing Failure Of International Law To Protect Europe's Rivers, Aaron Schwabach

Faculty Scholarship

Beginning on January 31, 2000, at least 100,000 cubic meters of highly polluted water escaped from a tailings dam at the Aurul gold mine in Baia Mare, Romania. The water flowed into the Somes, Tisza, and Danube Rivers, causing enormous environmental damage. Most of the damage occurred in Hungary, downstream from Baia Mare. Hungarian politicians called the spill “the first, most serious environment[al] catastrophe in the 21st century,” and “the worst ecological disaster in central Europe since Chernobyl in 1986.”

More striking than the resemblance to the Chernobyl disaster, though, was the resemblance to another 1986 environmental catastrophe: the Sandoz …

The Rebirth Of Bioethics: Extending The Original Formulations Of Van Rensselaer Potter, Peter J. Whitehouse

Faculty Scholarship

Van Rensselaer Potter's original concept of bioethics as a global integration of biology and values was designed to guide human survival. His attention to the creation of human knowledge and the incorporation of ecological concepts and values into medicine and health remain important, yet largely neglected, contributions deserving of further elaboration. Bioethicists should heed his warning about unsustainable progress, particularly in health care systems, and work toward changing their behaviors. Incorporating life-affirming spiritual values and extending Potter's global bioethics to a deeper bioethics seem essential.

Ecocide And Genocide In Iraq: International Law, The Marsh Arabs, And Environmental Damage In Non-International Conflicts, Aaron Schwabach

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Frictions Of Federalism: The Rise And Fall Of The Federal Common Law Of Interstate Nuisance, Robert V. Percival

Faculty Scholarship

Prior to the erection in the 1970s of a comprehensive federal regulatory infrastructure to protect the environment, transboundary pollution disputes frequently were adjudicated by the U.S. Supreme Court, exercising its original jurisdiction over disputes between states. In a series of cases commencing at the dawn of the Twentieth Century, the Court served as a national arbiter of interstate pollution disputes. This paper reviews the history of the Supreme Court's use of these cases to develop a federal common law of interstate nuisance.

The paper argues that while federal common law initially performed a zoning function by encouraging polluters to relocate …