Digital Commons Network^™

Harm Egalitarianism, Michael E. Herz

Articles

In the last few years, law schools and law professors have given new attention to how questions of race can be interwoven into courses that are not explicitly about race. Much has been written about how to do so in both first-year and upper-level courses, and, from all reports, the law school classroom has meaningfully changed. My sense, though it is completely impressionistic and unscientific, is that the typical Administrative Law course may have changed less than many others. It seems fair to say, at least, that there has not developed a standard suite of topics that a professor wanting …

Climate Justice In The Anthropocene And Its Relationship With Science And Technology: The Importance Of Ethics Of Responsibility, Paolo Davide Farah, Alessio Lo Giudice

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Climate change is a global phenomenon. Therefore, globalization is the necessary hermeneutical horizon to develop an analysis of the metamorphosis climate change could cause at a political, social, and economic level. Within this horizon, this Article shows how the relationship between the concept of the Anthropocene epoch and the request for justice allows for framing a climate-justice and intergenerational equity–focused political interpretation of the effects of climate change. In order to avoid reducing such an interpretation to merely an ideological critique of capitalism, the conception of climate justice needs to be grounded in a rational, ethical model. This Article proposes …

Prospects For A Unified Approach To Housing Affordability, Housing Equity, And Climate Change, Stephen R. Miller

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No abstract provided.

Role Of Courts In Ensuring Water Justice In India: Brasilia Declaration On Water Justice And Beyond, Gayathri D. Naik

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Water being a scarce resource, questions of its allocation and distribution, coupled with concerns of its depletion have troubled policy makers, legislators, and judges alike. While, over the years there has been significant development on the discussion surrounding the rights-duty paradigm of water resources, by establishing the obligation of states, discussion surrounding a certain value-based approach to guide the minds of important stakeholders in creating and enforcing policy has gained far less traction comparatively. It is in this context that this paper explores an alternative justice-based approach to water, drawing from the works of Amartya Sen on capabilities and more …

Vermin Of Proof: Arguments For The Admissibility Of Animal Model Studies As Proof Of Causation In Toxic Tort Litigation, Kristen Ranges, Jessica Owley

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Toxic torts is a body of law that aims to compensate individuals for harms they suffer from exposure to hazardous substances. To successfully bring a toxic tort claim, a plaintiff must prove the main elements of a general tort cause of action: duty, breach, causation, and damages. Causation in a toxic tort case is particularly challenging to prove given the nature of toxic substances. To prove the toxicant in question caused the damages alleged, plaintiffs often present expert testimony based on scientific studies. Animal model studies, in particular, can help factfinders understand the health implications of the toxicants at issue. …

Regulating For Energy Justice, Alexandra B. Klass, Gabriel Chan

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In this Article, we explore and critique the foundational norms that shape federal and state energy regulation and suggest pathways for reform that can incorporate principles of “energy justice.” These energy justice principles—developed in academic scholarship and social movements—include the equitable distribution of costs and benefits of the energy system, equitable participation and representation in energy decision making, and restorative justice for structurally marginalized groups.

While new legislation, particularly at the state level, is critical to the effort to advance energy justice, our focus here is on regulators’ ability to implement reforms now using their existing authority to advance the …

Why Are You Here? Modeling Illicit Massage Business Location Characteristics With Machine Learning, Anna White, Seth Guikema, Bridgette Carr

Articles

Illicit massage businesses are a venue for sex and labor trafficking in the United States. Though many of their locations are made publicly available through online advertising, little is known about why they choose to locate where they do. In this work, we use inferential modeling to better understand the spatial distribution of illicit massage businesses within the U.S. Based on addresses web-scraped weekly from online advertisements over 6 months, we modeled illicit massage business prevalence at the census tract and county levels. We used publicly available data to characterize census tracts and counties, finding that the state in which …

(Re)Framing Race In Civil Rights Lawyering, Anthony V. Alfieri, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

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This Review examines the significance of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s new book, Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow, for the study of racism in our nation's legal system and for the regulation of race in the legal profession, especially in the everyday labor of civil-rights and poverty lawyers, prosecutors, and public defenders. Surprisingly, few have explored the relevance of the racial narratives distilled by Gates in Stony the Roa - the images, stereotypes, and tropes that Whites constructed of Blacks to deepen and ensure the life and legacy of white supremacy-to the practice …

Collaborations In Environmental Initiatives For An Effective Gover- Nance Of Social-Ecological Systems: What The Scientific Literature Suggests., Elena Andriollo, Alberto Caimo, Laura Secco, Elena Pisani

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Moving from the scientific literature on evaluation of environmental projects and programs, this study identifies how and under which conditions collaborations are considered effective for adaptive gover- nance of SES. The method adopted is a systematic literature review based on the quantitative and qualitative analysis of 56 articles selected through specific queries on the SCOPUS database and published from 2004 to 2020. Results of the quantitative analysis underline conditions able to make collaborations effective for adaptive governance of SES: the importance of transdisciplinary research tackling both environmental and social sciences, the perceived urgency of stakeholders to tackle environmental challenges and …

Baltimore And The Legal History Of Housing Segregation, Stephen R. Miller

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No abstract provided.

Does Interest Convergence Today Offer Opportunities For The Working Class, Much As It Did For Minorities In The Fifties And Sixties?: A Comment On Spencer Bowley, Richard Delgado, Jean Stefancic

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No abstract provided.

The Right To Benefit From Big Data As A Public Resource, Mary D. Fan

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The information that we reveal from interactions online and with electronic devices has massive value—for both private profit and public benefit, such as improving health, safety, and even commute times. Who owns the lucrative big data that we generate through the everyday necessity of interacting with technology? Calls for legal regulation regarding how companies use our data have spurred laws and proposals framed by the predominant lens of individual privacy and the right to control and delete data about oneself. By focusing on individual control over droplets of personal data, the major consumer privacy regimes overlook the important question of …

Climate-Induced Human Displacement And Conservation Lands, Jessica Owley

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As climate change leads to both internal displacement and mass migrations, we need not only new places for people to live but also new locations for infrastructure projects and other public needs. Some of the most attractive areas for these new land uses are currently unoccupied land, including land set aside for conservation. Numerous laws restrict the availability and possible uses of public conservation land. Individual agreements and property restrictions encumber private conservation land, varying in the ease with which the restrictions can be modified. For example, privately protected areas in the United States are often encumbered with perpetual conservation …

Back To The Future: Creating A Bipartisan Environmental Movement For The 21st Century, David M. Uhlmann

Articles

With a contentious presidential election looming amidst a pandemic, economic worries, and historic protests against systemic racism, climate action may seem less pressing than other challenges. Nothing could be further from the truth. To prevent greater public health threats and economic dislocation from climate disruption, which will disproportionately harm Black Americans, people of color, and indigenous people, this Comment argues that we need to restore the bipartisanship that fueled the environmental movement and that the fate of the planet—and our children and grandchildren—depends upon our collective action.

Eminent Domain Law As Climate Policy, Alexandra Klass

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No abstract provided.

Identity: Obstacles And Openings, Osamudia R. James

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Progress regarding equality and social identities has moved in a bipolar fashion: popular engagement with the concept of social identities has increased even as courts have signaled decreasing interest in engaging identity. Maintaining and deepening the liberatory potential of identity, particularly in legal and policymaking spheres, will require understanding trends in judicial hostility toward "identity politics," the impact of status hierarchy even within minoritized identity groups, and the threat that white racial grievance poses to identitarian claims.

Foreword: The Dispossessed Majority: Resisting The Second Redemption In América Posfascista (Postfascist America) With Latcrit Scholarship, Community, And Praxis Amidst The Global Pandemic, Sheila I. Velez Martinez

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As LatCrit reaches its twenty-fifth anniversary, we aspire for this symposium Foreword to remind its readers of LatCrit’s foundational propositions and ongoing efforts to cultivate new generations of ethical advocates who can systemically analyze the sociolegal conditions that engender injustice and intervene strategically to help create enduring sociolegal, and cultural, change. Working for lasting social change from an antisubordination perspective enables us to see the myriad laws, regulations, policies, and practices that, by intent or effect, enforce the inferior social status of historically- and contemporarily-oppressed groups. In turn, working with a perspective and principle of antisubordination can inspire us to …

International Law And Theories Of Global Justice: Remarks, Steven R. Ratner, James Stewart, Jiewuh Song, Carmen Pavel

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International law (IL) and political philosophy represent two rich disciplines for exploring issues of global justice. At their core, each seeks to build a better world based on some universally agreed norms, rules, and practices, backed by effective institutions. International lawyers, even the most positivist of them, have some underlying assumptions about a just world order that predisposes their interpretive methods; legal scholars have incorporated concepts of justice in their work even as their overall pragmatic orientation has limited the nature of their inquiries. Many philospophers, for their part, have engaged with IL to some extent—at a minimum recognizing that …

Tribes, Cities, And Children: Emerging Voices In Environmental Litigation, Nina A. Mendelson

Articles

an environmental nongovernmental organization ("NGO") on behalf of a neighbor or hiker.1 The NGO would allege that the individual faced health risks, that her property was contaminated, or that she could no longer hike, fish, swim, or view wildlife such as the endangered Nile crocodile, as in the well-known case of Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife.

Black, Poor, And Gone: Civil Rights Law’S Inner-City Crisis, Anthony V. Alfieri

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In recent years, academics committed to a new law and sociology of poverty and inequality have sounded a call to revisit the inner city as a site of cultural and socio-legal research. Both advocates in anti-poverty and civil rights organizations, and scholars in law school clinical and university social policy programs, have echoed this call. Together they have embraced the inner city as a context for experiential learning, qualitative research, and legal-political advocacy regarding concentrated poverty, neighborhood disadvantage, residential segregation, and mass incarceration. Indeed, for academics, advocates, and activists alike, the inner city stands out as a focal point of …

Building By Right: Social Equity Implications Of Transitioning To Form-Based Code, Daniela A. Tagtachian, Natalie N. Barefoot, Adrienne L. Harreveld

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No abstract provided.

Indeconstructible: The Triumph Of The Environmental “Administrative State”, Stephen M. Johnson

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Shortly after the 2017 Presidential inauguration, a senior advisor to the President proclaimed that a top priority of the Administration would be the “deconstruction of the administrative state.” A primary target of the Administration’s deconstruction efforts was the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) and federal environmental regulations.

While the President can use a variety of tools, including the appointment power, budget power, treaty power, and executive orders, to influence the manner in which the EPA and other agencies interpret and enforce laws, the President has very little power to unilaterally “deconstruct the administrative state.” The “administrative state” is a creation …

Introductory Essay: Things Fall Apart: Hard Choices In Public Interest Law, Anthony V. Alfieri

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No abstract provided.

Duty To Protect: Enhancing The Federal Framework To Prevent Childhood Lead Poisoning And Exposure To Environmental Harm, Allyson E. Gold, Emily A. Benfer, Emily Coffey, Mona Hanna-Attisha, Bruce Lanphear, Helen Y. Li, Norton, Ruth Ann;, David Rosner, Kate Walz

Articles

Scientific evidence indisputably demonstrates that lead poisoning causes permanent neurological damage and numerous co-morbidities for children and adults. Exposure to lead hazards irreversibly harms individuals and, left unchecked, can devastate communities into the future. In recognition of these threats, the President's Task Force on Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks to Children (Task Force) was established by Executive Order in 1997. The original Task Force created the first coordinated federal response to eliminate childhood lead poisoning in the United States and set an ambitious ten-year timeline to achieve its goals of prevention, treatment, research, and progress management. However, the most …

The Torture Of Children And Adolescents Living And Dying In Guatemala’S Institutions, Madeleine M. Plasencia

Articles

In this article, Professor Madeleine Plasencia examines the legal context of treatment of disabled children in Guatemala living in institutionalized environments. The article explores evidence that children confined in orphanages and other public care facilities in Guatemala endure conditions that violate the provisions against torture and other cruel or degrading treatment or punishment provided under various international instruments, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The article discusses the growing world-wide desperation from poverty and food scarcity that drives families to place their children with and without disabilities in state-supported institutions. The article argues that foreign funding and …

Things Fall Apart, Anthony V. Alfieri

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No abstract provided.

Regulating Cumulative Risk, Sanne H. Knudsen

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This Article proceeds in four parts. Part I describes how cumulative risk assessments tackle the real-world exposure problems that lie at the heart of public health. It shows how risk science has evolved and why policy, not science, lags behind. Part II then examines why key public health concerns cannot be answered through information disclosure or consumer choice models alone.

Having established that regulatory drivers are needed, Part III begins to examine how to move forward. It does so by looking backward and examining how TSCA and FIFRA have failed historically to provide this critical public health focus despite room …

The Vested Rights Doctrine: How A Shield Against Injustice Became A Sword For Opportunistic Developers, Steve P. Calandrillo, Chryssa Deliganis, Christina Elles

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In an era of pioneering environmental and land use laws, savvy developers are using the “vested rights” doctrine to circumvent and undermine critical public health, safety, and environmental regulations. This controversy pits two legitimate interests against each other: On the one hand, local governments must have the power to pass land use laws and regulations in the public interest to protect their community’s health, safety, welfare, and environment. On the other, developers who rely on the laws in existence at the time their project is approved should be protected from subsequent changes to the law that could increase transactional costs …

Regime Shifts And Panarchies In Regional Scale Social-Ecological Water Systems, Barbara Cosens

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In this article we summarize histories of nonlinear, complex interactions among societal, legal, and ecosystem dynamics in six North American water basins, as they respond to changing climate. These case studies were chosen to explore the conditions for emergence of adaptive governance in heavily regulated and developed social-ecological systems nested within a hierarchical governmental system. We summarize resilience assessments conducted in each system to provide a synthesis and reference by the other articles in this special feature. We also present a general framework used to evaluate the interactions between society and ecosystem regimes and the governance regimes chosen to mediate …

There's No Place Like Home: Reshaping Community Interventions And Policies To Eliminate Environmental Hazards And Improve Population Health For Low-Income And Minority Communities, Emily A. Benfer, Allyson E. Gold

Articles

Substandard housing and environmental conditions threaten the health and wellbeing of individuals residing throughout the United States Empirical evidence on the relationship between housing and health has increased exponentially However despite the growth in research residents continue to be exposed to environmental health hazards Minorities and people in poverty are exposed to environmental health hazards at a disproportionately high rate Hazards such as lead mold pest infestation radon and carbon monoxide among others threaten individual safety and health and limit one's ability to access opportunity in society Moreover the effects of exposure can be farreaching Common approaches to healthy communities …