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Full-Text Articles in Law
Flint's Fight For Environmental Rights, Noah D. Hall
Flint's Fight For Environmental Rights, Noah D. Hall
Northwestern University Law Review
This Essay reviews the recent development of environmental rights within U.S. constitutional law, advanced through a series of federal court decisions in the wake of the Flint water crisis. The residents of Flint were poisoned and lied to by their government for nearly two years. They experienced how American environmental governance has failed at the state and federal levels and how our environmental laws leave individuals and communities unprotected. And then Flint fought back, in the courts, for five years. Flint residents have been overwhelmingly successful, achieving some justice for themselves and advancing substantive rights and remedies within our constitutional …
Commandeering, Preemption, And Vehicle Emissions Regulation Post-Murphy V. Ncaa, Amelia Raether
Commandeering, Preemption, And Vehicle Emissions Regulation Post-Murphy V. Ncaa, Amelia Raether
Northwestern University Law Review
The Clean Air Act is often heralded as a paragon of cooperative federalism. The Act’s approach to vehicle emissions regulation in particular prescribes a unique partnership between the federal government and the state of California: while all states are bound by federally mandated vehicle emissions requirements, California may set more stringent standards in recognition of its historic role on the leading edge of environmental protection. However, in August 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed not only to roll back the national emissions regulations, but also to revoke California’s ability to set more stringent standards, which include limits on greenhouse gas …
Swamp Money: The Opportunity And Uncertainty Of Investing In Wetland Mitigation Banking, Elan L. Spanjer
Swamp Money: The Opportunity And Uncertainty Of Investing In Wetland Mitigation Banking, Elan L. Spanjer
Northwestern University Law Review
In recent years, the wetland mitigation banking program has emerged as a favored mechanism for protecting the nation’s aquatic resources while allowing for economically beneficial development projects to proceed. Mitigation banks generate wetland credits, which in turn can be sold at a profit to developers who need them to offset wetland impacts. The number of mitigation banks has grown significantly in recent years, and the market has seen an influx of institutional investment. However, investors face significant risks and uncertainty, and many prospective investors lack access to information about wetland credit prices—which are neither reported to the regulatory authorities nor …
Water Security, Rhett B. Larson
Water Security, Rhett B. Larson
Northwestern University Law Review
Climate change, as the dominant paradigm in natural resource policy, is obsolete and should be replaced by the water security paradigm. The climate change paradigm is obsolete because it fails to adequately resonate with the concerns of the general public and fails to integrate fundamental sustainability challenges related to economic development and population growth. The water security paradigm directly addresses the main reasons climate change ultimately matters to most people—droughts, floods, plagues, and wars. Additionally, this new proposed paradigm better integrates climate change concerns with other pressing global sustainability challenges—including that economic development and population growth will require 50% more …
The Next Generation Of Trade And Environment Conflicts: The Rise Of Green Industrial Policy, Mark Wu, James Salzman
The Next Generation Of Trade And Environment Conflicts: The Rise Of Green Industrial Policy, Mark Wu, James Salzman
Northwestern University Law Review
No abstract provided.
Nafta And The Environment: A Trade-Friendly Approach, Bradly J. Condon
Nafta And The Environment: A Trade-Friendly Approach, Bradly J. Condon
Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business
Although the North American Free Trade Agreement, (NAFTA), contains more detailed environmental provisions than any previous trade agreement,' only some of them are mandatory. These mandatory NAFTA environmental rules purport to prevent the use of environmental policy instruments as disguised barriers to trade. Since most human activities have some impact on the environment, a vast array of government regulation could potentially be characterized as relating to the environment. This fact increases the risk that domestic industries will exploit political discretion over environmental policy implementation to put foreign competitors at a disadvantage by raising non-tariff barriers to trade. It is important …
Trade Protectionism And Environmental Regulations: The New Nontariff Barriers, C. Ford Runge
Trade Protectionism And Environmental Regulations: The New Nontariff Barriers, C. Ford Runge
Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business
This article reviews some economic and legal aspects of the growing role of environmental, health, and safety regulations operating as disguised barriers to trade. While this has always been a recognized problem in trade policy, the issue has gained new force as environmental policies move to the forefront of many national agendas. Because environmental standards have a growing national constituency, they are especially attractive candidates for disguised protectionism. International distinctions in the tolerable level of environmental risks are created because the weight attached to environmental standards tends to vary with the income levels of different countries. Incentives are created to …
The Controls On The Transfrontier Movement Of Hazardous Waste From Developed To Developing Nations: The Goal Of A "Level Playing Field", Michelle M. Vilcheck
The Controls On The Transfrontier Movement Of Hazardous Waste From Developed To Developing Nations: The Goal Of A "Level Playing Field", Michelle M. Vilcheck
Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business
In the 1970s, the United States Congress began passing national environmental legislation. One reason for such legislation was to "level the playing field" among the fifty states so that economic advantage did not accrue to one state at the expense of environmental quality and public health.' The world now faces a similar need for environmental legislation on an international level. Environmental laws of individual nations have become more and more divergent as developed countries, such as the United States, enact tougher environmental laws, while less developed nations fail to enact any environmental regulations. The variant standards of these environmental laws …
Doing Business Under Canadian Environmental Law, Jeffrey C. Bates, Gregory A. Bibler, David S. Blackmar
Doing Business Under Canadian Environmental Law, Jeffrey C. Bates, Gregory A. Bibler, David S. Blackmar
Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business
In recent years, the role of the environmental risk management has become increasingly significant to multinational corporations. Corporations from the United States and elsewhere are now undertaking aggressive assessments of environmental regulatory compliance, and are incorporating environmental due diligence into transactions such as mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and divestitures. The first step toward assessing compliance often involves interpretation of complex, vaguely written environmental statutes and regulations. Matters are made more difficult by the fact that each governmental structure is different, and environmental controls inevitably will be administered in ways unfamiliar to foreign companies, even in countries which have emulated the …