Law Commons^™

Marine Mammals And International Trade: Balancing Social Conscience With Trade Obligations – A Summary And Update On The World Trade Organization Seal Products Dispute, Chad J. Mcguire

Chad J McGuire

Ethics, The Legacy Of The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., And The Movement Toward Environmental Justice, Beverly Mcqueary Smith

Beverly McQueary Smith

No abstract provided.

Iron Ocean Fertilization And International Law, David Freestone, Rosemary Rayfuse

Rosemary Rayfuse

Intentional ocean fertilisation and the commercial sale of associated carbon offsets raise a number of issues in international law. On the one hand states are obliged to adopt adaptation and mitigation measures to prevent dangerous climate change. On the other hand, international law obliges states to protect and preserve the marine environment and to act in a precautionary manner in the face of scientific uncertainty. This article examines the application of the international law of the sea to ocean fertilisation, with particular reference to the dumping regime which prohibits the dumping of wastes or other materials from vessels into the …

Warm Waters And Cold Shoulders: Jostling For Jurisdiction In Polar Oceans, Rosemary Rayfuse

Rosemary Rayfuse

In May 2008 the five Arctic coastal states adopted the Ilullisat Declaration in which they asserted their role as stewards, for the international community, of the Arctic Ocean ecosystem. This paper discusses the legal basis for their claim to stewardship with particular reference to the high seas portion of the central Arctic Ocean, and their assertion that no need exists for a new comprehensive legal regime in respect of those high seas waters. It is argued that while the high seas regime of the Arctic may be extensive, it is not comprehensive. Thus, the legitimacy of the claim to stewardship …

Australia And Climate Change Diplomacy: Towards A Post-2012 Regime – Policy Proposals On Australia’S Climate Change Diplomacy, Rosemary Rayfuse, Shirley Scott

Rosemary Rayfuse

A workshop on Australia and Climate Change Diplomacy: Towards a Post-Kyoto Regime (the Workshop) was held at the Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales on 22-23 November 2007. The purpose of the Workshop was to evaluate Australia’s past and current climate change diplomacy and to make policy recommendations for the future. The interdisciplinary Workshop brought together 19 leading experts in economics, science, international relations, law, and business. The majority were academics, but the group also included private consultants and NGO representatives from Australia with one visitor from China. The Workshop was organised and hosted by Associate Professor Rosemary …

Regional Allocation Issues Or Zen And The Art Of Pie Cutting, Rosemary Rayfuse

Rosemary Rayfuse

Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs) have increasingly become the mechanism of choice through which high seas fisheries are to be managed. How these organisations allocate fishing opportunities for the dwindling resources under their jurisdiction is, however, a difficult and often controversial issue. Achieving equitable, scientifically reliable and sustainable allocations as between members and as between members and non-members has serious implications for the operational efficacy and legitimacy of an RFMO and its management regime. This paper examines the allocation practices adopted in RFMOs in the context of the tension between state sovereignty and the development of rules of international law …

Strategies For Promoting Green Energy Innovation, Deployment, & Technology Transfer, Robert V. Percival

Robert Percival

This paper surveys various strategies for promoting the development and deployment of green energy technologies.

Environmental Law Goes Global: Taking Back Eden: Eight Environmental Cases That Changed The World, By Oliver A. Houck, Robert V. Percival

Robert Percival

No abstract provided.

La Responsabilidad Por Daño Ambiental Global Y La Evolución En Las Relaciones Entre El Derecho Público Y Privado [Liability For Global Environmental Harm And The Evolving Relationship Between Public And Private Law], Robert V. Percival

Robert Percival

No abstract provided.

Brief Of Law Professors As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondents, American Electric Power Co. V. State Of Connecticut, No. 10-174, James R. May, Stuart Banner

James R. May

No abstract provided.

Perspectives On Law Firm Sustainability, Howard S. Dakoff, John C. Dernbach

John C. Dernbach

No abstract provided.

New Directions In Earth Rights, Environmental Rights And Human Rights: Six Facets Of Constitutionally Embedded Environmental Rights Worldwide, James May, Erin Daly

Erin Daly

This essay provides an overview of the worldwide phenomenon of constitutional environmental rights. Since the Stockholm Convention, nearly 60 countries have constitutionally entrenched environmental rights, according their citizens basic rights to environmental quality in one form or another. The list is diverse politically, including countries with civil, common law, Islamic, and other traditions. Some of the more recent of these include Kenya in 2010, Ecuador in 2007, France in 2005, Afghanistan in 2004, and South Africa in 1996. As a result, domestic courts and international tribunals are enforcing constitutionally enshrined environmental rights with growing frequency, reflecting basic human rights to …

Testimony Of Rena Steinzor…Before The U.S. House Of Representatives, Energy And Commerce Committee, Subcommittee On Environment And Economics. 112th Congress, 1st Session (2011)., Rena Steinzor

Rena I. Steinzor

Environmental regulations have saved millions of lives, preventing chronic respiratory illness and heart attacks in cities across the country. These rules protect children from irreversible neurological damage, save billions of dollars in cleanup costs, and preserve water quality in lakes, rivers, and streams. If anything, our regulatory system is dangerously weak, and Congress should focus on reviving it rather than eroding public protections….

The Essential And Growing Role Of Legal Education In Achieving Sustainability, John Dernbach

John C. Dernbach

This article suggests that law schools need to play a leading role in the national and global effort to achieve sustainability, including the effort to address climate change. The article first describes the various drivers for sustainability in law schools. Clients are increasingly demanding that their lawyers 'walk the talk,' as many businesses and corporations already are. The universities that provide an institutional home for most law schools are also adopting sustainability policies and practices that influence their law schools. Within the legal profession, the American Bar Association, as well as many state and local bar associations, have adopted a …

Lessons From The North Sea: Should "Safety Cases" Come To America?, Rena I. Steinzor

Rena I. Steinzor

The catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last spring and summer has triggered an intense search for more effective regulatory methods that would prevent such disasters. The new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE) is under pressure to adopt the British “safety case” system, which requires the preparation of a facility-specific plan that is typically several hundred pages long. This system is supposed to inculcate a “safety culture” within companies that operate offshore in the British portion of the North Sea because it overcomes a “box-ticking” mentality and constitutes “bottom up” implementation of safety measures. …

Can The Esa Address The Threats Of Atmospheric Nitrogen Deposition? Insights From The Case Of The Bay Checkerspot Butterfly, Zdravka Tzankova, Dena Vallano, Erika Zavaleta

Zdravka Tzankova

The Bay Checkerspot Butterfly reached its threatened status largely as a result of habitat loss through development. The species now benefits from the habitat pro- tection powers of the Endangered Species Act, yet the biggest new hazard to the survival of remaining Bay Checkerspot Butterfly populations may come from atmospheric nitrogen deposition. Driven by combustion and agricultural emissions, such deposition is an important cause of change in ecosystem structure and function, including potentially critical changes in the remaining Bay Checkerspot Butterfly habitat. We use the Bay Checkerspot Butterfly case to examine whether the Endan- gered Species Act, as it currently …

Creating The Law Of Environmentally Sustainable Economic Development, John Dernbach

John C. Dernbach

This article argues that a key to sustainability is redirecting the law of economic development. From a historical perspective, sustainable development is an effort to integrate environmental protection and restoration with development. As a result, it is not possible to fully understand sustainable development unless we understand what development means. While that term is reasonably well understood at the international level, our closest analogue in the United States is not development in general but rather economic development. A great many recently enacted laws that move the United States toward sustainability can be understood as economic development laws. By understanding these …

Learning From The Global Trade Regime: A Proposal To Help Ameliorate Climate Change By Giving The International Court Of Justice Universal Advisory Jurisdiction, Andrew Strauss

Andrew L. Strauss

No abstract provided.

The "Cash For Clunkers" Program: A Sustainability Evaluation, Marianne Tyrrell, John Dernbach

John C. Dernbach

This article describes and evaluates the effectiveness of the Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act of 2009, also known as the “Cash for Clunkers” legislation. Under this law, Congress authorized persons trading in older and less fuel-efficient motor vehicles for newer and more fuel-efficient vehicles to receive a voucher worth up to $4,500 toward the purchase of the new vehicle. The article reviews various studies assessing the effectiveness of this legislation based on economic, social, and environmental criteria. Because these criteria are consistent with the goals of sustainable development, the legislation provides important lessons for future efforts to achieve …

International Law And Sustainable Energy: A Portrait Of Failure, David Hodas

David R. Hodas

Despite energy’s critical role in achieving nearly sustainable development and in mitigating climate change goal, internationally, sustainable energy remains a homeless orphan. In May 2007, after years of preparatory work that was thought to have produced consensus on fundamental sustainable energy policies and principles, the Commission on Sustainable Development met at CSD-15 to adopt a concrete set of specific policies and actions to make the world’s energy system more sustainable and accessible to the world’s poor. Tragically, the CSD-15 not only failed to produce agreement on any new ideas, but the pre-existing consensus on basic principles dissolved. Internationally, not a …

Book Review: Crucial Issues In Climate Change And The Kyoto Protocol: Asia And The World (Koh Kheng-Lian, Lye Lin-Heng And Jolene Lin (Eds)), David Hodas

David R. Hodas

No abstract provided.

Cleaning Up Our Rivers, Lakes, And Streams: Water Quality And Widener, Kenneth Kristl

Kenneth T Kristl

No abstract provided.

The Rise Of U.S. Food Sustainability Litigation, Stephanie Tai

Stephanie Tai

This article provides one of the first critical looks at the interface between the values of the sustainable food movement and its rising use of litigation. In particular, it focuses on two growing areas of food sustainability litigation: challenges to CAFOs and challenges to the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the food system. These areas were chosen because they involve growing sectors of U.S. agriculture over which members of the sustainable food movement have raised significant concerns.

The article begins by describing the sustainable food movement, including how the movement fits in with factors that sociologists use to …

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, …

Don't Tread On Me! Greenhouse Gases Must Never Choke American Freedom, Beau James Brock

Beau James Brock

This article examines: (1) the core of our American belief in freedom and the relationship between dutiful citizen and responsible government; (2) greenhouse gas policy making dictated by the EPA and the ubiquitous state of global economic conflict; and (3) the fundamental principle our Nation must ascribe to throughout this debate is we will best serve our most vulnerable citizens not through elitist dictates, but by open debate.

Regulatory Overlap, Overlapping Legal Fields, And Statutory Discontinuities, Todd S. Aagaard

Todd S Aagaard

Lawmakers and scholars alike criticize regulatory overlap on the ground that giving administrative agencies overlapping jurisdiction leads to duplicative or conflicting regulation which is inefficient and unduly burdensome. This Article challenges this orthodox account of regulatory overlap through examination of six case studies in which the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration have managed their jurisdictional overlap so as to create regulatory synergy rather than dysfunction. Although this Article is not the first to argue that regulatory overlap may improve the effectiveness of regulatory programs, the case studies examined here highlight two important aspects of regulatory …