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Risk, Uncertainty And Precaution: Lessons From The History Of Us Environmental Law, Robert V. Percival
Risk, Uncertainty And Precaution: Lessons From The History Of Us Environmental Law, Robert V. Percival
Faculty Scholarship
Globalization and expanding world trade are creating new pressures to harmonize environmental standards. Countries increasingly are borrowing legal and regulatory policy innovations from one another, moving toward greater harmonization of regulatory policies. Regulatory policy generally seeks to prevent harm before it occurs, but the reality is that it usually has been more reactive than precautionary, responding only after harm has become manifest. As regulators seek to improve their responses to new and emerging environmental risks, it is useful to consider what lessons can be learned from past experience with regulatory policy. This chapter reviews controversies over regulatory policy through the …
Of Coal, Climate And Carp: Reconsidering The Common Law Of Interstate Nuisance, Robert V. Percival
Of Coal, Climate And Carp: Reconsidering The Common Law Of Interstate Nuisance, Robert V. Percival
Faculty Scholarship
This paper argues that the common law of interstate nuisance remains an essential tool despite the rise of the modern regulatory state. In the rare cases when existing regulatory authorities fail to address emerging environmental problems, federal common law can serve as a backstop. When federal regulatory authorities are capable of addressing transboundary problems, but fail to do so, common law actions based on the law of source states remain a viable means of redress for states suffering significant harm from such pollution. Reconnecting the law of interstate nuisance to its historical roots, the paper concludes that the common law …
Lessons From The North Sea: Should "Safety Cases" Come To America?, Rena I. Steinzor
Lessons From The North Sea: Should "Safety Cases" Come To America?, Rena I. Steinzor
Faculty Scholarship
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. …
The Emergence Of Global Environmental Law, Tseming Yang, Robert V. Percival
The Emergence Of Global Environmental Law, Tseming Yang, Robert V. Percival
Faculty Scholarship
With the global growth of public concern about environmental issues over the last several decades, environmental legal norms have become increasingly internationalized. This development has been reflected both in the surge of international environmental agreements as well as the growth and increased sophistication of national environmental legal systems around the world. The result is the emergence of a set of legal principles and norms regarding the environment, such that one can arguably describe it as a body of law. After exploring the diverse forces that are contributing to the emergence of what we call “global environmental law,” this Article considers …