Law Commons^™

Reflections On The Jeffersonian Ideal Of An Agrarian Democracy And The Emergence Of An Agricultural And Environmental Ethic In The 1990 Farm Bill, Linda A. Malone

Linda A. Malone

No abstract provided.

The End Of The Hudson Valley's Peculiar Institution: The Anti-Rent Movement's Politics, Social Relations, & Economics, Eric Kades

Eric A. Kades

No abstract provided.

Patents And Traditional Knowledge Of The Uses Of Plants: Is A Communal Patent Regime Part Of The Solution To The Scourge Of Bio Piracy, Ikechi Mgbeoji

Ikechi Mgbeoji

No abstract provided.

Warehouse Receipts In United States Law – Summary For The Pacific-Rim, Drew L. Kershen

Drew L. Kershen

Interagency Disputes Over Dry Fields Or Clean Water: A Case Study Of The Conflict Between Agricultural Drainage Programs And The Chesapeake Bay Cleanup, Timothy J. Lindon, Mark P. Gergen

Mark P. Gergen

Despite the threat posed to Chesapeake Bay by agricultural runoff, SCS continues to plan and fund agricultural drainage projects which will worsen the already critical condition of the bay. One such project now under consideration for the Delmarva peninsula in Maryland and Delaware is discussed. The upper Chester river watershed project provides a case study of the environmental peril posed by drainage projects and of the difficulty environmental agencies confront in seeking to compel other agencies to consider adequately the harmful consequences of their actions. ( 24 references, )

It’S The End Of The Biological Patent World As We Know It, And Consumer Watchdog Feels Fine: How Consumer Watchdog Is Attempting To Kill The Future Of Horticultural Research, George R. Holton

George R Holton

No abstract provided.

Organophosphates, Friend And Foe: The Promise Of Medical Monitoring For Farm Workers And Their Families, Adriane J. Busby, Gabriel Eckstein

Gabriel Eckstein

Millions of farm workers nation-wide who load, mix and/or apply pesticides are exposed to incredible amounts of pesticides on a daily basis. Various inefficiencies and inconsistencies in the regulatory system - including insufficient illness reporting data systems, lack of regulatory compliance and enforcement, and inadequate data and information on the chronic effects of exposure and overexposure to various pesticides - increase the likelihood that these workers will continue to be exposed to dangerous amounts of pesticides. This Article assesses the existing mechanisms designed to protect farm workers from occupational exposure to pesticides and identifies and analyzes some of the shortcomings …

Maintaining A Healthy Water Supply While Growing A Healthy Food Supply: Legal Tools For Cleaning Up Agricultural Water Pollution, Mary Jane Angelo, Jon Morris

Mary Jane Angelo

This article will explore a number of legal mechanisms that could play a role in ensuring that discharges from agricultural activities do not cause or contribute to violations of water quality standards. Specifically, this article will evaluate the relative effectiveness of: (1) narrative nutrient criteria as compared with numeric nutrient criteria; (2) Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) implementation through regulatory and non-regulatory mechanisms; and (3) the relative efficacy of design-based standards such as Best Management Practices (BMPs) and performance-based standards in reducing water pollution from agriculture. The article will draw on experiences from the State of Florida, including Everglades' restoration …

World Poverty And Food Insecurity, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Carmen G. Gonzalez

The article draws upon the insights of Yale philosopher Thomas Pogge to suggest a way that we might think about the structural inequities in the global economic order that produce food insecurity. The article argues that chronic undernourishment is not a function of food scarcity, bad weather, or simply bad luck. Rather, it is a function of international political and economic arrangements that systematically benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor. The article concludes with several legal and policy reforms that the United States and the European Union can adopt to reduce the burdens that our societies place …

Predicting The Future: Our Food System In 2025, Susan A. Schneider

Susan Schneider

The Cotton And Sugar Subsidies Decisions: Wto's Dispute Settlement System Rebalances The Agreement On Agriculture, Stephen J. Powell, Andrew Schmitz

Stephen Joseph Powell

As far back as David Ricardo's shattering insight as to comparative advantage in 1817, agriculture has enjoyed special favor in trade. The unique place of farming was so well established by the time the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ("GATT") was negotiated that GATT's tight disciplines on government interference with free trade not only exempted government protections to growers, but in fact were drafted to be fully consistent with the agricultural policies of the major signatories. While it would be an exaggeration to argue that GATT' s first half century was without impact on agricultural benefits, the sector …

Learning From Detroit, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

Reviews a recent book about Detroit's problems.

International Law Of Sustainable Agriculture In The 21st Century, G. L. Rose

Professor Gregory Rose

This paper examines the new PGR Treaty, assessing what it contains that is innovative and what it contains that are repackaged existing arrangements. Therefore, the PGR Treaty is described in the context of the pre-existing arrangements and the political forces that shaped it. The examination commences by providing a historical perspective on the transfer and use of plant genetic resources. It introduces institutional arrangements that predate the Treaty and explains the relationships between them. In this, attention focuses on the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture 1983 (International Undertaking) and the Treaty on Biological Diversity 1992 …

Of Cabbages And Kings County: Agriculture And The Formation Of Modern Brooklyn, Marc Linder, Lawrence S. Zacharias

Marc Linder

No abstract provided.

Women Power Connect Obituary Mrinal Gore: Vibhuti Patel, Professor Vibhuti Patel

Professor Vibhuti Patel

On 17th July 2012, Mrinal Gore passed away. With her demise, an era of women freedom fighters with feminist sensitivities in praxis is over. Inspired by Quit India Movement under leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, 14 year old young girl Mrinal became active in the freedom movement. Drawn to political and social causes, she gave up a promising career in medicine in order to organise the poorest and most powerless. She married her comrade, Shri Keshav Gore and when he died at a young age in 1958, she founded Keshav Gore Smarak Bhavan which provided democratic platform to progressive forces for …

Owning What You Eat: The Discourse Of Food, David N. Cassuto

David N Cassuto

This essay examines the role of communication in the formation of law and social norms and the implications of that role for animal law and ethics. Part III contextualizes animal law within contemporary risk society. Part IV looks at how efficiency has transformed from an economic concept into a normative guideline and discusses how that transformation has affected animals and agriculture. It tracks the rise of industrial agriculture and ties it to this fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of efficiency. The essay concludes with some thoughts on how to reformulate contemporary notions of efficiency and ethics to account for the …

Turning Wine Into Water: Water As Privileged Signifier In The Grapes Of Wrath, David N. Cassuto

David N Cassuto

I will argue that The Grapes of Wrath represents an indictment of the American myth of the garden and its accompanying myth of the frontier. The lever with which Steinbeck pries apart and ultimately dismantles these fictions is a critique of the agricultural practices that created the Dust Bowl and then metamorphosed into a new set of norms which continued to victimize both the land and its inhabitants. Both nineteenth-century homesteading (based on the Homestead Act of 1862) and agribusiness, its twentieth century descendant (born from the failure of the Homestead Act), relied on the (mis)use of water to accomplish …

Superweeds And Suspect Seeds: Does The Genetically-Engineered Crop Deregulation Process Put American Agriculture At Risk?, Margaret Sova Mccabe

Margaret Sova McCabe

The federal government’s regulatory approach to genetically engineered (GE) crops, known as “The Framework”, is now twenty-five years old. Despite two and half decades of a consistent regulatory regime, GE crop and food regulation remains controversial. This article suggests that regulatory science and its tenets of independence, transparency, and public science should guide reforms of The Framework so that it is an efficient and reliable regulatory system. The article has four parts: 1) it provides a brief overview of the history of GE crop regulation; 2)it describes the key attributes of The Framework and related regulatory documents, with particular focus …

The Economic Role Of The English Poor Law, 1780-1834, George R. Boyer

George R. Boyer

[Excerpt] Over the 85-year period from 1748/50 to 1832/34, real per capita expenditures on poor relief increased at an average rate of approximately 1 percent per year. There were also important changes in the administration of relief with respect to able-bodied laborers during the period. Policies providing relief outside of workhouses to unemployed and under-employed able-bodied laborers became widespread during the 1770s and 1780s in the grain-producing South and East of England. The so-called Speenhamland system of outdoor relief flourished until 1834, when it was abolished by the Poor Law Amendment Act. The aim of the thesis is to provide …

Deconstructing Cedaw’S Article 14: Naming And Explaining Rural Difference, Lisa Pruitt

Lisa R Pruitt

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is the first human rights instrument to recognize explicitly rural-urban difference. It does so by enumerating specific rights for rural women in Article 14 and also by mentioning their needs in relation to Article 10 on education. In this Essay, I examine the Convention’s Travaux Préparatoires to better understand the forces and considerations that led to the inclusion of Article 14 and its recognition of rural people and places. I also assess Article 14’s particular mandates in light of both that drafting history and CEDAW’s other provisions, …

Human Rights And Development For India's Rural Remnant: A Capabilities-Based Assessment, Lisa Pruitt

Lisa R Pruitt

The cachet that India currently enjoys on the world stage is linked largely to the booming high-tech and service economies associated with its megacities. Yet in terms of sheer numbers, India is not an urban nation. About a third of India’s population lives in urban areas, though that figure is rising quickly. One projection indicates that thirty-one villagers will continue to show up in an Indian city every minute over the next forty-three years — 700 million people in all.

Lack of sustainable development in rural areas is a major force behind the massive rural-to-urban migration across Asia. An enormous …

An Environmental Justice Critique Of Comparative Advantage: Indigenous Peoples, Trade Policy, And The Mexican Neoliberal Economic Reforms, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Carmen G. Gonzalez

The free market reforms adopted by Mexico in the wake of the debt crisis of the 1980s and in connection with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have jeopardized the physical and cultural survival of Mexico’s indigenous peoples, increased migration to the United States, threatened biological diversity in Mexico, and imposed additional stress on the environment in the United States. Despite these negative impacts, NAFTA continues to serve as a template for trade agreements in the Americas. Unless this template is fundamentally restructured, future trade agreements may replicate throughout the Western hemisphere many of the economic, ecological and social …

Reconnecting Consumers And Producers: On The Path Toward A Sustainable Food And Agriculture Policy, Susan A. Schneider

Susan Schneider

Is Nafta A Good Model For China?: Lessons From Mexico And The United States, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Carmen G. Gonzalez

In response to skyrocketing food prices, the global financial crisis, and the degradation of farm lands due to urbanization and industrialization, China has placed rural development at the top of its political agenda. China’s renewed emphasis on rural development is taking place against a backdrop of global efforts to reduce trade barriers in the agricultural sector. This article uses the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as a case study on the complex ways that trade policy affects domestic efforts to protect the environment and promote rural development. The objective is to draw lessons from the experiences of the United …

Is Nafta A Good Model For China? Lessons From Mexico And The United States, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Carmen G. Gonzalez

In response to skyrocketing food prices, the global financial crisis, and the degradation of farm lands due to urbanization and industrialization, China has placed rural development at the top of its political agenda. China’s renewed emphasis on rural development is taking place against a backdrop of global efforts to reduce trade barriers in the agricultural sector. This article uses the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as a case study on the complex ways that trade policy affects domestic efforts to protect the environment and promote rural development. The objective is to draw lessons from the experiences of the United …

Fighting The Food Crisis: Feeding Africa One Family At A Time, Karol C. Boudreaux, Adam Aft

Karol C. Boudreaux

Food riots have exploded. Prices for staple goods—wheat, maize, rice—have risen dramatically. 1 in 3 people in sub-Saharan Africa confront hunger and malnutrition, persistent threats. Many of the hungry are Africa’s smallholder farmers, subsistence farmers whose productivity has fallen over the past three decades while agricultural productivity rates have soared in other parts of the word. This article asks: what kinds of strategies, both legal and practical, will it take to effectively address the problem of a food crisis in sub-Saharan Africa? Scholars and politicians point to the need for a Green Revolution for Africa, a new effort to increase …

Agricultural Trade And Developing Countries, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Carmen G. Gonzalez

This article reviews Global Agricultural Trade and Developing Countries, edited by M.A. Aksoy & J.C. Beghin (Washington DC: World Bank, 2004). The book examines key issues in agricultural trade policy that are of particular significance to developing countries. The book’s strength is its painstaking research and detailed and exhaustive analysis of agricultural trade and production policies in a variety of countries and across a variety of commodities. The book provides a clear explanation of the market distortions caused by agricultural protectionism and of the distributional impacts of agricultural trade liberalization. The book’s weakness is its failure to integrate its analysis …