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Full-Text Articles in Law

Under Coyote’S Mask: Environmental Law, Indigenous Identity, And #Nodapl, Danielle Delaney May 2019

Under Coyote’S Mask: Environmental Law, Indigenous Identity, And #Nodapl, Danielle Delaney

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article studies the relationship between the three main lawsuits filed by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and the Yankton Sioux Tribe against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DaPL) and the mass protests launched from the Sacred Stone and Oceti Sakowin protest camps. The use of environmental law as the primary legal mechanism to challenge the construction of the pipeline distorted the indigenous demand for justice as U.S. federal law is incapable of seeing the full depth of the indigenous worldview supporting their challenge. Indigenous activists constantly re-centered the direct actions and protests within indigenous culture …


Wrongful Benefit & Arctic Drilling, Nicolas Cornell, Sarah E. Light Jun 2017

Wrongful Benefit & Arctic Drilling, Nicolas Cornell, Sarah E. Light

Articles

The law contains a diverse range of doctrines — “slayer rules” that prevent murderers from inheriting, restrictions on trade in “conflict diamonds,” the Fourth Amendment’s exclusion of evidence obtained through unconstitutional search, and many more — that seem to instantiate a general principle that it can be wrong to profit from past harms or misconduct. This Article explores the contours of this general normative principle, which we call the wrongful benefit principle. As we illustrate, the wrongful benefit principle places constraints both on whether anyone should be permitted to exploit ethically tainted goods, and who may be permitted to profit …


The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Litigation: Proof Of Concept For The Manual For Complex Litigation And The 2015 Amendments To The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure, John C. Cruden, Steve O'Rourke, Sarah D. Himmelhoch Oct 2016

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Litigation: Proof Of Concept For The Manual For Complex Litigation And The 2015 Amendments To The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure, John C. Cruden, Steve O'Rourke, Sarah D. Himmelhoch

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

On April 20, 2010, the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven people and injuring seventeen more. Efforts to stop the spill failed. For the next eighty-seven days, hundreds of millions of barrels of oil poured into the Gulf. This catastrophe not only changed the lives of the families of the dead and injured and the communities who experienced the economic and social disruption of the spill – it challenged the survival of the ecosystem of the ninth largest water body in the world. The oil spill extended fifty miles offshore from Louisiana in the …


Cooperative Mineral Interest Development In The Lone Star State: It's Time To Mess With Texas, Matthew K. Trawick May 2015

Cooperative Mineral Interest Development In The Lone Star State: It's Time To Mess With Texas, Matthew K. Trawick

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Since the early discoveries of the Spindletop, King Ranch, and East Texas oil fields, the oil and gas industry has dominated the Texas economy. The industry has also played an important role in shaping state politics and culture. The oil boom of the early 1900s created thousands of jobs for ordinary workers and immense wealth for a select few. Early Texas oil barons made headlines because of their lavish lifestyles and often extreme political beliefs. Legendary wildcatter H.L. Hunt typified this oil-fueled exuberance. Hunt became one of the eight richest individuals in the United States after securing mineral rights to …


Expanding The Renewable Energy Industry Through Tax Subsidies Using The Structure And Rationale Of Traditional Energy Tax Subsidies, Blake Harrison Apr 2015

Expanding The Renewable Energy Industry Through Tax Subsidies Using The Structure And Rationale Of Traditional Energy Tax Subsidies, Blake Harrison

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Just as the government invested in oil and gas, it must now invest in new energy sources. In a sense, Americans need history to repeat itself. This Note suggests that Congress should amend the United States Tax Code to further subsidize the renewable energy industry. Congress should use subsidies historically available to the oil and gas industries as a model in its amendments. These subsidies serve as a model for promoting the renewable energy industry because such subsidies were fundamental in facilitating the oil and gas industries’ dominance today. Ultimately, Congress must further subsidize the renewable energy industry to avoid …


Foreign Investment And Indigenous Peoples: Options For Promoting Equilibrium Between Economic Development And Indigenous Rights, George K. Foster Jun 2012

Foreign Investment And Indigenous Peoples: Options For Promoting Equilibrium Between Economic Development And Indigenous Rights, George K. Foster

Michigan Journal of International Law

The quotations above refer to distinct conflicts that are widely separated by time and geography but remarkably similar in other respects. The first describes events leading to the Black Hills War of 1876, in which the U.S. Army forced the Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne onto reservations to make way for gold mining by non-Indians. The second describes a violent episode in a conflict between native groups and the Peruvian government, which began in 2009 when the government took steps to expand mining and oil operations by multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the Peruvian Amazon. In both cases, outside commercial interests …


Metals Or Management? Explaining Africa's Recent Economic Growth Spurt, Laura Nyantung Beny, Lisa D. Cook Jan 2009

Metals Or Management? Explaining Africa's Recent Economic Growth Spurt, Laura Nyantung Beny, Lisa D. Cook

Articles

Explanations for Africa's poor long-run growth performance have varied over time. The theories examined include geography (Jeffrey D. Sachs and Andrew Warner 1997); institutions (William Easterly and Ross Levine 1997; Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson 2001, 2002; Nathan Nunn 2007, 2008); health (David Bloom and Sachs 1998; Gregory N. Price 2003); and economic dependency (William Darity 1982). More recently, economists have attempted to explain what The Economist has called Africa's new "period of unparalleled economic success" (The Economist 2008a, 33). Average annual real GDP growth was 1.8 percent between 1980 and 1989 and increased to 4.4 percent between …


Refunding Overcharges Under The Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act: The Evolution Of A Compensatory Obligation, Michigan Law Review Jun 1981

Refunding Overcharges Under The Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act: The Evolution Of A Compensatory Obligation, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The DOE's authority to order noncompensatory remedies has been seriously questioned. This Note will evaluate the propriety of such remedies in light of the history of petroleum price control enforcement. Although the DOE's enabling legislation does not explicitly impose a compensatory obligation, the Note finds that Congress anticipated that remedies would compensate, to the extent feasible, those persons actually overcharged. Part I traces the development of a compensatory obligation through the various stages of price regulation. Part II criticizes the DOE for abnegating that obligation. The Note concludes that the Department's recent consent orders violate both its own rules and …


Energy: The Next Twenty Years, Michigan Law Review Mar 1981

Energy: The Next Twenty Years, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Energy: The Next Twenty Years by A Study Group Sponsored by the Ford Foundation Administered by Resources for the Future


Sullivan: Conservation Of Oil And Gas. A Legal History - 1958, Joseph R. Julin Jan 1961

Sullivan: Conservation Of Oil And Gas. A Legal History - 1958, Joseph R. Julin

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Conservation of Oil and Gas. A Legal History - 1958. Edited by Robert E. Sullivan.


The Rule Against Perpetuities And Typical Oil And Gas Leases, David R. Macdonald S.Ed. Jan 1955

The Rule Against Perpetuities And Typical Oil And Gas Leases, David R. Macdonald S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

This comment is concerned with the examination of various methods of creating future interests in gas and oil and the effect of the rule against perpetuities on these interests.


Constitutional Law-Congressional Powers-Validity Of The 1953 Submerged Lands Act, William D. Keeler Jun 1954

Constitutional Law-Congressional Powers-Validity Of The 1953 Submerged Lands Act, William D. Keeler

Michigan Law Review

In 1947 and 1950 the Supreme Court held that the coastal states had no property interest in the submerged lands lying seaward from the low water mark, whether ownership of this land was held by the state prior to admission into the Union or not, and that the federal government had paramount rights in and power over this land, including the resources of the soil beneath it. In 1953 Congress passed, and the President signed, the Submerged Lands Act, which vested in the coastal states title to and proprietary power over this land. Alabama and Rhode Island petitioned the Court …


Constitutional Law-Eminent Domain-Destruction Of Private Property To Prevent Enemy Capture, John F. Spindler S.Ed. Mar 1953

Constitutional Law-Eminent Domain-Destruction Of Private Property To Prevent Enemy Capture, John F. Spindler S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Respondent oil companies owned terminal facilities in Manila at the time of the Japanese attack on the Philippines. The terminals were destroyed by the United States Army as the Japanese entered the city. Although the Army had requisitioned oil from the terminals prior to their destruction, respondents were bound by the decision of the court of claims to the effect that prior to December 27, 1941, when respondents were notified that the terminals themselves were requisitioned for the purpose of destruction, there had been no taking within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment. The court of claims allowed recovery on …


Patents - Patentability Of The Product Of A Process, Julian Caplan Mar 1938

Patents - Patentability Of The Product Of A Process, Julian Caplan

Michigan Law Review

The problem to be discussed in this comment can best be illustrated by setting forth a hypothetical fact situation. It will be assumed that an inventor, A has invented a new and useful process for refining oil, which process is denoted process X. Heretofore all oil has been refined by process Y. The oil produced by process X does not differ sufficiently in its chemical and physical properties from that produced by process Y so that the inventor can get a patent on the oil as such. Assuming that, upon proper application, A may receive a patent for …


Taxation - Exemption Of Federal Instrumentality -Property Of A Governmental Agency Used For Non-Governmental Purpose, Virginia M. Renz May 1937

Taxation - Exemption Of Federal Instrumentality -Property Of A Governmental Agency Used For Non-Governmental Purpose, Virginia M. Renz

Michigan Law Review

Oklahoma attempted to tax property used by the lessee of restricted Indian land in producing oil and gas. It was argued that the property was not taxable because the lessee was a federal instrumentality, and Congress had not consented to its taxation. Held, property is not exempt from a non-discriminatory ad valorem state tax merely because it is the property of a federal instrumentality. There should be no exemption unless the taxation imposes a direct burden upon the exertion of a federal governmental power. Taber v. Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Co., (U. S. 1937) 57 S. Ct. 334.


Police Power - Due Process And State Regulation Of Food Production And Distribution, Charles C. Spangenberg Apr 1937

Police Power - Due Process And State Regulation Of Food Production And Distribution, Charles C. Spangenberg

Michigan Law Review

It is well settled that the state, in the exercise of its police power, may legislate to protect the health and promote the general welfare of its citizens. It is equally well settled that the objects of this solicitude have the right, protected by the Fourteenth Amendment and similar provisions in the state constitutions, to follow such industrial pursuits and make such contracts as they choose. Unfortunately, "these correlative rights, that of the citizen to exercise exclusive dominion over property and freely to contract about his affairs, and that of the state to regulate the use of property and the …


Contracts - Indefiniteness - Effect Of Buyer's Right To Require Alternative Performance Nov 1936

Contracts - Indefiniteness - Effect Of Buyer's Right To Require Alternative Performance

Michigan Law Review

A buyer, who had agreed to take a certain number of gallons of oil within a viscosity range comprising seven weights, each weight being listed at a different price, repudiated his contract without having specified any of the seven types. In a suit by the seller to recover for breach of contract, held, as the indefiniteness of the agreement precluded any damages save those based on speculative, average, or other arbitrary price, it was not enforcible and plaintiff could not recover for defendant's refusal to accept oil. Wilhelm Lubrication Co. v. Brattrud, (Minn. 1936) 268 N. W. 634.1


Taxation-Tax On Rolling Stock-Situs Of Personal Property Employed In Interstate Commerce Jun 1934

Taxation-Tax On Rolling Stock-Situs Of Personal Property Employed In Interstate Commerce

Michigan Law Review

An Illinois corporation owned a fleet of tank cars which were used to carry oil from the corporation's Oklahoma refinery to other States. The State of Oklahoma sought to impose a tax upon the entire fleet, although the cars were outside of Oklahoma at least twenty days each month. Held, Oklahoma had only the jurisdiction to tax the average number of tank cars habitually employed within the State. Johnson Oil Refining Co. v. Oklahoma, 290 U.S. 158, 54 Sup. Ct. 152 (1933).


International Law - Validity Of Soviet Decrees Nov 1933

International Law - Validity Of Soviet Decrees

Michigan Law Review

The Soviet government, by a nationalization decree, confiscated all oil lands in Russia, among them the land of plaintiffs, Russian nationals, and sold oil extracted therefrom to defendant. Plaintiffs sought an accounting, claiming that the confiscatory decrees of the unrecognized Soviet government and seizure of oil lands thereunder had no legal effect. A communication from the State Department was introduced: "The Department of State is cognizant of the fact that the Soviet regime is exercising control and power in territory of the former Russian Empire and the Department of State has no disposition to ignore that fact. The refusal of …


Law Of Oil And Gas, Iv, James A. Veasey Dec 1920

Law Of Oil And Gas, Iv, James A. Veasey

Michigan Law Review

This clause follows the grant, and is one of the most distinctive features of the modern oil and gas lease. Occasionally the duration of the lease is fixed by the granting clause; some times by a miscellaneous provision appearing therein. But generally speaking, the habenduin defines the term of the present-day oil and gas lease. At any rate a discussion of the legal effect of the habendum clause which now characterizes these instruments will involve the treatment of every important question which arises under this heading. At the outset we should observe that the clause is the direct result of …


Law Of Oil And Gas, James E. Veasey Jun 1920

Law Of Oil And Gas, James E. Veasey

Michigan Law Review

The lessor hereby grants to the lessee, his heirs and assigns, the exclusive right to mine and produce from the following described land petroleum and natural gas, with possession of so much of such land as may be necessary for such purpose.


Law Of Oil And Gas, James A. Veasey May 1920

Law Of Oil And Gas, James A. Veasey

Michigan Law Review

The questions heretofore considered are general in their scope, and were treated for the purpose of providing a background for the more intensive study upon which we must now enter. While commentators refer to this branch of jurisprudence as the "Law of Oil and Gas," it is more exact to say that .we are dealing with the law pertaining to oil and gas leases. This is true because the oil and gas lease characterizes and distinguishes the subject throughout. For reasons which inhere in the very nature of the business a lease yielding the lessor a royalty on the quantity …


Law Of Oil And Gas, James A. Veasey Apr 1920

Law Of Oil And Gas, James A. Veasey

Michigan Law Review

No thoughtful observer will presume to gainsay the all-important part which the oil business plays and will continue to play in the industrial, commercial and social life of the civilized world. Long before the great war this fact was deeply impressive, and was generally recognized. At the end of that conflict it was said with much truth that the Allies had floated to victory upon a sea of oil. Now, standing as we are at the threshold of a new era rich in industrial and commercial promise, no man can foresee nor even approximate the mighty expansion which will characterize …