Law Commons^™

Environmental War, Climate Security, And The Russia-Ukraine Crisis, Mark P. Nevitt

Faculty Articles

This Article addresses the Russia-Ukraine conflict’s broad implications for energy security, climate security, and environment protections during wartime. I assert that in the short-term the Russian-Ukraine war is poised to hinder much-needed international climate progress. It will stymie international decarbonization efforts and cause greater uncertainty in other climate-destabilized parts of the world, such as the Arctic. While Russia has become a pariah in the eyes of the United States and other Western nations, it has forged new partnerships and capitalized on new, lucrative energy markets outside the West and Global South. But in the long term, the global renewable energy …

Reducing Septic-Reliant Households: How A Comprehensive Legal Scheme Could Improve Water Quality, Environmental, And Human Health, Karlin Foor, Anna Bailey

Virginia Coastal Policy Center

Considering the [...] concerns of septic reliance in Virginia, this paper will present and explicate three issues pertaining to the Maryland Sustainable Growth and Preservation Act (the “Septic Law”). Maryland's Septic Law represents an effort at a statewide legal scheme for approaching the issue of rapid development on septic. It may function as a useful starting point for Virginia to approach the danger that failing septic poses to Virginian citizens and the health of the Chesapeake Bay, a vital contributor to the state economy and cultural heritage. Part II opens with an overview of Maryland’s Septic Law. Part III evaluates …

A Plea For Survival: Can The Return To Eco-Centrism Strengthen The Legal Protection Of Nature In Sri Lanka?, Asanka Edirisinghe, Michelle Mei Ling Lim

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The right to life of all living beings and the duty of humans to co-exist with nature have been recognized in Sri Lankan tradition and religious practice for centuries. Yet, environmental destruction, degradation and pollution due to human activities have become a common phenomenon in contemporary Sri Lanka. Anthropocentric thinking pervades Sri Lankan jurisprudence. Laws and judicial decisions have largely failed to recognize the rights of nature to be protected for its relational and intrinsic values. There is also limited acknowledgement that the very survival of human beings depends on the continuous existence of Mother Earth. Significant shifts from human-centred …

Abandoned And Derelict Vessels In The Commonwealth: How To Improve Virginia's Adv Program, Anthony Cusato

Virginia Coastal Policy Center

Vessels abandoned or lost by their owners can get stuck on a shoreline or in a marsh, aimlessly float adrift, or sink in a waterway. As the number of ADVs [abandoned and derelict vessels] increases, efforts to address them similarly intensify. Typically, state government agencies handle most ADVs, and their approaches to ADV control and removal vary widely across jurisdictions. Virginia faces an increasing number of ADVs and can learn from other states to improve its approach. This paper examines the current Virginia ADV program and considers how it can be amended to make it more effective. It then identifies …

Reframing Global Biodiversity Protection After Covid-19: Is International Environmental Law Up To The Task?, Maria Antonia Tigre, Natalia Urzola, Victoria Lichet

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

In an increasingly interdependent world, the climate and biodiversity crises are, more than ever, inextricably tied to human health and the transmission of infectious diseases. The 2020 Covid-19 pandemic has irrevocably shown us that the exploitation of wild species and deforestation increases and modifies the interface between people and wildlife, leading to a spillover of diseases from wildlife to people. From a legal perspective, the gaps in international environmental law have contributed to the lack of an effective international biodiversity policy. In light of the challenges brought by the pandemic, there is now an opportunity to rethink our existing legal …

Making America A Better Place For All: Sustainable Development Recommendations For The Biden Administration, John C. Dernbach, Scott E. Schang, Robert W. Adler, Karol Boudreaux, John Bouman, Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, Kimberly Brown, Mikhail Chester, Michael B. Gerrard, Stephen Herzenberg, Samuel Markolf, Corey Malone-Smolla, Jane Nelson, Uma Outka, Tony Pipa, Alexandra Phelan, Leroy Paddock, Jonathan D. Rosenbloom, William Snape, Anastasia Telesetsky, Gerald Torres, Elizabeth Ann Kronk Warner, Audra Wilson

Faculty Scholarship

In 2015, the United Nations Member States, including the United States, unanimously approved 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. The SDGs are nonbinding; each nation is to implement them based on its own priorities and circumstances. This Article argues that the SDGs are a critical normative framework the United States should use to improve human quality of life, freedom, and opportunity by integrating economic and social development with environmental protection. It collects the recommendations of 22 experts on steps that the Biden-Harris Administration should take now to advance each of the SDGs. It is part of …

Back To The Future: Creating A Bipartisan Environmental Movement For The 21st Century, David M. Uhlmann

Articles

With a contentious presidential election looming amidst a pandemic, economic worries, and historic protests against systemic racism, climate action may seem less pressing than other challenges. Nothing could be further from the truth. To prevent greater public health threats and economic dislocation from climate disruption, which will disproportionately harm Black Americans, people of color, and indigenous people, this Comment argues that we need to restore the bipartisanship that fueled the environmental movement and that the fate of the planet—and our children and grandchildren—depends upon our collective action.

An Emerging Containment Of (Legal) Concern: Pfas Legal Issues At The State And Federal Level, Michael S. Heard Snow, Conor M. Jennings

Virginia Coastal Policy Center

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are a class of man-made industrial chemicals that have been widely used in a variety of ways, primarily in water-resistant coatings and fire-fighting foam. Their widespread use has led to broad contamination threats to human drinking water sources, including surface and groundwater. As a result, they are an emerging contaminant of concern that are swiftly turning into a global health threat on the forefront of regulatory and policy debates. PFAS have been detected in both aquatic life and humans, and research is increasingly clear that there are concrete health risks to excessive exposure. Currently …

A Review Of Sierra Leone’S Mines And Minerals Act, Tehtena Mebratu-Tsegaye, Perrine Toledano, Sophie Thomashausen

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

With the support of Oxfam, the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment reviewed select provisions in the Mines and Minerals Act 2009 and corresponding policy statements from the Minerals Policy 2018 to provide recommendations for how to best align the anticipated new mining law with international best practice. The 2009 law was reviewed with a focus on the following topics:

• Fiscal regime;
• Climate change;
• Access to and use of land;
• Community consultations and participation;
• Human rights; and
• Community development agreements.

The policy brief aims to support the Government of Sierra Leone in the ongoing law reform process.

Honoring Sally Jewell, Charles Wilkinson

Publications

No abstract provided.

What Happens When The Green New Deal Meets The Old Green Laws?, J. B. Ruhl, James Salzman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The multi-faceted infrastructure goals of the Green New Deal will be impossible to achieve in the desired time frames if the existing federal, state, and local siting and environmental protection statutory regimes are applied. Business, labor, property rights, environmental protection, and social justice interests will use them to grind the Green New Deal to a snail's pace. Using the renewable energy transition as the infrastructure case study, this Essay is a call to arms for the need to design New Green Laws for the Green New Deal. Part I briefly summarizes what we are learning about the pace and magnitude …

New Environmental Crimes Project Data Shows That Pollution Prosecutions Plummeted During The First Two Years Of The Trump Administration, David M. Uhlmann

Other Publications

The latest data from the Environmental Crimes Project at the University of Michigan Law School shows a dramatic drop in pollution prosecutions during the first two years under President Donald J. Trump. The data, which now includes 14 years of cases from 2005–2018, shows a 70 percent decrease in Clean Water Act prosecutions under President Trump, as well as a more than 50 percent decrease in Clean Air Act prosecutions. The data again shows that most defendants charged with pollution crime commit misconduct involving one or more of the aggravating factors identified in my previous scholarship, so prosecutors continue to …

Redefining Leadership In The Age Of The Sdgs: Accelerating And Scaling Up Delivery Through Innovation And Inclusion, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Rangita De Silva De Alwis

All Faculty Scholarship

In 2015 the United Nations adopted seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to promote prosperity while protecting the environment. Our research examines how the SDGs, considered the grandest vision for sustainable development for the world, can be accelerated by ambitious leaders in the field of innovation. Through careful selection based on the type of industry, scale, impact, and diversity, we study a cohort of bold leaders who are shaping a brave new world. In turn, the urgent charge of the SDGs provides a platform and an innovation lab to incubate new ideas for inclusion and technologies.

The Federal Government Has An Implied Moral Constitutional Duty To Protect Individuals From Harm Due To Climate Change: Throwing Spaghetti Against The Wall To See What Sticks, Hope M. Babcock

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The continuing failure of the federal government to respond to the growing threat of climate change, despite affirmative duties to do so, creates a governance vacuum that the Constitution might help fill, if such a responsibility could be found within the document. This Article explores textual and non-textual constitutional support for that responsibility, finding that no single provision of the Constitution is a perfect fit for that responsibility. However, the document as a whole might support constitutionalizing an environmental protection norm as an individual right or affirmative government obligation given the norm's importance to the enjoyment of other constitutional rights …

Tribes, Cities, And Children: Emerging Voices In Environmental Litigation, Nina A. Mendelson

Articles

an environmental nongovernmental organization ("NGO") on behalf of a neighbor or hiker.1 The NGO would allege that the individual faced health risks, that her property was contaminated, or that she could no longer hike, fish, swim, or view wildlife such as the endangered Nile crocodile, as in the well-known case of Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife.

The Fatal Failure Of The Regulatory State, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The impact of government policies depends on their design, implementation, and enforcement.! The administrative law literature focuses primarily on matters of regulatory structure.2 Government agencies entrusted with protection of the environment and promotion of health and safety foster these objectives by designing and promulgating regulations that are sometimes quite stringent.' Whether these regulations will in fact generate their intended effects depends on whether they create sufficient economic incentives to discourage risky behavior...

The Article begins by documenting the low values currently placed on life in regulatory enforcement efforts. Part I presents examples involving job safety, food safety, motor-vehicle safety, and …

Coloring Outside The Lines: A Response To Professor Seamon’S Dismantling Monuments, Hope M. Babcock

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In Dismantling Monuments, Professor Richard H. Seamon defends President Donald Trump’s recent proclamations modifying the boundaries of two national monuments, Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears, that Presidents Clinton and Obama each designated at the ends of their Administrations. Professor Seamon is not alone in making these arguments, as I am not alone in saying that Professor Seamon’s arguments, while well-intentioned, are wrong. He exaggerates the persuasive power of congressional silence. He elevates the importance of the statute’s original intent. Professor Seamon and I read the text and legislative history of the Antiquities Act differently—he sees unlimited presidential power, I …

Federal Implementation Plans And The Path To Clean Power, Daniel Selmi

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Promulgated under the Clean Air Act in October 2015, the Clean Power Plan (“CPP”) requires states to significantly reduce carbon emissions from existing power plants and is the centerpiece of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA”) response to global warming. Many states have filed lawsuits challenging the CPP and some states have vowed that, if those suits are unsuccessful, they will refuse to implement it. In turn, EPA has proposed rules that would implement the CPP by imposing a “federal implementation plan” (“FIP”) upon those recalcitrant states under the authority of the Clean Air Act. Thus, the success of the CPP …

Sustainable Arctic Shipping: Are Current International Rules For Polar Shipping Sufficient?, Aldo Chircop

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

On January 1, 2017, the International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters (Polar Code) will enter into force, ushering in a new era in regulation of shipping in Arctic and Antarctic waters. The Polar Code was adopted by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) after years of difficult deliberations. The adoption of the Code required amendment of two of the most important conventions concerning safety of life at sea and vessel-source pollution. A third convention on standards of training for seafarers was also amended after the Code was adopted and the changes will come into effect on January 1, 2018. …

Environmental Law: Time To Reboot, James Gustave Speth

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Presentation given by James Gustave Speth at the 2016 David Sive Memorial Lecture.

Regulating Farming: Balancing Food Safety And Environmental Protection In A Cooperative Governance Regime, Margot J. Pollans

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

After providing a brief overview of regulation in each area, Part I of this Article identifies three types of discordance between produce safety and environmental protection on farms. First, because of limited resources, farmers will have to choose between implementing food safety practices and implementing environmental practices. Second, indirect trade-offs between the two regulatory goals result in damaging collateral consequences for the environment. Food safety regulation may exacerbate a range of existing environmental harms. Third, there is at least one direct clash that may make compliance with food safety law incompatible with participation in certain environmental programs. Part I also …

Eco-Environmental Risk Management, Jonathan B. Wiener

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Investment Treaties And Industrial Policy: Select Case Studies On State Liability For Efforts To Encourage, Shape And Regulate Economic Activities In Extractive Industries And Infrastructure, Lise Johnson

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

This paper, prepared in connection with a February 2014 conference organized by the UN Economic Commission for Africa, discusses some of the implications that investment treaties have for investments in infrastructure and the extractive industries. It focuses on liability for government conduct (1) in connection with tenders and negotiations; (2) when responding to questions regarding the legality of the investment; (3) in using performance requirements to leverage benefits and capture spillovers from the investment; (4) changing the legal framework governing an investment in response to evolving needs, circumstances, and interests; (5) administering the investment; and (6) requesting, and responding to …

The Environmental Limitations To Property Rights In Brazil And The United States Of America, Leonardo Munhoz

Dissertations & Theses

This thesis aims to comparatively analyze the legislative evolution that environmental protection has experienced in the Brazilian versus the American legal systems and their relationship with property rights.

Demonstrably, Brazil’s concern with the environment actually came into focus in the 1980s and it therefore received treatment within the Federal Constitution of 1988, as a diffuse right, contributing to better, stronger environmental protection.

Similarly, the protection of the environment in the American Constitution and its statutes as well as their enforcement and interpretation within the legal system are explored.

Of concern is the notion that environmental protection and third-generation rights consequently …

The Executive And The Environment: A Look At The Last Five Governors In New York, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

Gubernatorial leadership is the single most important indicator of how sustainable New York will be when it comes to issues of environmental protection and conservation. In preparing for the Kerlin Lecture, one of the things that struck (the author) is that New York governors for at least the last thirty years have consistently identified the critical economic, social, and environmental challenges facing this state. Is it simply political rhetoric to decry that the state is in terrible fiscal shape, that programs need to be funded to help those is need, and that we must pay attention to stewarding the environment …

The Next Generation Of Trade And Environment Conflicts: The Rise Of Green Industrial Policy, Mark Wu, James Salzman

Faculty Scholarship

A major shift is transforming the trade and environment field, triggered by governments’ rising use of industrial policies to spark nascent renewable energy industries and to restrict exports of certain minerals in the face of political economy constraints. While economically distorting, these policies do produce significant economic and environmental benefits. At the same time, they often violate World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, leading to increasingly harsh conflicts between trading partners.

This Article presents a comprehensive analysis of these emerging conflicts, arguing that they represent a sharp break from past trade and environment disputes. It examines the causes of the shift …

Principles Of International Law For Multilateral Development Banks: The Obligation To Respect Human Rights, Robert T. Coulter, Leonardo A. Crippa, Emily Wann

Free, Prior and Informed Consent: Pathways for a New Millennium (November 1)

41 pages.

"January, 2009"

www.indianlaw.org

Toward A Sustainable Future: An Environmental Agenda For The Second Term Of The Obama Administration, David M. Uhlmann

Other Publications

Much was at stake in the Presidential election of 2012, which was marked by heated debate over the trajectory of the economy, the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, and the fat of the President's health care plan. The candidates disagreed about nearly every issue from foreign policy and the war on terror to a woman's right to choose and same-sex marriage. Lost amid the din and never mentioned in the Presidential debates or most of the campaign speeches was another divisive topic: how our environmental laws and policies should address global climate change and chart a sustainable future for …

Going Rogue: Stop The Beach Renourishment As An Object Of Morbid Fascination, Mary Doyle, Stephen J. Schnably

Articles

Scholarly response to the Supreme Court's decision in Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection has focused on the plurality's strong advocacy of a judicial takings doctrine. We take a different tack. While the concept of judicial takings is worthy of serious attention, it is wrong to treat the plurality opinion as an ordinary object of analysis. It is, instead, the emanation of a Court going rogue.

Three basic symptoms of the pathology stand out. First, sleight of hand. The plurality opinion purports to be about an institutional issue-can a state court commit a taking? - …

Water Rights, Markets, And Changing Ecological Conditions, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

Conventional environmentalist thought is suspicious of private markets and property rights. The prospect of global climate change, and consequent ecological disruptions, has fueled the call for additional limitations on private markets and property rights. This essay, written for the Environmental Law Symposium on 21st Century Water Law, presents an alternative view. Specifically, this essay briefly explains why environmental problems generally, and the prospect of changing environmental conditions such as those brought about by climate change in particular, do not counsel further restrictions on private property rights and markets. To the contrary, the prospect of significant environmental changes strengthens the case …