Law Commons^™

The Case For A Climate-Smart Update Of The Africa Mining Vision, Perrine Toledano, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Karan Bhulwaka, Kojo Busia

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

The 2009 Africa Mining Vision (AMV) provides guidance for the industrialization of African countries by leveraging their mining sector. However, the global context has changed since its adoption. As a result, it does not include guidance on how governments should embrace the climate change agenda as an opportunity for better and further industrialization, deeper linkages, and sustainable development.

There are many ways to look at the implications of international climate change policy for Africa, including through the increased extraction of minerals needed in clean energy application and the greening of mines. The localization of global value chains – induced by …

4°C, Robin Kundis Craig

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Conventional climate change wisdom tells governments to plan for a 2°C increase in global average temperature. However, increasingly robust science indicates that the planet is well on its way to at least 4°C of warming, possibly by the end of the 21st century or shortly thereafter. That much warming is a governance game changer, taking the multiple and interconnected complex systems that define U.S. society across thresholds and tipping points into cascades of transformational change. Critically, these systems potentially include the United States’ system of government—the key system that must successfully adapt to the coming changes in order for the …

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

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

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 …

Scientific Gerrymandering & Bifurcation, Katrina F. Kuh, Megan Edwards, Frederick A. Mcdonald

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Environmental litigation must often examine the propriety of corporate conduct in areas of scientific complexity. In the second generation of climate nuisance suits, for example, allegations of corporate participation in the climate disinformation campaign are woven into plaintiffs’ claims. Toxic tort suits, currently and most notably in the Roundup and PFAS litigation, present another area of environmental litigation grappling with the legal ramifications of alleged corporate deception about scientific information. Toxic tort suits often surface allegations, and in many cases disturbing evidence, of what we term corporate “scientific gerrymandering”— corporate efforts to finesse, slow, or even mislead scientific understanding of …

Environmental Law As Segregation, Nadia B. Ahmad, Melissa Bryan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Siting Wind Energy Projects In Virginia: Recommendations For Addressing National Security Concerns Through State Permitting Processes, Erika Bosack, Dana Mirsky, Anna Nicholson, Christopher Sanborn

Virginia Coastal Policy Center

This white paper first explains the federal and state wind energy siting approval processes and the military’s current involvement in those processes. In particular, the paper focuses on permit-issuing agencies as opposed to policy-making agencies. Parts I and II outline the federal and state permitting process, respectively. In Part III, the paper discusses the military’s concerns regarding wind energy siting. Part IV moves to the current status of Virginia’s onshore and offshore wind industries. Part V analyzes two case studies: Block Island Wind Farm in Rhode Island and the Pantego Wind Energy Facility in North Carolina. Finally, Part VI synthesizes …

2021 Final Butte Reduction Works (Brw) Smelter Area Mine Waste Remediation And Contaminated Groundwater Hydraulic Control Site Phase Iii Quality Assurance Project Plan (Qapp), Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Advocating For The Future, John C. Dernbach, Irma S. Russell, Matthew Bogoshian

Faculty Works

Attorneys in our varied roles need to step up and address the climate crisis for the sake of every person and for the public good. All lawyers must be sustainability lawyers now. This article explains why; it also offers an illustrative set of suggestions on how to get started and what to do.

Reimagining The Duck Stamp, Hunting Licensure And Public Land Preservation, Alec Wayne Boyd-Devine

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The American Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp, or Duck Stamp, is a form of licensure issued by the Federal Government for waterfowl hunters. Why do physical stamps act as licensure to hunt waterfowl on both public and private land in the United States? How did the stamp become the key that grants access to resources that supposedly should be owned by the public? The duck stamp has been well-documented in conservation communities as a resource which has made significant positive impacts on the environment. The increase of anti-hunting sentiments in our society combined with fewer hunters per capita may …

Environmental Justice, Settler Colonialism, And More-Than-Humans In The Occupied West Bank: An Introduction, Irus Braverman

Journal Articles

Our special issue provides a first-of-its kind attempt to examine environmental injustices in the occupied West Bank through interdisciplinary perspectives, pointing to the broader settler colonial and neoliberal contexts within which they occur and to their more-than-human implications. Specifically, we seek to understand what environmental justice—a movement originating from, and rooted in, the United States—means in the context of Palestine/Israel. Moving beyond the settler-native dialectic, we draw attention to the more-than-human flows that occur in the region—which include water, air, waste, cement, trees, donkeys, watermelons, and insects—to consider the dynamic, and often gradational, meanings of frontier, enclosure, and Indigeneity in …

Transparency For Whom? Grounding Land Investment Transparency In The Needs Of Local Actors, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Transparency is often seen as a means of improving governance and accountability of investment, but its potential to do so is hindered by vague definitions and failures to focus on the needs of key local actors.

In this new report focusing on agribusiness, forestry, and renewable energy projects (“land investments”), CCSI grounds transparency in the needs of project-affected communities and other local actors. Transparency efforts that seek to inform and empower communities can also help governments, companies, and other actors to more effectively manage operational risk linked to social conflict.

Troublingly, the report finds that:

• Disclosures around land investments continue …

Transparency Of Land-Based Investments: Cameroon Country Snapshot, Sam Szoke-Burke, Samuel Nguiffo, Stella Tchoukep

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Despite a recent transparency law and participation in transparency initiatives, Cameroon’s investment environment remains plagued by poor transparency.

In a new report focusing on agribusiness projects in Cameroon, CCSI and the Centre pour l’Environnement et le Développement (CED) find that:

• Communities continue to be excluded from decision-making around investments.
• The government pursues a top-down approach to concession allocation and remains reluctant to recognize all legitimate tenure rights.
• The government faces threats to its legitimacy as the grievances of citizens and investors alike lead to the barring of roads by communities and investor withdrawals.

CCSI and CED therefore call for:

• A …

Cle Working Paper No.2/2021--Defending Nature Against Rodenticides, Marie Turcott

Centre for Law and the Environment

Anticoagulant rodenticides (i.e., rat poisons) are highly toxic compounds that have been recognized for decades to have devastating effects on wildlife species and the wider ecosystem. In this paper, I argue that the continued use of anticoagulant rodenticides is entirely inconsistent with the provincial and federal governments' obligations to citizens and the environment under their respective pesticide legislation, and that the governments' failure to fulfill these obligations is due in part to the refusal to acknowledge rights of nature. I provide an overview of the current statutory and regulatory framework for pesticides in Canada and examine the practical effects of …

Law Library Blog (March 2021): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Indigenous Environmental Rights And Sustainable Development: Lessons From Totonicapán In Guatemala, Patricia Galvao-Ferreira, Mario Mancilla

Law Publications

The chapter argues that in order to contribute to a more comprehensive theoretical understanding of the many nuances of the social dimension of sustainable development, IEL scholars should engage more systematically with emerging national and international research on Indigenous alternative perspectives on environmental governance. The approach highlighted here is distinct from existing discussions related to environmental justice and Indigenous peoples, which highlights the disproportionate environmental impacts Indigenous peoples suffer as a racialized social group, because of their close cultural and existential interaction with the environment. The aim is to move from treating Indigenous peoples as victims of environmental racism, to …

Indigenous Environmental Justice And Sustainability, Deborah Mcgregor

Articles & Book Chapters

This chapter offers an alternative vision for sustainable futures involving self-determined Indigenous environmental justice (EJ). It builds upon a distinct understanding of Indigenous EJ which asserts that the components necessary for Indigenous EJ are Indigenous knowledge systems, legal orders, and conceptions of justice that have existed for thousands of years.1 This contribution will also offer preliminary thoughts on the need to decolonize internationally adopted conceptions of sustainable development expressed more recently through the post-2015 United Nations sustainable development agenda. Indigenous environmental injustice is very much an outcome of “unsustainable” and detrimental “development,” as well as gross violations of human and …

Goldilocks Deference, Daniel H. Cole, Elizabeth Baldwin, Katie Meehan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Over the years, courts reviewing rules and decisions of federal administrative agencies have given those agencies greater or narrower latitude in interpreting enabling legislation, ranging from the “hard look” doctrine to various levels of deference under case names such as Chevron, Auer, and Skidmore. This article examines a distinct type of judicial deference that might arise only in a special subset of cases where an agency is sued by two different interested parties arguing diametrically opposed positions. For example, the EPA may be sued on a major, substantive rule by the regulated industry arguing that the rule …

A Bibliometric Analysis Of Human Trafficking In The Wake Of Natural Disasters, Shashikala Gurpur Dr, Manika Kamthan Dr, Vartika Tiwari Ms.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study is based on the bibliometric analysis of research publications that focus on highlighting the interlinkages between natural disasters and human trafficking as its aftermath. The main objectives of the study are to determine the frequency of such publications and also to establish that the problem of trafficking as a result of natural disasters has not received enough attention from the researchers. The data was collected from the Scopus database using VOSviewer software. Literature written from 2000 to October 2020 were perused. The study consisted of a total of 66 documents which are classified into articles, letters, editorials conference …

Using Current Legal Tools To Achieve Net Zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions From New And Existing Federal Oil And Gas Leases, Jamie Gibbs Pleune, Nada Wolff Culver, John C. Ruple

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Fossil fuel development on federal lands accounts for 24% of all U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. These emissions can be reduced significantly by requiring federal oil and gas development activity to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has authority to define the terms and conditions of new oil and gas leases and to impose conditions of approval on existing leases at the drilling stage. Using this authority, the BLM could require net zero emissions on some existing and all new oil and gas leases without waiting for congressional action or regulatory changes. Applying existing legal …

Cle Working Paper No.1/2021--Grassroots And Litigation-Based Approaches To Advancing Indigenous Rights: Lessons From Extractive Industry Resistance In Mesoamerica, Justin Wiebe

Centre for Law and the Environment

Indigenous peoples are frequently recognized as excellent stewards of their traditional territories. These territories, which often exhibit extraordinary levels of biodiversity, face disproportionate and growing threats from extractive industry. In opposing these threats, Indigenous peoples increasingly rely on internationally-defined Indigenous rights, including those set out in UNDRIP and ILO Convention 169. It is uncertain, however, how these rights are most effectively advanced. In this paper, I tease out strategies — both grassroots-based and litigation-based — that show promise in this regard. Drawing on Waorani resistance to an oil auction in Ecuador and Indigenous resistance to a large-scale mining project in …

Should The European Union Fix, Leave Or Kill The Energy Charter Treaty?, Martin Dietrich Brauch

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In the early 1990s, the European Economic Community – the predecessor of the European Union (EU) – spearheaded an initiative to promote international cooperation in the energy sector, particularly with post-Soviet States in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Out of this process the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) was born in 1994. Going much beyond international cooperation, the treaty allows foreign investors in the energy sector to sue their host States in international arbitral tribunals and claim monetary compensation when policy measures and other State action affect their interests.

Fast-forward to 2021. With 135 known cases initiated to date, the ECT’s …

Biodiversity 2050: Can The Convention On Biological Diversity Deliver A World Living In Harmony With Nature?, Michelle Mei Ling Lim

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) ‘2050 Vision’ aims to achieve, by 2050, a world that is ‘living in harmony with nature.’ Yet biodiversity is threatened globally to an extent never before witnessed in human history. The Global Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES Global Assessment)—the largest ever assessment of the global state of biodiversity and ecosystems services—found that a sustainable global future for people and nature remains possible. However, this can only be achieved if we fundamentally redesign our economic, social, and governance systems. It is almost three decades since the CBD, the …

Culturally Diverse Expert Teams Have Yet To Bring Comprehensive Linguistic Diversity To Intergovernmental Ecosystem Assessments, Abigail J. Lynch, Fernández-Llamazares Álvaro, Ignacio Palomo, Pedro Jaureguiberry, Amano Tatsuya, Zeenatul Basher, Michelle Lim, Tuyeni Heita Mwampamba, Aibek Samakov, Odirilwe Selomane, Michelle Mei Ling Lim

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Multicultural representation is a stated goal of many global scientific assessment processes. These processes aim to mobilize a broader, more diverse knowledge base and increase legitimacy and inclusiveness of these assessment processes. Often, enhancing cultural diversity is encouraged through involvement of diverse expert teams and sources of knowledge in different languages. In this article, we examine linguistic diversity, as one representation of cultural diversity, in the eight published assessments of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Our results show that the IPBES assessment outputs are disproportionately filtered through English-language literature and authors from Anglophone countries. To …

Salmon And The Clean Water Act: An Unfinished Agenda, Michael Blumm, Michael Benjamin Smith

Faculty Articles

Salmon are perhaps the quintessential indicator species for water quality, as they require both sufficient quality and quantity to migrate and spawn. Columbia Basin salmon have been listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for over a quarter-century in large part due to inadequate water flows and poor water quality. A half-century ago, long before the listings, the modern Clean Water Act promised fishable waters. This article explains that this is a promise largely unkept due to implementing agencies’ evasion and disinterest. Recent litigation, however, offers some hope that the statute may yet provide a viable path towards protecting and …

2021 Final Butte Reduction Works (Brw) Phase I Quality Assurance Project Plan (Qapp) Revision 3. February 2021, Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Environmental Justice And Pennsylvania's Environmental Rights Amendment: Applying The Duty Of Impartiality To Discriminatory Siting, Jacob Elkin

Panel II: Reshaping EJ Law & Social Policy

Since the 1970s, there has been a growing awareness that environmental hazards are disproportionately sited in low-income communities and communities of color. Under the label of the environmental justice movement, community groups have pursued various means to fight against the discriminatory concentration of environmental burdens in their neighborhoods. Yet in its Civil Rights Act and Equal Protection Clause jurisprudence, the Supreme Court has largely shut the door on federal environmental justice litigation by requiring plaintiffs to prove that the government acted with discriminatory intent in its siting and permitting decisions.

This Note argues that Pennsylvania’s Environmental Rights Amendment provides an …

The Law And Ecology Of Dam Removals, Dave Owen, Kim Sager-Fradkin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Budgetary Courage To Face The Double Crises Of Covid And Climate Change, Frank Pasquale

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Nigeria’S Petroleum Industry Bill: A Missed Opportunity To Prepare For The Zero-Carbon Future, Solina Kennedy, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Perrine Toledano, Tehtena Mebratu-Tsegaye

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

With Nigeria’s National Assembly debating the proposed Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) in the first quarter of 2021 – after nearly two decades of attempted reform of the country’s petroleum sector – Nigeria has a unique opportunity to rethink the role of the oil and gas industry in Nigeria’s economy and build out the country’s energy sector and economic capacity for the long term. CCSI’s report Equipping the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for the Low-Carbon Transition, released before the PIB was publicized, advances suggestions on how to do so. The PIB takes notable steps toward much-needed reform of NNPC’s …

Opportunities For Public Comments On Pending Trap/Pot Fishery Regulations To Protect The North Atlantic Right Whale, Catherine Schluter

Marine Affairs Institute Staff Publications

No abstract provided.