Law Commons^™

The Floodgates Of Strict Liability: Bursting Reservoirs And The Adoption Of Fletcher V. Rylands In The Guided Age, Jed Handelsman Shugerman

Faculty Scholarship

Part I presents an overview of Rylands v. Fletcher and then discusses the phases of the American response: the initial acceptance; the Northeastern rejections in the 1870s, which have been the basis for the erroneous scholarly conclusions; and the overlooked tide of acceptances across the country, beginning in the late 1880s and increasing in the 1890s. Part II places this wave of acceptance in its historical context of changing social forces, although these brief sketches are not the primary emphasis of this Note. First, during a period of rapid urbanization, a small number of courts sought to protect residential areas …

Environmental Damage Resulting From The Nato Military Action Against Yugoslavia, Aaron Schwabach

Faculty Scholarship

During the 1999 war between NATO and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, NATO targeted and destroyed chemical plants and storage facilities at Pancevo, Kragujevac, and elsewhere. A United Nations inspection team found that the NATO attacks had caused measurable, but not catastrophic, environmental damage wityin the territory of Yugoslavia. This article explores the historical evolution and current status of the body of law regarding protection of the environment during wartime, as well as the legality of NATO's actions. It concludes that NATO probably did not violate international law as it currently stands. However, the postwar reactions of states, including the …

Alden And The Web Of Environmental Law, William D. Araiza

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Corruption Of Civic Environmentalism, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Devolution And The Public Health, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Explaining Market Mechanisms, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, environmental regulation has seen a debate between supporters of traditional command-and-control regulation – a system of uniform pollution control standards – and proponents of a system of fees or permits for individual polluters known as market mechanisms. In this article, Professor Merrill considers two theories, wealth-maximization theory and distributional theory, that have been used to explain the emergence of market mechanisms in American environmental policy. He notes that (1) relatively few American environmental-enforcement programs have adopted market mechanisms; (2) those that exist overwhelmingly use grandfathered transferable permits instead of pollution taxes or auctioned permits; and (3) they …

Hormone Replacement Therapy, Or Just Eat More Meat: The Technological Hare Vs. The Regulatory Tortoise, Leticia M. Diaz

Faculty Scholarship

Is meat with its high fat content the real culprit, or is it the FDA-approved growth hormones, the same hormones that have been rejected in Europe, that should bear the blame? Why is eating less meat associated with a lower incidence of many types of cancer? Could it be chemical overload? American women are about five times more likely to develop breast cancer than are women in less developed countries.

Clear Consensus, Ambiguous Commitment, Christopher H. Schroeder

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Environmental Justice And Natural Areas Protection Trends & Insight, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

There are 3,119,963 square miles in the continental United States. That sounds like plenty of space to put just about anything. However, when the facility seeking a home is environmentally controversial, finding even one square mile can seem almost impossible.

This country is now in its third major era in making siting decisions. The first era – unconstrained siting – lasted until the late 1960s. Then began the second era – protecting natural areas. In the early 1990s, we embarked upon a third era – environmental justice. The growing tensions between protecting natural areas and achieving environmental justice suggest that …

Instream Flows In New Mexico, Denise D. Fort

Faculty Scholarship

Instream flows for fisheries, recreation and aesthetic purposes held to be a legitimate use under New Mexico's statutory regime.

Can’T Get No Satisfaction: Securing Water For Federal And Tribal Lands In The West, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, the western states have often struggled with the federal government over control and management of natural resources, particularly water. For its part, federal law defers to states in many matters of water resource allocation.

Consultants' And Lawyers' Duties To Report Contamination, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

A recent decision by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) expands the duty of environmental consultants to report contamination on their clients' land. The rationale of the decision might also apply to lawyers and to states beyond New York.

Many federal, state and municipal laws require spills of pollutants to be reported to the government. People have received criminal penalties, including jail time, as well as heavy civil fines, for violating some of these requirements. Almost all of these rules apply only to persons who own, operate, or are otherwise in charge of the polluting facility, or …

Trends In The Supply And Demand For Environmental Lawyers, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

The boom times for environmental lawyers were the late 1980s and the early 1990s. The June 1990 issue of Money magazine called environmental law a "fast-track career." Two or three years of experience with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a state environmental agency, the environmental units of the Justice Department, or a state attorney general's office were a ticket to a high-paying job in the private sector. Law students were clamoring to enter the field and law firms were scrambling to find experienced environmental lawyers, or to recycle newly underemployed antitrust lawyers into this burgeoning field.