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Full-Text Articles in Law
Legal & Scientific Integrity In Advancing A "Land Degradation Neutral World", Shelley Welton, Michela Biasutti, Michael B. Gerrard
Legal & Scientific Integrity In Advancing A "Land Degradation Neutral World", Shelley Welton, Michela Biasutti, Michael B. Gerrard
Faculty Scholarship
It is no secret that the fight against desertification isn't going well. In the two decades since the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification ("UNCCD") came into force, desertification – defined as degradation in the quality of "arid, semi-arid, and dry subhumid" land areas – has worsened considerably. Recent United Nations estimates suggest that fifty-two percent of drylands currently under agricultural cultivation are moderately or severely degraded, and 12 million hectares of productive land become barren each year due to desertification and drought. And while drylands are the focus of the UNCCD, the challenge isn't limited to them: somewhere around …
Global Warming As A Public Nuisance, Thomas W. Merrill
Global Warming As A Public Nuisance, Thomas W. Merrill
Faculty Scholarship
On July 21, 2004, eight State Attorneys General and the City of New York brought suit in federal district court in the Southern District of New York, seeking to adjudicate the issue of global warming as a public nuisance. Six large electric power producers were named as defendants. The complaint filed in Connecticut v. American Electric Power Co., as the action is styled, alleges that emissions of greenhouse gases from the defendants' plants, in particular carbon dioxide (C02), are contributing to global warming. Count I claims that these greenhouse gas emissions are an actionable public nuisance governed by federal …
Trends In The Supply And Demand For Environmental Lawyers, Michael B. Gerrard
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.
A Welcome, Michael I. Sovern
A Welcome, Michael I. Sovern
Faculty Scholarship
Though my offering here is more ceremonial than intellectual, I accepted with alacrity the editors' invitation to submit a brief, welcoming essay for Volume 1, Number 1 of the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law. I write, first, to symbolize our School's deep and abiding commitment to environmental studies, a commitment evidenced by the extraordinary number of Columbia students, faculty and alumni who have contributed and are contributing to the development of environmental law. Professors Grad, Jones, Murphy, and Rosenthal; Russel Train, David Sive and Jerome Kretchmer; and the editors of this Journal, among many others, come quickly to mind. I …