Law Commons^™

Making Agricultural Investments Work For Land Users & Communities, Kaitlin Y. Cordes

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Earlier this year, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf made an unexpected commitment related to foreign investment in land and community land rights. In a meeting with communities who had raised concerns regarding a British company’s attempts to expand its palm oil production onto their customary land, the President effectively told those communities that they would have the right to say yes or no to further expansion, noting that the company could expand only with the affected communities’ approval.

Outcome Report Of Roundtable On Human Rights Impact Assessments (Hrias) Of Large-Scale Foreign Investments, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

CCSI, the Sciences Po Law School Clinic, and the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute recently published an outcome document of a one-day roundtable focused on the opportunities and challenges presented by human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) of large-scale foreign investments. The roundtable, which was held in April 2014 at Columbia University, provided an opportunity for collaborative reflection on the development of HRIAs, as well as on ways to enhance HRIAs as a framework and tool for both human rights advocacy and human rights risk management in respect of foreign investments.

By sharing the outcomes of the roundtable, this document …

Toward A Patent Exhaustion Regime For Sustainable Development, 32 Berkeley J. Int'l Law. 330 (2014), Benjamin Liu

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

This Article argues that the current exhaustion doctrine, when applied to the refurbishing industry, fails to balance its mandate of promoting technological progress with the broader program of sustainable development and is therefore unsuitable for countries on the modernization path. First, what constitutes an infringing “making” remains underdetermined. Second, the evidentiary hurdle for proving legal refurbishment is too onerous for the low margin and under-resourced refurbishing industry. Finally, the all-or-nothing approach to judging infringement fails to account for the nuanced cost-benefit nexus that exists between patentees, refurbishers, and society at large and discourages private ordering. To recalibrate the balance between …

A Holistic View Of Agency Enforcement, David L. Markell, Robert L. Glicksman

Scholarly Publications

The law review literature has long recognized that effective enforcement is an essential component of effective regulation. Yet much of the literature focuses on one aspect of the enforcement challenge or another. For example, the underlying theory about optimal levels of enforcement has received considerable attention, as have topics such as the relative merits of using deterrence-based versus cooperation-based approaches and the use of citizen suits. The purpose of this Article is to consider agencies’ enforcement and compliance promotion function holistically.

This Article proposes a three-layered conceptual framework for considering options for structuring the administrative agency enforcement and compliance promotion …

The Greenback, The Humpback, And The Silverback: How A Third Wave Of Federal Water Policy Could Benefit The West, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

Proposing any major new federal initiative regarding water in the western United States might seem preposterous, given conventional wisdom and entrenched positions on state control of water resources. But there is a strong rationale, and a growing imperative, for a new federal water .policy for the West. Many river basins face serious problems as limited water supplies are over-allocated, demands continue to increase, and climate change promises to exacerbate the West's perennial problems of scarcity and variability. Solutions to such problems are likely to be expensive and will need to address national interests as well as state and local concerns. …

Letter To The City Of San Francisco Concerning Hunters Point Candlestick Park Implosion, Environmental Law And Justice Clinic, Golden Gate University School Of Law

Environmental Law and Justice Clinic

Letter requesting that the San Francisco Planning Department decertify Addendum 3 to the Environmental Impact Report for the Candlestick Point-Hunters Point Shipyard Phase II; and engage the residents in the Bayview-Hunters Point community to arrive at a sound decision on an alternative that has the least air quality impacts on this vulnerable community.

Meeting Summary Of Colloquium On Policy, Law, Contracts, And Sustainable Development, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In November 2014, CCSI and the Institute for Human Rights and Business co-convened a colloquium on policy, law, contracts, and sustainable development, with a particular focus on large-scale investments in the extractive industries and the agriculture sector. The colloquium provided an opportunity for practitioners to share information on their related work, as well as to reflect on current practices and remaining gaps regarding efforts to embed sustainability and human rights into large-scale deals. This outcome document provides a summary of the discussion, while its annex includes information on participants’ relevant programs, initiatives, and tools.

Toward Win-Win Sustainable Development, Linda Moon

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

An interview with Lisa Sachs, Director of the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment.

Outcome Report Of Roundtable On Governing Natural Resources, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In November 2014, CCSI convened a one-day roundtable focused on lessons learned from good governance initiatives for extractive industry investments and large land-based agricultural investments. The roundtable brought together a range of stakeholders working on extractive industry investments and/or land-based forestry and agricultural investments, including representatives from civil society, government, academia, and the private sector. CCSI has published an outcome note from this roundtable.

Key structural differences between the extractive industries and the forestry and agriculture sectors mean that not all lessons learned from good governance initiatives related to extractives investments or land-based agricultural investments are transferrable. However, large-scale extractive …

2014 Future Earth Young Scientists Conference On Integrated Science And Knowledge Co-Production For Ecosystems And Human Well-Being, Ivy Shiue, Et. Al.

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Effective integration in science and knowledge co-production is a challenge that crosses research boundaries, climate regions, languages and cultures. Early career scientists are crucial in the identification of, and engagement with, obstacles and opportunities in the development of innovative solutions to complex and interconnected problems. On 25–31 May 2014, International Council for Science and International Social Science Council, in collaboration with the International Network of Next-Generation Ecologists and Institute for New Economic Thinking: Young Scholars Initiative, assembled a group of early career researchers with diverse backgrounds and research perspectives to reflect on and debate relevant issues around ecosystems and human …

Planning For Adaptation To Climate Change: Lessons From The Us National Wildlife Refuge System, Robert L. Fischman, Vicky J. Meretsky, Alexei Babko, Michael Kennedy, Lei Liu, Michelle Robinson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

US national wildlife refuges have recent, detailed management plans illustrating the state of planning for climate-change adaptation in protected areas. Discussion of and prescriptions for addressing climate change increased in refuge plans between 2005 and 2010 but decreased in 2011. The plans respond to some climate-change impacts on biodiversity and call for monitoring but with little clarity regarding how to act on monitoring results and scant attention to future changes in phenology and community composition. The threats posed by sea-level rise generated the best-developed plan prescriptions. Examples of excellent prescriptions provide models for future planning. Some decision-support tools, such as …

Ecosystem Services Valuation For Estuarine And Coastal Restoration In Florida, Susanna Blair, Carrie Adams, Thomas T. Ankersen, Maia Mcguire, David Kaplan

UF Law Faculty Publications

This study reviews the available ecosystem-service valuation literature for a number of Florida's coastal natural communities including oyster reefs, beach dunes, mangrove forests, seagrass beds, and salt marshes. We summarize the services provided by these five commonly restored natural communities in Florida and provide an analysis intended to support two main objectives: 1) to enumerate the range of ecosystem services provided by coastal natural communities as a way to educate stakeholders and support prioritization of habitat restoration; and 2) to inventory ecosystem measurements from the literature for each of the five natural communities and provide specific metrics for their measurement. …

Environmental Law And Justice Clinic Fall 2014 Report, Helen H. Kang

Environmental Law and Justice Clinic

The Clinic provides legal and technical assistance to communities that bear a disproportionate pollution burden while enjoying fewer of the benefits and basic amenities such as clean drinking water and open space. We focus on communities in California, although some projects address pollution reduction at the national level. Three core areas continued to dominate our efforts in the last year: clean drinking water for low-income communities, clean energy for California, and air pollution reduction. We also provided legal consulting to numerous organizations that sought our specialized expertise in the areas of clean air, energy, and environmental justice strategy.

Getches Wilkinson Center Newsletter, Fall 2014, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment Newsletter (2013-)

No abstract provided.

Climate Change, Technology Transfer And Intellectual Property: Options For Action At The Unfccc, Dalindyebo Shabalala

School of Law Faculty Publications

In his dissertation, the author examines the issue of whether intellectual property poses a barrier to technology transfer to address climate change and if so, what policymakers should do at the multilateral level. The book refocuses the question away from empirical approaches toward the key question of the legal capacity of developing countries to prospectively restructure their economies to access technologies and move up the technology value chain. It concludes with a set of recommendations for action at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The author defended his dissertation Oct. 15, 2014, at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. …

Introduction: Environmental Law Without Congress, Shi-Ling Hsu

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Billionaires, Birds, And Environmental Brawls: Reconceptualizing Energy Easements, Nadia B. Ahmad

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Wilderness Exceptions, John Copeland Nagle

Journal Articles

This Article considers when activities that are inconsistent with wilderness are nonetheless allowed in it. That result happens in four different ways: (1) Congress decided not to designate an area as “wilderness” even though the area possesses wilderness characteristics; (2) Congress draws the boundaries of a wilderness area to exclude land that possesses wilderness characteristics because Congress wants to allow activities there that would be forbidden by the Act; (3) Congress specifically authorizes otherwise prohibited activities when it establishes a new wilderness area; or (4) Congress acts to approve contested activities in response to a controversy that arises after a …

Learning From Conservation Planning For The U.S. National Wildlife Refuges, Robert L. Fischman, Vicky J. Meretsky

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The U.S. National Wildlife Refuge System has nearly completed its first round of unit-level, comprehensive conservation plans (CCPs) and will soon begin required revisions. Laws and policies governing refuge planning emphasize ecological integrity, landscape-scale conservation, and adaptive management. We evaluated 185 CCPs completed during 2005–2011, which cover 324 of 555 national wildlife refuges. We reviewed CCP prescriptions addressing 5 common conservation issues (habitat and game, nongame, imperiled, and invasive species) and 3 specialized topics (landscape-scale conservation, climate change, and environmental quality). Common conservation issues received prescriptions in >90% of CCPs. Specialized topics received more variable treatment. Prescriptions for aquatic connectivity, …

The Accidental Postmodernists: A New Era Of Skepticism In Environmental Law, Shi-Ling Hsu

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

The State Response To Climate Change: 50 State Survey, Laura Jensen, Kelly Nishikawa, Benjamin Lowenthal

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This survey accompanies Global Climate Change and U.S. Law, Second Edition (Michael B. Gerrard and Jody Freeman, eds, 2014). It compiles state legislation, rules and executive orders that specifically address climate change as of the end of April 2014. It also includes a wide variety of state activities that may have an impact on greenhouse gases including legislation related to energy efficiency and renewable energy. The focus of this material is to provide readers with an understanding of the range of state activity that may contribute to greenhouse gas reduction and climate change. Some types of energy efficiency, alternative fuels …

Highest Court In New York Affirms Local Power To Regulate Hydrofracking, John R. Nolon, Jessica A. Bacher

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In one of the most anxiously awaited New York land use decisions in recent memory, the State’s highest court held that local governments have the power to regulate hydrofracking under their authority to enact zoning ordinances. Both the Towns of Dryden and Middlefield enacted zoning laws that entirely banned gas drilling and associated activities within their borders. The plaintiffs, a private gas company in one case and a private property owner in the other, claimed that a supersession clause in the State Oil, Gas, and Solution Mining Law (OGSML) preempted local authority. After reviewing the plain language of the OGSML, …

Researching Environmental Justice: A Conversation, Virginia C. Thomas, William W. Lefevre

Library Scholarly Publications

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines environmental justice as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.” The concerns that arise in this complex environmental context extend beyond the scope of traditional legal research resources to include historical, social, scientific, and governmental documents that reside in unique archival collections.

Through the conversation that follows, senior archivist William LeFevre of the Walter P. Reuther Library shares his experience and insights on how archival resources can provide essential support …

Rural Wind Windfalls, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Wind power can provide rural communities with unexpected gains or “windfalls.” As one North Dakota farmer put it, “Who could have guessed that the air above our land might be worth money someday?” According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the amount of installed wind electricity capacity in the United States increased by a factor of 25 between 2000 and 2012. The United States is second, behind only China, for the most wind electricity capacity in the world. In 2012, Kansas more than doubled its installed wind capacity by adding 1,441 MW to the 1,272 MW installed before that …

The Political Economy Of Oil Spill Damage Assessment: Nrda And Deepwater Horizon, Matt Nichols, Judith T. Kildow Dr

Working Papers

The federal effort to quantify and capture non-market damages to coastal ecosystems from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Phase II of United States of America v. BP Exploration and Production, centers on the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process. This paper makes the case that the current NRDA process has done a poor job protecting the public interest and resolving the issues surrounding oil spills from deep water drilling activities. After 5 years, the findings of the NRDA still remain sealed from both affected maritime communities and academic researchers until litigation is settled with civil and criminal fines …

An Open Access Distribution Tariff: Removing Barriers To Innovation On The Smart Grid, Joel B. Eisen

Law Faculty Publications

This Article proposes that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) consider promulgating an Open Access Distribution Tariff (OADT) to open the nation's electric grid to new products and services at the consumer (distribution) level. Design of the OADT would be comparable to the Open Access Transmission Tariff that the FERC has used previously to open the nation's transmission wires. This Article argues that an OADT is necessary to create a smart electricity network that would be national, multimodal, and interactive. There is no smart electricity network at present, and there are numerous barriers to the development of open networking, such …

Testimony Before The Committee On Science, Space, And Technology, Subcommittee On Oversight And Environment, U.S. House Of Representatives Hearing On Status Of Reforms To Epa's Integrated Risk Information System, July 16, 2014, Rena I. Steinzor

Congressional Testimony

No abstract provided.

Cuel Comments On December 2013 Draft Eir/Eis For Proposed Bay Delta Conservation Plan (Bdcp), Paul Stanton Kibel

CUEL - Center for Urban Environmental Law

In July 2014 CUEL submitted comments on the draft environmental impact assessment for the proposed Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP).

The following comments are submitted by the Center on Urban Environmental Law (CUEL) at Golden Gate University School of Law. The focus of CUEL' s comments is on Chapter 11 (Fish and Aquatic Resources) of the December 2013 Draft Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Bay Delta Conservation Plan (December 2013 Draft EIR/ EIS). The December 2013 Draft EIR/ EIS was prepared and circulated for public review pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the National …

Testimony Before The Committee On Energy And Commerce, Subcommittee On Environment And Economics, U.S. House Of Representatives, Hearing On Constitutional Considerations: States Vs. Federal Environmental Policy Implementation July 11, 2014, Rena I. Steinzor

Congressional Testimony

No abstract provided.

Tackling Climate Change: Don't Forget Energy Efficency, Joel B. Eisen

Law Faculty Publications

Todd S. Aagaard and Joel B. Eisen write that one option available for states under the EPA's high-profile Clean Power Plan is relying on greater efficiency in energy usage and other demand-side strategies such as "demand response," which involves programs to reduce consumption at specific times of high electricity demand. However, a federal court recently cast a cloud over demand response's future.