Law Commons^™

The Elaborate Paper Tiger: Environmental Enforcement And The Rule Of Law In China, Erin Ryan

Scholarly Publications

In recent decades, the eyes of the world have been trained on China’s remarkable feats of rapid economic development. Yet the enormous environmental toll associated with China’s growth has also drawn global attention, as Chinese air and water quality plummet to historic lows. Epic levels of environmental degradation have fueled a growing domestic consensus that China must do better at reconciling these competing goals. This article reviews the contemporary challenges facing the second wave of environmental governance in China (with an addendum addressing important environmental law amendments enacted as it went to press). In the first wave of environmental governance, …

Evaluating Citizen Petition Procedures: Lessons From An Analysis Of The Nafta Environmental Commission, David L. Markell, John H. Knox

Scholarly Publications

The NAFTA Environmental Commission’s citizen petition process is an important experiment in “new governance” because of its emphasis on citizen participation, accountability, and transparency as strategies to enhance government legitimacy and improve government performance. Its focus on promoting compliance and enforcement adds to its importance for those interested in those central aspects of the regulatory process. The procedure has had a rocky start in many respects, although there are signs that in some cases it has had a positive impact.

This Article sets forth what we perceive to be the promise of the process, the pitfalls that have undermined its …

A Proposed Check On The Charging Discretion Of Wisconsin Prosecutors, Wayne A. Logan

Scholarly Publications

With the emergence of the increasingly vocal victims' rights movement and a more general punitive emphasis in criminal justice, the issue of prosecutorial discretion in the decision of whether to charge a suspect with a crime has assumed paramount importance. In two recent cases the Wisconsin Supreme Court addressed the fundamental question of whether it is the responsibility of the local prosecutor or the court to charge a suspect with a crime. This Comment examines these two cases, Unnamed Petitioners v. Connors, decided in 1987, and State v. Unnamed Defendant, decided in 1989. The Comment concludes that the charging mechanism …