Law Commons^™

Transferred Emissions Are Still Emissions: Why Fossil Fuel Asset Sales Need Enhanced Transparency And Carbon Accounting, Jack Arnold, Martin Lockman, Perrine Toledano, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Shraman Sen, Michael Burger

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

In a widely reported trend, the “Oil Supermajors” — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies — are selling off many upstream fossil fuel assets.

Selling these assets to entities that will continue producing and selling the fossil fuel resources does not necessarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but the supermajors have used these asset sales to support claims that they are making progress toward reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

Emissions reporting frameworks allow companies to conflate the apparent emissions reductions from asset sales with direct reductions from efficiency improvements and asset retirements. In doing so, they hinder the ability …

Presidential Use Of Force In East Asia: American Constitutional Law And The U.S.-Japan Alliance, Matthew C. Waxman

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Constitution’s allocation of military authority has adapted over time to major shifts in American power and grand strategy. This paper explains, with a focus on U.S. military actions in East Asia and possible scenarios of special joint concern to the United States and Japan, that the president in practice wields tremendous power and discretion in using military force. Although formal, legal checks on the president’s use of force rarely come into play, Congress nevertheless retains some political power to influence presidential decision-making. The president’s powers are also constrained by interagency processes within the executive branch, and alliance relations …

Legislatures, Executives And Political Control Of Government, Gillian E. Metzger

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter examines how political control over government is exercised today in the UK, the US, and France, focusing on control of the executive branch by the legislature and control of the administrative executive by the political executive. These three jurisdictions were chosen because they are paradigmatic examples of different political regimes: parliamentarism, separation of powers presidentialism, and semi-presidentialism. In theory, these different institutional structures should affect how political control is understood and wielded. In the traditional Westminster parliamentary model, for example, the government is formed from the leadership of the majority party in Parliament and it is the government …

Techniques For Regulating Military Force, Monica Hakimi

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter draws on the five chapters that follow—each of which describes the war powers in a single country — to identify and analyze some of the techniques for regulating this area of foreign affairs and then to reflect on the value of comparative research on it. Three basic techniques are: (1) to establish substantive standards on when the government may or may not use force, (2) to divide among different branches of government the authority to deploy the country’s armed forces, and (3) to subject such decisions to oversight or review. There is considerable variation, both across countries and …

Comparative Approaches To Constitutional History, Jamal Greene, Yvonne Tew

Faculty Scholarship

An historical approach to constitutional interpretation draws upon original intentions or understandings of the meaning or application of a constitutional provision. Comparing the ways in which courts in different jurisdictions use history is a complex exercise. In recent years, academic and judicial discussion of “originalism” has obscured both the global prevalence of resorting to historical materials as an interpretive resource and the impressive diversity of approaches courts may take to deploying those materials. This chapter seeks, in Section B, to develop a basic taxonomy of historical approaches. Section C explores in greater depth the practices of eight jurisdictions with constitutional …

A "Barbarous Relic": The French, Gold, And The Demise Of Bretton Woods, Michael J. Graetz, Olivia Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

Since the time of the French Revolution, when a gold standard saved the nation from hyperinflation, France has wanted gold to be the linchpin of international monetary arrangements. And, indeed, from the earliest use of bills and coins as money until August 1971, money was, in principle at least, a claim on gold.

At Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, where in July 1944 730 delegates from 44 countries met to create the post-war international financial order, the French argued that gold – which John Maynard Keynes had described two decades earlier as a “barbarous relic” – was the key to international …

The United States, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

The United States is an example of how three branches of government can stall and derail reform initiatives. The judiciary in particular is central to the US experience with political finance reform, repeatedly striking down legislation on party finance, despite consensus from executive and legislative branches. The most recent Supreme Court ruling, in April 2014, struck down one of the last remaining federal regulations, on the overall campaign contribution limits for individuals. At a subnational level, the United States does, however, see significant variations in terms of regulations on the flow of money into politics at a state level. In …

Legal Tools For Climate Adaptation Advocacy: Clean Water Act Permitting And Funding Programs, Channing R. Jones

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Climate change imperils the quality of water resources and aquatic ecosystems by introducing or exacerbating supply challenges and pollution threats. Existing legal frameworks, including permitting and grant programs, can incorporate climate change adaptation into the way we protect water. In particular, the Clean Water Act – the primary tool used nationwide to protect surface waters from pollutant discharges and fill activity – can be used to promote climate change adaptation in a number of ways.

The Clean Water Act was enacted in 1972 and amended in 1977 and 1987. The statute is principally administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, …

Us Federal Climate Change Law In Obama’S Second Term, Michael B. Gerrard, Shelley Welton

Faculty Scholarship

This commentary details the United States’ progress in advancing climate change law since President Barrack Obama’s re-election in 2012, in spite of congressional dysfunction and opposition. It describes how the Obama administration is building upon earlier regulatory efforts by using existing statutory authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from both new and existing power plants. It also explains the important role the judiciary has played in facilitating more robust executive actions, while at the same time courts have rejected citizen efforts to force judicial remedies for the problem of climate change. Finally, it suggests some reasons why climate change has …

Beyond The Wto? An Anatomy Of Eu And Us Preferential Trade Agreements, Henrik Horn, Petros C. Mavroidis, André Sapir

Faculty Scholarship

It is often alleged that PTAs involving the EC and the US include a significant number of obligations in areas not currently covered by the WTO Agreement, such as investment protection, competition policy, labour standards and environmental protection. The primary purpose of this study is to highlight the extent to which these claims are true. The study divides the contents of all PTAs involving the EC and the US currently notified to the WTO, into 14 'WTO' and 38 'WTO-X' areas, where WTO provisions come under the current mandate of the WTO, and WTO-X provisions deal with issues lying outside …

The Challenges Of Globally Accessible Process, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter embraces the strategic use of the Internet for achieving new forms of transparency and participation in the regulatory cooperation process. It explores ‘the challenges of globally accessible process’ through the use of new information technologies. It holds that the incorporation of these technologies in agency processes at the US federal level has created possibilities for the most transparent, participatory, and broadly deliberative regulatory system in the world to become still more so. The Internet promises not merely to expand access to information about the substance and process of regulation, but also to ‘move the government closer to the …