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Full-Text Articles in Law
Legal Techniques For Dealing With Scientific Uncertainty In Environmental Law, Jorge E. Vinuales
Legal Techniques For Dealing With Scientific Uncertainty In Environmental Law, Jorge E. Vinuales
Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law
This Article analyzes how scientific uncertainty is handled in international environmental law. It identifies ten legal techniques used for this purpose (i.e., precautionary reasoning; framework-protocol approach; advisory scientific bodies; law-making by treaty bodies; managerial approaches to compliance; prior informed consent; environmental impact assessment and monitoring; provisional measures; evidence; and facilitated liability) and links them to four different stages of development of environmental regimes (i.e., advocacy, design, implementation, and reparation). These techniques are illustrated by reference to some fifteen environmental treaties and other instruments as well as through a detailed case study focusing on the climate change regime.
Background Principles, Takings, And Libertarian Property: A Reply To Professor Huffman, J.B. Ruhl, Michael C. Blumm
Background Principles, Takings, And Libertarian Property: A Reply To Professor Huffman, J.B. Ruhl, Michael C. Blumm
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
One of the principal, if unexpected, results of the Supreme Court's 1992 decision in "Lucas v. South Carolina" Coastal Commission is the rise of background principles of property and nuisance law as a categorical defense to takings claims. Our writings on the background principles defense have provoked Professor Huffman, a devoted advocate for an expanded use of regulatory takings to protect landowner development rights, to mistakenly charge us with arguing for the use of common law principles to circumvent the rule of law, Supreme Court intent, and the takings clause. Actually, ours was not a normative brief at all, but …
Energy And Climate Change: Key Lessons For Implementing The Behavioral Wedge, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Paul C. Stern, Gerald T. Gardner, Thomas Dietz, Jonathan M. Gilligan
Energy And Climate Change: Key Lessons For Implementing The Behavioral Wedge, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Paul C. Stern, Gerald T. Gardner, Thomas Dietz, Jonathan M. Gilligan
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The individual and household sector accounts for roughly 40 percent of United States energy use and carbon dioxide emissions, yet the laws and policies directed at reductions from this sector often reflect a remarkably simplistic model of behavior. This Essay addresses one of the obstacles to achieving a “behavioral wedge” of individual and household emissions reductions: the lack of an accessible, brief summary for policymakers of the key findings of behavioral and social science studies on household energy behavior. The Essay does not provide a comprehensive overview of the field, but it discusses many of the leading studies that demonstrate …
Siting Transmission Lines In A Changed Milieu: Evolving Notions Of The "Public Interest" In Balancing State And Regional Considerations, Jim Rossi, Ashley C. Brown
Siting Transmission Lines In A Changed Milieu: Evolving Notions Of The "Public Interest" In Balancing State And Regional Considerations, Jim Rossi, Ashley C. Brown
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This Article discusses how state public utility law presents a barrier to the siting of new high voltage transmission lines to serve renewable resources, and how states could approach its evolution in order to preserve a role for state regulators in a new energy economy in which renewable energy will play a significant role. The traditional approach to determining the "public interest" in siting transmission lines is well on its way to obsolescence. Two developments over the past fifteen years have begun to challenge this paradigm. First, policies at the federal level and in many states have encouraged increased competition …
Climate Change Governance: Boundaries And Leakage, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Mark A. Cohen
Climate Change Governance: Boundaries And Leakage, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Mark A. Cohen
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This article provides a critical missing piece to the global climate change governance puzzle: how to create incentives for the major developing countries to reduce carbon emissions. The major developing countries are projected to account for 80% of the global emissions growth over the next several decades, and substantial reductions in the risk of catastrophic climate change will not be possible without a change in this emissions path. Yet the global climate governance measures proposed to date have not succeeded and may be locking in disincentives as carbon-intensive production shifts from developed to developing countries. A multi-pronged governance approach will …
Private Certification Versus Public Certification In The International Environmental Arena, Patricia A. Moye
Private Certification Versus Public Certification In The International Environmental Arena, Patricia A. Moye
Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law
In recent decades, the world's various fisheries have seen a number of problems, primarily depletion of fish stocks due to overfishing. While the UN has created some soft law, including sustainable fishing standards, to deal with the problem of fisheries depletion, no binding international laws currently exist. Several entities have decided to deal with the problem on their own, through eco-labeling programs. The Marine Stewardship Council, a private entity not directly affiliated with the government of any country, has created such a program. In addition, some governments have created similar programs, including Japan through its Marine Eco-Label Japan program. While …