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Full-Text Articles in Law
Fostering Resilience Within Ecological Civilization: Contributions Of Environmental Law, Nicholas A. Robinson
Fostering Resilience Within Ecological Civilization: Contributions Of Environmental Law, Nicholas A. Robinson
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
My presentation will examine water, to illustrate the questions that Ecological Civilization presents. I shall address five points: (1) Often proposals for attaining Ecological Civilization raise issues relevant to environmental law, but do not examine the roles that environmental law can serve; (2) environmental law is essential to resolving unsustainable water management issues; (3) scientific studies indicate that trends in global environmental degradation limit the time available for implementing reforms to attain Ecological Civilization; (4) environmental legal systems for environmental impact assessment (EIA) can accelerate efforts to attain Ecological Civilization; and (5) For Ecological Civilization to ensure a firm foundation …
Climate Change As A Global Challenge, Nicholas A. Robinson
Climate Change As A Global Challenge, Nicholas A. Robinson
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Iucn As Catalyst For A Law Of The Biosphere: Acting Globally And Locally, Nicholas A. Robinson
Iucn As Catalyst For A Law Of The Biosphere: Acting Globally And Locally, Nicholas A. Robinson
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
Unique among international organizations, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) operates at the global, regional, and national levels to build governmental capacity to protect the environment. With a membership of over 75 sovereign states and 800 nongovernmental organizations, IUCN functions as an intergovernmental organization at the transnational level while operationally embodying the maxim "think globally, act locally." IUCN acts as a consortium of environmental scientists and professionals, including environmental lawyers who have proposed and secured adoption of significant environmental treaties such as the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and their …
The Iucn Academy Of Environmental Law: Seeking Legal Underpinnings For Sustainable Development, Nicholas A. Robinson
The Iucn Academy Of Environmental Law: Seeking Legal Underpinnings For Sustainable Development, Nicholas A. Robinson
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
An article describing a “work in progress” can provide only a sketch of the initial plans for the new IUCN Academy of Environmental Law. As the Academy establishes its administrative secretariat, builds its research program, and fashions its collaborative teaching undertakings, the details of this further work will become clear. Their analysis must await the events. Nonetheless, the precedents to date portend a promising future, as illustrated by the launch in Shanghai, and the Academy's initial research into the environmental sustainability of contemporary energy law.
Enforcing Environmental Norms: Diplomatic And Judicial Approaches, Nicholas A. Robinson
Enforcing Environmental Norms: Diplomatic And Judicial Approaches, Nicholas A. Robinson
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
Environmental norms are observed because they are norms about how people respect each other and the natural systems that sustain human communities. Environmental norms are basic to human well-being. They arise out of the human condition, not unlike human rights laws. Environmental norms emerge from the fact that humans exist within ecosystems, and human society is embedded in the natural systems in which they have evolved; environmental norms are grounded in an objective reality, and scientists can measure the consequences of observing--or failing to observe--those norms. The provisions of environmental norms, therefore, exist not merely as pronouncements of governments, applied …
Strengthening Sustainable Development In Regional Inter-Governmental Governance: Lessons From The 'Asean Way', Nicholas A. Robinson
Strengthening Sustainable Development In Regional Inter-Governmental Governance: Lessons From The 'Asean Way', Nicholas A. Robinson
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
ASEAN was founded with the 1967 Bangkok Declaration in order to encourage stable relations among its original member states, i.e. Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, and to resist destabilizing influences from the war in Viet Nam. The means to stability was to promote economic, social and cultural cooperation in the spirit of equality and partnership. A formal treaty system was not required. As the Viet Nam war ended, ASEAN held its first Summit Meeting in Bali (1976), followed by the 1977 Summit in Kuala Lumpur, where cooperation on regional industrializations was launched. In this first phase of cooperation, …
Befogged Vision: International Environmental Law A Decade After Rio, Nicholas A. Robinson
Befogged Vision: International Environmental Law A Decade After Rio, Nicholas A. Robinson
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
Environmental management has emerged as an important element of governance in practically every nation. This was not the case before the United Nations convened the 1972 Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm. After Stockholm, nations learned to build environmental ministries and work across sectors nationally, and discovered how difficult it is to reshape entrenched national practices in order to curb pollution and conserve natural resources. With growing experience and knowledge, nations came to realize that no one government alone could safeguard the environment, and that international cooperation would need to be enhanced.
Forest Fires As A Common International Concern: Precedents For The Progressive Development Of International Environmental Law, Nicholas A. Robinson
Forest Fires As A Common International Concern: Precedents For The Progressive Development Of International Environmental Law, Nicholas A. Robinson
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
Without a better global effort to prevent and cope with forest fires, the remaining wild forests' resources of the world are at risk. Quite apart from the present loss of commercial timber and species habitat, and the present problems of flooding and erosion in the aftermath of fires, the loss of these wooded lands will reduce the capacity of regions to absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, thereby making the challenge of managing emissions of greenhouse gases all the more problematic. Forests sequester carbon in their woody tissue as a result of photosynthesis, and are often termed the “lungs” of the …
David Ross Brower And Nature's Laws, Nicholas A. Robinson
David Ross Brower And Nature's Laws, Nicholas A. Robinson
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
“We're not blindly opposed to progress. We're opposed to blind progress.” These words summed up the style and power of David R. Brower. Indelibly, he chiseled toe hold after toe hold on an arduous climb across the rock face of the commercial forces driven to seek short-term gain from natural resources and oblivious to the longer-term costs to the Earth that the ecological sciences would chronicle but that economists would disregard as mere “externalities” in their classical market models. As Brower campaigned to protect the wilderness of North America and the Earth, through his sheer conviction and abundant eloquence, he …
Legal Systems, Decisionmaking, And The Science Of Earth's Systems: Procedural Missing Links, Nicholas A. Robinson
Legal Systems, Decisionmaking, And The Science Of Earth's Systems: Procedural Missing Links, Nicholas A. Robinson
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
Decisionmakers disregard scientific findings regarding environmental conditions, despite recommendations of the 1992 "Earth Summit" in Agenda 21 that science should provide a foundation for sustainable development. Although environmental degradation trends continue to exacerbate, decisionmakers address only selected issues. This Article examines an analytic paradigm for evaluating when decisionmakers are ready to address a problem and describes the catalytic role that scientific information can serve in prompting remedial action. Unless systematic procedures require evaluation of environmental scientific findings in the normal course of decisionmaking, science will continue to be ignored. One hallmark of Environmental Law has been to fashion such procedures, …
Global Climate Change Kyoto Protocol Implementation: Legal Frameworks For Implementing Clean Energy Solutions, Richard L. Ottinger
Global Climate Change Kyoto Protocol Implementation: Legal Frameworks For Implementing Clean Energy Solutions, Richard L. Ottinger
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This paper describes the measures that have been and can be taken and the legal mechanisms by which successes have been achieved in reducing greenhouse gases. Examples are given of success stories from around the world, but these examples are just demonstrative. Many hundreds of programs have been pursued successfully around the world in both industrial and developing countries. What does emerge, however, is clear evidence that global warming can be effectively addressed and that many significant steps have been taken profitably in both the public and private sectors, offering significant business, export and job opportunities, and that much can …
The Law Of Sustainable Development, Nicholas A. Robinson
The Law Of Sustainable Development, Nicholas A. Robinson
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
I am going to talk briefly, as dictated by the format of this seminar, about the law of sustainable development and how it has been developing. Sustainable development is, today, the guiding theme for both public and private measures to improve social conditions and strengthen economic conditions around the world. It did not become a guiding theme overnight. The recognition that sustainable development is fundamental has been growing gradually. The concept recognizes that the sort of development that was popular in the 1960s and 1970s in the United States of America and elsewhere was, by itself, an inadequate base on …
Iucn's Proposed Covenant On Environment & Development, Nicholas A. Robinson
Iucn's Proposed Covenant On Environment & Development, Nicholas A. Robinson
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This article examines the genesis and scope of the IUCN draft Covenant. It (a) describes IUCN's interest and experience in preparing the proposed draft Covenant; (b) analyzes the roles the draft Covenant can serve; and (c) identifies some illustrative precedents for the Articles of the draft Covenant.
International Trends In Environmental Impact Assessment, Nicholas A. Robinson
International Trends In Environmental Impact Assessment, Nicholas A. Robinson
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This paper explores the range of legislation that has created the EIA mandate. A more comprehensive study of all EIA laws is under preparation by the Commission on Environmental Law of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, but this study will not be complete until 1992. In the absence of such an exhaustive analysis, this paper sketches the global legislative trends in EIA.
Soviet Environmental Protection: The Challenge For Legal Studies, Nicholas A. Robinson
Soviet Environmental Protection: The Challenge For Legal Studies, Nicholas A. Robinson
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
The five essays by Soviet environmental law specialists published in this volume of the Pace Environmental Law Review provide insights into the contemporary debate in the USSR about how to protect nature. Before commenting on each essay, it is useful to sketch out the problems which the Soviet Union is encountering as it struggles to cope with its substantial pollution and widespread natural resource misuse.
The U.S. - U.S.S.R. Agreement To Protect The Environment: 15 Years Of Cooperation, Nicholas A. Robinson
The U.S. - U.S.S.R. Agreement To Protect The Environment: 15 Years Of Cooperation, Nicholas A. Robinson
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This Article will discuss the origins and operation of the Environmental Bilateral, its functioning in international law, and its contribution to environmental law in each country.
Perestroika And Priroda: Environmental Protection In The Ussr, Nicholas A. Robinson
Perestroika And Priroda: Environmental Protection In The Ussr, Nicholas A. Robinson
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This article reviews the initial Soviet decisions through 1988, applying perestroika to the problem of protecting priroda. Surveyed here is the scope of the ecological problems in the USSR and traditional responses, followed by an examination of the current Soviet policy to restructure its administrative and legal system for environmental protection. These initial reforms will not all result in a direct or immediate improvement of the Soviet environmental protection regime. For instance, the reforms also are stimulating the Soviet "not in my backyard" (NIMBY) phenomenon, or local opposition to the siting of developments ranging from electrical power plants, to facilities …
Introduction: Emerging International Environmental Law, Nicholas A. Robinson
Introduction: Emerging International Environmental Law, Nicholas A. Robinson
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This Introduction notes the emerging mandate for international environmental law and the concurrent problems of implementation. It focuses on two particular applications of this new mandate: the United States-Panama Joint Environment Commission for the Panama Canal, and the suggested role of the United Nations Environment Programme in developing a system of global environmental hazard alerts.
Extraterritorial Environmental Protection Obligations Of Foreign Affairs Agencies: The Unfulfilled Mandate Of Nepa, Nicholas A. Robinson
Extraterritorial Environmental Protection Obligations Of Foreign Affairs Agencies: The Unfulfilled Mandate Of Nepa, Nicholas A. Robinson
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This article will focus on the initial Department of State position, as set forth in a legal memorandum which interpreted NEPA as not requiring compliance by a foreign affairs agency. It will then examine the language of the Act and its legislative history. Finally, the article will reveal a pattern of official self-insulation from national environmental policy, illustrated by the Export-Import Bank's continuing refusal to comply with NEPA's requirements. It will suggest that much remains to be done if NEPA is to be fully effective in governing the extraterritorial consequences of the federal government's actions.