Environmental Law Commons^™

State Responsibility And The High Seas Marine Environment: A Legal Theory For The Protection Of Seamounts In The Global Commons, Gregory D. Pendleton

Washington International Law Journal

At its latest session, the United Nations General Assembly urged States to consider a temporary ban on bottom trawling on the high seas. Bottom trawling technology causes extensive damage both to the habitat of deep sea living marine resources ("LMRs") and to the LMRs themselves. This damage is particularly acute at heavily fished undersea mountains known as seamounts. The pronouncement by the General Assembly, while certainly a positive step, is another unfortunate example of short-sighted fisheries management: instead of creating a legitimate protection regime—such as a moratorium or a system of High Seas Marine Protected Areas ("HSMPA")—for these rare and …

Treading Deep Waters: Substantive Law Issues In Tuvalu's Threat To Sue The United States In The International Court Of Justice, Rebecca Elizabeth Jacobs

Washington International Law Journal

In 2002, in response to the United States' refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, vulnerable to submersion due to the rising sea level, threatened to bring a lawsuit against the United States in the International Court of Justice for damages to its island. Outside of various jurisdictional issues that may preempt the suit, Tuvalu's suit will likely have a number of substantive law problems. Tuvalu must show not only that the United States is unlawfully causing the island damage, but also that it has a right to future damages that have yet to occur. …

Judicial Regrets And The Case Of The Cushman Dam, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

Articles

This essay is a criticism of the Ninth Circuit's en banc decision in Skokomish Indian Tribe v. United States [401 F.3d 979 (9th Cir. 2005]. It finds particular fault with the court's understanding of Indian treaty rights as "something given," and its outlandish conclusion that fishing was not a "primary purpose" of the Stevens treaties.

The article further criticizes the court's treatment of the "continuing nuisance" doctrine that is applied to afford a statute of limitations defense to enterprises that did lasting environmental damage by diverting the entire North Fork of the Skokomish River out of the watershed.

It concludes …

The Exxon Valdez Reopener: Natural Resources Damage Settlements And Roads Not Taken, William H. Rodgers, Jr., J.B. Crosetto Iii, C.A. Holley, T.C. Kade, J.H. Kaufman, C.M. Kostelec, K.A. Michael, R.J. Sandberg, J.L. Schorr

Articles

The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill caused extensive natural resource damage to the Prince William Sound. Lawsuits addressing this natural resource damage resulted in a settlement that required Exxon to pay $900 million over time to trustees charged with spending this money to restore the damaged environment of the Sound and nearby areas. The settlement included a “Reopener Clause,” which pledges Exxon to spend an additional $100 million to fund restoration or rehabilitation of resources whose injuries were not foreseeable in 1989.

This Article urges the State of Alaska and the United States to seek enforcement of the Reopener Clause, …