Law and Society Commons^™

Gandhi’S Prophecy: Corporate Violence And A Mindful Law For Bhopal, Nehal A. Patel

Nehal A. Patel

AbstractOver thirty years have passed since the Bhopal chemical disaster began,and in that time scholars of corporate social responsibility (CSR) havediscussed and debated several frameworks for improving corporate responseto social and environmental problems. However, CSR discourse rarelydelves into the fundamental architecture of legal thought that oftenbuttresses corporate dominance in the global economy. Moreover, CSRdiscourse does little to challenge the ontological and epistemologicalassumptions that form the foundation for modern economics and the role ofcorporations in the world.I explore methods of transforming CSR by employing the thought ofMohandas Gandhi. I pay particular attention to Gandhi’s critique ofindustrialization and principle of swadeshi (self-sufficiency) …

Rating The Cities: Constructing A City Resilience Index For Assessing The Effect Of State And Local Laws On Long-Term Recovery From Crisis And Disaster, John Travis Marshall

John Travis Marshall

Superstorm Sandy, the 2008 Iowa floods, and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita all supply recent reminders that U.S. cities can no longer adopt an ad hoc approach to threats presented by climate change and natural hazards. The stories detailing long-term recovery from these disasters underscore that federal, state, and local governments are struggling to appreciate the legal tools and institutions necessary to implement the large-scale infrastructure, housing, and community development programs that climate change and more frequent natural disasters demand. This Article calls for development of a tool allowing succinct evaluation of the range of community capacities that will figure critically …

Deadly Waiting Game: An Environmental Justice Framework For Examining Natural And Man-Made Disasters Beyond Hurricane Katrina [Abstract], Robert D. Bullard

Robert D Bullard

Presenter: Robert D. Bullard, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Clark Atlanta University 1 page.

Rating The Cities: Constructing A City Resilience Index For Assessing The Effect Of State And Local Laws On Long-Term Recovery From Crisis And Disaster, John Travis Marshall

Faculty Publications By Year

Superstorm Sandy, the 2008 Iowa floods, and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita all supply recent reminders that U.S. cities can no longer adopt an ad hoc approach to threats presented by climate change and natural hazards. The stories detailing long-term recovery from these disasters underscore that federal, state, and local governments are struggling to appreciate the legal tools and institutions necessary to implement the large-scale infrastructure, housing, and community development programs that climate change and more frequent natural disasters demand. This Article calls for development of a tool allowing succinct evaluation of the range of community capacities that will figure critically …

Carbon Credits As Eu Like It: Property, Immunity, Tragico2medy?, Kelvin F. K. Low, Jolene Lin

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

While there have been many legal studies of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), none seem to have considered the EU ETS from the perspective of private law, particularly the private law issues that stem from the ambiguous legal nature of the 'carbon credit'. Such ambiguity translates into regulatory uncertainty and business risks of the sort that occurred in Armstrong DLW GmbH v Winnington Networks Ltd [2013] Ch 156, an English case involving fraud and 'stolen' European Union Allowances (EUAs). From an environmental law and policy perspective, uncertainty does not bode well for the EU ETS's regulatory effectiveness …

Enhancing Biodiversity On Working Agricultural Lands Through Environmental Mitigation And Offsets: Opportunities In Australia And The United States, Matthew Roach

Matthew Roach

Australia has extensive experience in managing working agricultural lands to enhance biodiversity. State and Commonwealth agencies are increasingly using environmental offsets as a tool to manage the impacts of development. However, working agricultural lands are generally not considered a source of potential environmental offsets, as agencies prefer that land used for offsets be wholly set aside for environmental management purposes with limited or no agricultural activities. This contrasts with the United States, where efforts are underway to use working agricultural lands for mitigation. This paper proposes that working agricultural lands can be used for environmental offsets under the Environment Protection …

Submerging Islands: Tuvalu And Kiribati As Case Studies Illustrating The Need For A Climate Refugee Treaty, Rana Balesh

Environmental and Earth Law Journal (EELJ)

Climate change will significantly impact vulnerable populations. Included in those populations are island indigenous peoples. Small island developing states are particularly vulnerable to the rise in seal level. Loss of territory due to rising sea levels is not the only problem however, infrastructure and food supplies are also at risk. As such, this article addresses the need for a comprehensive climate change refugee treaty using Tuvalu and Kiribati's circumstances to illustrate the situation.

Earthonomics: Balancing Between Earth And Business, Yazen Abdin

Environmental and Earth Law Journal (EELJ)

Economists consistently fail to account that Earth has a finite amount of resources. This article analyzes the behavior of corporate America and the effect it has on the world form an Earth jurisprudence standpoint. It will explore twp specific industries, oil and food, and what role they have played in the environment's health. It also explores potential solutions.

Responding To The Great Work: The Role Of Earth Jurisprudence And Wild Law In The 21st Century, Dr. Michelle Maloney, Sister Pat Siemen Op, Jd

Environmental and Earth Law Journal (EELJ)

In this lead article, the authors build on the idea that we do not need more environmental law in response to the deteriorating health of the natural world. Rather, they argue that what is needed are different approaches to managing human relationships with the earth. They argue that the burgeoning Earth jurisprudence movement offers a deep philosophical anchor and a range of practical and multi-disciplinary approaches necessary to create law reform and societal change that will better support the natural world and human societies than our current system. The authors will outline the origins and key elements of the Earth …

Texas Colonias: Injustice By Definition, Caitlin Lewis

Environmental and Earth Law Journal (EELJ)

Colonias are usually characterized as rural or semi-rural slums inhabited by Mexican-origin immigrants and Mexican Americans. This Comment examines the socioeconomic and environmental burdens faced by Texas colonias and the public and private attempts to address these hardships.

Trending @ Rwulaw: Veronica Paricio's Post: What We Did Last Summer..., Veronica Paricio

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Florida's Downtowns Are Free To Grow Local Broccoli…And Chickens (Sometimes), Sidney F. Ansbacher, Michael T. Olexa, Kathleen Maurer

Florida A & M University Law Review

The United States Supreme Court in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (Sebelius), famously invoked broccoli to limit the scope of Commerce Clause. All of the Justices used broccoli as a plot device to further their respective arguments answering whether the individual mandate to buy health insurance was constitutional. This article discusses the other end of the economic spectrum – local. We explicate Florida’s local government regulations of urban planting, growing, and selling of broccoli, as well as other fruits, vegetables, and animals. This requires a history of urban agriculture and local zoning laws before we discuss current laws …

Instream Flows And The Public Trust, Timothy M. Mulvaney

Timothy M. Mulvaney

Empirical evidence suggests that diversion of instream flows for human use, coupled with the potential impacts of changing climatic conditions, is threatening the sustainability of aquatic life. Nonetheless, several states merely prevent stream flows from being reduced below the "7Q10 flow," or the average flow during the driest consecutive seven-day period that has a likelihood of recurring only once every ten years. Overwhelming scientific consensus suggests that 7Q10 merely preserves water quality standards by calculating the concentration of pollutants in point source discharges, without considering water quantity and numerous other core principles of instream management.

The protection of instream flows …

Endangered Species In The Oil Patch: Challenges And Opportunities For The Oil And Gas Industry, Gabriel Eckstein, Jesse Snyder

Gabriel Eckstein

Tension among competing interests is nothing new in environmental law. Even among the most tenacious adversaries, the ability to find common ground can serve as an impetus to further the aims of both industry and environmental proponents. Broadly speaking, advocates of the oil and gas industry prefer few restraints, if any, on exploration, development, and production. Comparatively, champions of biological and ecological preservation favor regulatory protections to conserve these interests. Cutting across these often disparate objectives, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) presents a not-so-obvious opportunity for both sides to receive a share of the pie through cooperation and forward planning. …

Human Rights Environmentalism: Forging Common Ground, Gabriel Eckstein, Miriam Gitlin

Gabriel Eckstein

Since the early 1970s, the international community has widely acknowledged the nexus between human rights and environmental protection. References to this association and even to a human right to some minimal quality of environment, can be found in numerous international instruments. The Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment, for example, proclaims that human beings have the "fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being." Similarly, the Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights states that "everyone shall have the right to live …

Alternative Strategies For Addressing The Presence And Effects Of Pharmaceutical And Personal Care Products In Fresh Water Resources, Gabriel Eckstein, George William Sherk

Gabriel Eckstein

In recent years, new information has arisen to challenge this assumption. Chemicals from a wide variety of pharmaceutical and personal care products ("PPCPs"), their byproducts and endocrine disrupting compounds ("EDCs") have received growing attention from the water treatment and wastewater treatment community because of the ability of PPCPs to persist, or only partially degrade, in water and during wastewater treatment.

Several federal agencies, including the EnvironmentAl Protection Agency ("EPA"), the Food and Drug Administration ("FDA"), the U.S. Department of Agriculture ("USDA"), the U.S. Geological Survey ("USGS"), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ("CDC"), have the potential to be …

Water Scarcity, Conflict, And Security In A Climate Change World: Challenges And Opportunities For International Law And Policy, Gabriel Eckstein

Gabriel Eckstein

Although climate change is expected to have major consequences that affect the global environment in its broadest sense, one of the earliest and most direct impacts will be on Earth’s fresh water systems. While some regions will experience increased precipitation, others will suffer serious scarcity. Among others, consequences are likely to include severe flooding, extreme droughts, and meandering border-rivers. This, in turn, will affect human migration patterns, population growths, agricultural activities, economic development, and the environment. This article explores the impact that climate change will have on regional and global freshwater resources and the resulting legal and policy implications that …

Precious, Worthless, Or Immeasurable: The Value And Ethic Of Water, Gabriel Eckstein

Gabriel Eckstein

This Article introduces and briefly explores some of the topics related to the value and ethics of water that were considered at the symposium, Precious, Worthless, or Immeasurable: The Value and Ethic of Water, which took place November 2-4, 2006, at the Texas Tech University School of Law. The purpose of the Symposium was to consider how this precious liquid is valued, assessed, and perceived with regard to law and regulations, economics and commerce, people and communities, culture and religion, and others aspects of society that are impacted by water. While far from a comprehensive analysis of the subject matter, …

The Dangerous Right To Food Choice, Samuel R. Wiseman

Seattle University Law Review

Scholars, advocates, and interest groups have grown increasingly concerned with the ways in which government regulations—from agricultural subsidies to food safety regulations to licensing restrictions on food trucks—affect access to local food. One argument emerging from the interest in recent years is that choosing what foods to eat, what I have previously called “liberty of palate,” is a fundamental right. The attraction is obvious: infringements of fundamental rights trigger strict scrutiny, which few statutes survive. As argued elsewhere, the doctrinal case for the existence of such a right is very weak. This Essay does not revisit those arguments, but instead …

The 2014 Farm Bill: Farm Subsidies And Food Oppression, Andrea Freeman

Seattle University Law Review

The 2014 Farm Bill ushered in some significant and surprising changes. One of these was that it rendered the identity of all the recipients of farm subsidies secret. Representative Larry Combest, who is now a lobbyist for agribusiness, first introduced a secrecy provision into the bill in 2000. The provision, however, only applied to subsidies made in the form of crop insurance. Until 2014, the majority of subsidies were direct payments and the identity of the people who received them was public information. In fact, the Environmental Working Group’s release of the list of recipients led to a series of …

What The Frack? How Weak Industrial Disclosure Rules Prevent Public Understanding Of Chemical Practices And Toxic Politics, Benjamin W. Cramer

Benjamin W. Cramer

Hydraulic fracturing, known colloquially as “fracking,” makes use of chemically-formulated fluid that is forced down a gas well at great pressure to fracture underground rock formations and release embedded natural gas. Many journalists, environmentalists, and public health advocates are concerned about what may happen if the fracking fluid escapes the well and contaminates nearby drinking water supplies. This article attempts a comprehensive analysis and comparison of all relevant fracking fluid disclosure regulations currently extant in the United States, and considers whether the information gained is truly useful for citizens, journalists, and regulators. In recent years the federal government and several …

The Culture Wars Of Climate Change, Matthew Rimmer

Matthew Rimmer

Of late, there has been a growth in cultural expression about climate change – with the rise of climate fiction (‘cli-fi’); art and photography responding to changes in nature; musical anthems about climate change; plays and dramas about climate change; and environmental documentaries, and climate cinema. Drawing comparisons to past controversies over cultural funding, this paper considers the cultural wars over climate change. This article considers a number of cultural fields. Margaret Atwood made an important creative and critical contribution to the debate over climate change. The work examines Ian McEwan's novel, Solar, a tragi-comedy about authorship, invention, intellectual property, …

Proposed Implementing Procedures For Restore Act Awards Under Nepa, Sara Mammarella

Sara Mammarella

On April 20, 2010, what has been described as “the worst oil spill in U.S. history,” the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, occurred off the Louisiana coast, affecting a five-state area in the Gulf region (Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas), dumping an estimated 4.9 billion barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. In response, Congress enacted the federal RESTORE Act to set up a mechanism for compensating the victims of the oils spill and to Repair the environmental harm caused by the oil spill.

This article will examine the effectiveness of the regulatory scheme in place that was …

The Federal Restore Act And Its Impact On The Gulf States Following The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Sara Mammarella

Sara Mammarella

On April 20, 2010, what has been described as “the worst oil spill in U.S. history,” the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, occurred off the Louisiana coast, affecting a five-state area in the Gulf region (Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas), dumping an estimated 4.9 billion barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The harms that occurred were widespread and devastating: eleven people were killed, 1,000 miles of coastline was degraded, ocean life and beaches were destroyed, and the local economy of the region was adversely impacted, especially fishing and tourism industries. In response, Congress passed the federal RESTORE …

Shut Up: Pay More: This What You Voted For. Why You Don't See Me At San Francisco's Hall Of Justice, David D. Butler

David D. Butler

Urban violence, much of it politically motivated, has driven the taxpaying Middle Class into the suburbs. This has left only the tax eating poor and the tax avoiding rich in the big cities. This has resulted in urban bankruptcy in Detroit and even in California with its gifts of the technological Gold Rush, the Pacific Ocean, and the Sierra Nevada and Santa Lucia Mountains. The poor are more issolated than ever confined to the functional equivalent of no go zones. They speak a differenct language, dress differently, and sell drugs until they are caught and caged, providing good pay and …

Acknowledgment Of Supporters, Utton Center, University Of New Mexico - School Of Law

Water Matters!

List of supporters.

Building Resilient Communities In The Wake Of Climate Change While Keeping Affordable Housing Safe From Sea Changes In Nature And Policy, Shelby D. Green

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article will explore the twin interests of responding to climate change and preserving accessible and affordable housing. Part II will give a broad overview of the scientists' climate change predictions. Part III will discuss what these predictions portend for populations, housing, and communities. Part IV will describe the broad responses that the federal, state, and local governments are making to climate change to create communities that are thriving and resilient. Part V discusses the efficacy of these responses and their potential impact on the poor, housing, and communities. Part VI looks for parallels between the resilient cities movement and …

Environmental Privacy, Katrina Fischer Kuh

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article looks to nuisance doctrine, surveillance under environmental statutes, and Fourth Amendment cases arising in implementation of fish and game laws (the hunter enforcement cases) to better understand our experience, to date, balancing the need for environmental information with privacy. Section A analyzes common law nuisance and its relationship to individual privacy concerns and concludes that the law affords little *7 value to or protection of privacy in the context of at least one type of environmental externality -- conduct that gives rise to a common law nuisance. Recognizing that most environmentally significant individual behaviors do not constitute a …

Scale Economies, Scale Externalities: Hog Farming And The Changing American Agricultural Industry, Shi-Ling Hsu

Scholarly Publications

American agriculture is inexorably concentrating into the hands of a small number of large conglomerates. Expanding farms pursuing scale economies would normally have to abide by a system of environmental and other laws that would, in theory, require farms to account for negative externalities. If those laws were observed and enforced, they would help strike a balance between the greater profitability and the larger externalities of scaling up. But these laws are not widely observed nor rigorously enforced, which upsets this balance and gives large-scale farms a cost advantage while insulating them from corresponding responsibilities.

Perhaps nowhere in agriculture is …

How Local Discrimination Can Promote Global Public Goods, Timothy Meyer

Faculty Scholarship

International negotiations struggle to keep pace with global problems like climate change. To fill this gap, local governments increasingly take matters into their own hands. For example, to promote the benefits of clean energy, a local government might give subsidies to renewable energy companies. Since 2001, California has given $2 billion in such subsidies, while states ranging from Minnesota to Kansas and Mississippi have doled out hundreds of millions of dollars each. Cities, such as Austin and Los Angeles, have also gotten into the act, contributing millions to renewable energy firms. To build support for these measures, the local government …