Environmental Law Commons^™

The Alliance Of Small Island States: Intellectual Property, Cultural Heritage, And Climate Change, Matthew Rimmer

Matthew Rimmer

Breathing Air With Heft: An Experiential Report On Environmental Regulation And Public Health In Urban China, Erin Ryan

Erin Ryan

Polar Opposites: Assessing The State Of Environmental Law In The World’S Polar Regions, Mark P. Nevitt, Robert V. Percival

Mark P Nevitt

Why Michigan V. Epa Requires The Meaning Of The Cost/Rationality Nexus Be Clarified, Daniele Bertolini, Carolina Arlota

daniele bertolini

Democratic Civic Engagement: Transformative Local, Inclusive Decision-Making To Achieve Global Peace And Climate Solutions, Leah Ceperley

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

The UN Sustainable Development Goals call for action on Climate (No. 13) and Strengthening Governance (No. 16) as imperative to transform our world toward one that is resilient, just, and peaceful. Climate change is a global problem, marked frequently in the U.S. by indifference, with far-reaching impacts disproportionately burdening the poor and vulnerable worldwide. Global in scope, its sources, impacts, and fields of action are local. Combating indifference at the local level can strengthen local governance structures, build trust across ideological divides, and shift the conversation from indifference to action.

Using an example from a University of Dayton-sponsored National ...

Climate Change, Development, And The Global Commons, Robert J. Brecha

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

An important link between energy, climate change, human development, and human rights comes in the form of a question that has yet to be answered satisfactorily: The earth’s atmosphere and other physical systems are the ultimate example of the global commons. Do future generations have a human right to an unchanged earth system? Sustainable Development Goals 13, 14, and 15 imply an affirmative answer. Given that climate scientists have a good estimate of the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted before the safe uptake capacity of the atmosphere is breached, how do we allocate that remaining atmospheric ...

Encounters With Climate Change: How Sdg 13 Can Move From Awareness To Action, Rebecca C. Potter

The Social Practice of Human Rights: Charting the Frontiers of Research and Advocacy

In a well-known passage from his book I and Thou, Martin Buber relates his encounter with a tree: “I contemplate a tree,” he writes, and then lists the various ways he could perceive the tree, as an artist or biologist, as someone interested in the trees parts and construction or interested in its function as a living system. But in all cases, Buber observes, “the tree remains my object and has its place and its time span, its kind and condition.”

Yet sometimes, “if will and grace are conjoined,” Buber describes being drawn into a relation with the tree wherein ...

A Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Intellectual Property Chapter Of The Tpp: Confirming What The Critics Fear, Karyn Hollis

communication +1

A host of organizations and citizens groups have convincingly pointed out that so called “Free Trade Agreements” have done more harm than good to the U.S. and other countries involved. Thanks to their protests, for the moment, the most ambitious multinational, neoliberal project of our young century, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), has been defeated. If the agreement had been adopted, the TPP would have shaped new rules of trade for over 8 million people, spanning 40% of the global economy. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), my study shows how the complex language of the actual treaty compared to its ...

Report And Recommendations Concerning Environmental Aspects Of The New York State Constitution, New York State Bar Association Environmental And Energy Law Section

Pace Law Review

The purpose of the Report is to inform and enrich understanding of environmental issues which may be considered at a Constitutional Convention (should one occur) or with respect to proposals to amend the Constitution through the legislative process.

Updating New York’S Constitutional Environmental Rights, Nicholas A. Robinson

Pace Law Review

The stakes are high as New York State considers whether to amend the constitution. The electorate contemplates the gathering crises of sea level rise, disruption of weather patterns, intensified summer heat waves, and other climate change impacts. New York also faces escalating environmental problems, which the newly perceived climate impacts in turn exacerbate. It is timely to debate whether or not New York should recognize the right to the environment to its constitution. In 2016, the House of Delegates of the New York State Bar Association adopted the report of its committee on the constitution, regarding the environmental conservation article ...

Subnational Environmental Constitutionalism And Reform In New York State, James R. May

Pace Law Review

The State of New York’s constitution was perhaps the first in the world to embody environmental constitutionalism, most directly in what is known as its “Forever Wild” mandate from 1894. In contrast to many subnational environmental provisions, courts in New York have regularly enforced Forever Wild. New York’s Constitution also contains a remarkable mandate that every twenty years voters decide whether to hold elections for delegates to convene a convention to amend the state’s charter.

This article has three parts. Part I provides a primer to the field of subnational environmental constitutionalism. Part II explores the opportunities ...

V.5, 2014 Masthead

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

No abstract provided.

City Of Helena V. Community Of Rimini, Molly M. Kelly

Public Land and Resources Law Review

After twenty years of adjudication, the Montana Supreme Court affirmed the City of Helena’s right to 13.75 cfs from Ten Mile Creek, the city’s primary water source. The Court found a statute allowing cities and municipalities to exercise water rights that have gone through extended periods of nonuse did not need a retroactive clause.

United States V. Gila Valley Irrigation District, Ryan L. Hickey

Public Land and Resources Law Review

Attempts to alter water use agreements, especially those spanning back decades or even centuries, elicit intense scrutiny from water rights holders. In United States v. Gila Valley Irrigation Dist., the Ninth Circuit upheld application of a 1935 Decree apportioning water among various regional entities, including two Indian tribes, to bar a mineral company from transferring water rights between properties within the Gila River drainage.

Enforcement Dissonance: Lobsters, The Legislature, And Federal Waters In State V. Thomas, Christopher J. Rauscher

Maine Law Review

Consider the following: You, a Maine resident, and your friend, a Massachusetts resident, have gone for a weekend trout fishing trip to Acadia National Park in Downeast Maine. The two of you are happily catching trout, and then each of you hook a bass and reel it in. Keeping the bass is illegal under Maine law but not banned by the National Park. Along comes a Maine game warden, who spies the two of you and cites only you with a fine for catching and keeping the bass. The warden says nothing to the Massachusetts resident who continues to fish ...

Nineteenth Annual Frank M. Coffin Lecture On Law And Public Service: Community, Rights, And Climate: A Challenge To A Clever Species, Jonathan Lash

Maine Law Review

I want to talk to you today about individual rights and community. I have been struck in reading the Judge’s books and recalling working with him how he honored two competing ideas simultaneously: respect for individual liberty, and a deep belief in the power of government to enhance fairness and promote public well-being. As I shall explain, the tension between those ideas has become increasingly important in the debate over how to address global environmental problems.

God's Green Earth? The Environmental Impacts Of Religious Land Use, Kellen Zale

Maine Law Review

Boulder County, Colorado has been at the forefront of the environmental movement for decades. Starting with its citizens’ vote in 1967 to implement a tax specifically to preserve open space, the city has long been known for its progressive environmental policies. At the center of Boulder’s environmental protection efforts is a comprehensive system of land use regulations designed to mitigate the slow chokehold of ever-encroaching development on wetlands and open space, on groundwater and soils, and on wildlife and native species. Numerous communities across the country have followed Boulder’s much-praised model and enacted their own environmental zoning laws ...

Not Losing The Forest For The Trees: Distinguishing Conservation Transfer Fees From Other Private Transfer Fees, Frank C. Aiello

Maine Law Review

Private transfer fee covenants against real property are increasingly under fire from Congress, federal regulators, and state legislatures. This fire has been fueled by strong advocacy from the National Association of Realtors. It will only be a matter of time before private transfer fees will also be challenged in state courts as not meeting the common law requirements for a servitude. As these bodies take aim at the private transfer fee, they literally must not lose sight of the forest for the trees. A private transfer fee that benefits conservation and environmental stewardship is consistent with the traditional use of ...

Murray Energy Corporation V. Administrator Of Environmental Protection Agency, Peter B. Taylor

Public Land and Resources Law Review

Congress amended the Clean Air Act in 1977 because of public concern that enforcement of the Clean Air Act would have adverse effects on employment. Section 321(a) tasks the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency with a continuous duty to evaluate the potential employment impact of the administration and enforcement of the Clean Air Act. In Murray Energy Corporation v. Administrator of Environmental Protection Agency, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled on whether the federal court’s authority to review and enforce non-discretionary Clean Air Act duties extended to the EPA’s Section 321 ...

Environmental Restorative Justice, Aiden Stark

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Section I briefly introduces this article. Section II discusses the gravity of environmental crimes. Section III highlights the history of environmental criminal prosecution. Section IV explains how environmental crimes are currently prosecuted. Section V demonstrates how restorative justice procedures work. Section VI critiques the only previous analysis applying restorative justice to environmental crimes in the United States. Section Vll walks through Australian Justice Preston's analysis, which provides a proper foundation for applying restorative justice to environmental crimes. Section VIII applies Justice Preston's framework to criminal procedures in the United States. Section IX discusses criticisms that will be raised ...