Natural Law Commons^™

The Doctrine Of Legitimate Defense, Jens David Ohlin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The following article reorients mainstream conceptions of self-defense by defending a broader doctrine of legitimate defense that, in limited circumstances, justifies unilateral intervention. The source of the doctrine is natural law, which was explicitly incorporated into the text of UN Charter article 51. The effect of this incorporation was to preserve, as a carve-out from the prohibition against force in Article 2, the natural law rights of defensive force. Specifically, the Article concludes that defensive force under natural law included, in extreme situations, a right of intervention in rogue States that refused to comply with natural law. The Article then …

When Does Flexibility Matter In Environmental Law?, Josh Eagle

Faculty Publications

Environmental law scholars, practitioners, and policymakers have wrestled for some time with the implications of climate change for environmental law. There is widespread, although not universal, agreement that climate change requires greater flexibility in environmental legal systems. Flexibility-reduced procedural requirements for administrative agency decision making and less rigid substantive standards-would allow the agencies that implement environmental law to adapt to a future world characterized by dynamic, uncertain changes in natural resource systems. According to its proponents, flexibility would make it easier for agencies to more frequently update their management or regulatory decisions to respond to changed conditions, and also to …

A Trilogy Of Essays On Scholarship, David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

At the beginning it is helpful to realize that the five versions of the scholarly ideal produce different forms of intellectual work with distinct goals and motivations. The scholar engaging in such activity can vary dramatically in terms of what the individual is seeking to achieve through his or her research output and actions that might be taken related to the findings reflected in that product. Similarly, there is a diverse set of targets at which the work is directed. These targets include communicating ideas and knowledge to other scholars who are invested in a specific sub-discipline. They also include …

America The Eusocial, 49 New Eng. L. Rev. On Remand 71 (2015), Timothy P. O'Neill

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Natural Resources Journal

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Grounding Human Rights In Natural Law, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

Of the published reviews of Natural Law and Natural Rights, one of the most, and most enduringly, influential was Ernest Fortin's review-article "The New Rights Theory and the Natural Law" (1982). The present essay takes the occasion of that review's latest republication to respond to its main criticisms of the theory of natural law and natural or human rights that is articulated in Natural Law and Natural Rights. The response deals with a number of fundamental or strategically important issues: the freedom of thought and/or the intellectual autonomy and integrity of work within an intellectual tradition that overlaps with a …

Conceptualizing Climate Justice In Kivalina, Marissa Knodel

Seattle University Law Review

Due to climate change, indigenous communities in Alaska are forced to develop in ways that adversely affect their livelihoods and culture. For example, decreases in sea ice, increases in the frequency of sea storms, and melting permafrost have so accelerated the erosion of one barrier island that an entire village faces relocation. These indigenous communities, which have contributed little to causing climate change, are limited in their ability to adapt. After examining three broad questions about the effects of climate change on indigenous communities, this Article reaches four preliminary conclusion about relocation as a climate adaptation strategy and its relations …

Oil And Gas In America's Arctic Ocean: Past Problems Counsel Precaution, Michael Levine, Peter Van Tuyn, Layla Hughes

Seattle University Law Review

This Article provides context for the controversy facing government agencies charged with making decisions about the future of America’s Arctic Ocean. It then distill themes that, if addressed, could help further a lasting solution for this region that respects its natural and human values while crafting a reasonable path forward for decisions about development. First, this Article offers background about the region, the threats facing it, and some of the challenges in managing the natural resources there. Second, it provides an overview of the legal framework through which the United States government makes decisions about whether and under what conditions …

Changes In Latitudes Call For Changes In Attitudes: Towards Recognition Of A Global Imperative For Stewardship, Not Exploitation, In The Arctic, Taylor Simpson-Wood

Seattle University Law Review

For more than two centuries, the imagination of mariners has been captured by visions of a trade route across the Arctic Sea allowing vessels to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Known as the Northwest Passage, this fabled route is a time- and money-saving sea lane running from the Atlantic Ocean Arctic Circle to the Pacific Ocean Arctic Circle. Now, the thinning of the ice in the Arctic may transform what was once only a dream into a reality. New shipping lanes linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are likely to open between 2040 and 2059. If loss …

Fisheries Governance And How It Fits Within The Broader Arctic Governance, Adam Soliman

Seattle University Law Review

Climate change is causing the Arctic ice to melt and fish stocks to change their migration patterns. These changes are increasing access to Arctic fisheries, as well as moving other fish stocks to the north. To prevent the depletion of fish stocks and to protect the Arctic environment, proper fisheries governance requires collaboration between nation-states and specific populations. Fisheries present unique governance and management issues. Unlike other natural resources, fish stocks do not stay in the same place. The non-stationary nature of fish stocks, along with shared sovereignty over the oceans, make coordination between stakeholders the most difficult as well …

An Unfinished Joruney: Arctic Indigenous Rights, Lands, And Jurisdiction?, Tony Penikett

Seattle University Law Review

The indigenous rights movement has been defined as a struggle for land and jurisdiction. Over the last forty years, American and Canadian governments made much progress on the land question in the Arctic and sub-Arctic; however, from an irrational fear of the unknown, politicians in Washington, D.C. and Ottawa have effectively blocked the pathways to aboriginal jurisdiction or self-government. During the late-twentieth century in the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut, as well as in Nisga’a territory, indigenous governments negotiated local government powers, but continent-wide progress on the question of indigenous jurisdiction has stalled. This Article considers the formation and implementation …

United States Policy And Norwegian Commercial Whaling: A Cooperative Approach, Jamie Nystrom

Seattle University Law Review

Both the United States and Norway have a long history of commercial whaling, but the mantle of dominance in the whaling world passed from the United States to Norway in the mid-nineteenth century. As demand for whale-based products declined in the United States over the past century, and environmentalism and conservationism became more popular public ideologies, the United States shifted from a pro-whaling nation to, effectively, an anti-whaling nation. Norway, however, has continued to be the only nation that openly engages in commercial whaling for profit, albeit on a smaller scale in comparison to historical practices. The United States’ past …

Extracting More Than Resources: Human Security And Arctic Indigenous Women, Victoria Sweet

Seattle University Law Review

The circumpolar Arctic region is at the forefront of rapid change, and with change come potential threats to human security. Numerous factors determine what makes a state, a community, or an individual feel secure. For example, extractive industry development can bring economic benefits to an area, but these development projects also bring security concerns, including potential human rights violations. While security concerns connected with development projects have been studied in southern hemisphere countries and countries classified as “developing,” concerns connected with extractive industry development projects in “developed” countries like the United States have received little attention. This Article will change …

Ser Y Tiempo Jurídicos (Juridical Being And Time), Juan Carlos Riofrío Martínez-Villalba

Juan Carlos Riofrío Martínez-Villalba

El estudio contiene una profundización metafísica del análisis de la dinámica jurídica. Para explicarla se aplican los poderosos conceptos griegos de ser y potencia, con los que los antiguos pudieron resolver el problema del tiempo y del cambio cósmico. Por eso el artículo comienza modulando para el derecho estas nociones griegas, de los cuales resultan los conceptos metafísicos de “ser jurídico” y “potencia jurídica”, para luego arribar al concepto de “espacio jurídico”. Con esta triada de nociones se puede, entonces, resolver el tema del cambio y el tiempo jurídico, como se hace al final del trabajo.

This article contains a …

International Norms In Constitutional Law, Michael Wells

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Restrictions On Humanitarian Aid In Darfur: The Role Of The International Criminal Court, Mominah Usmani

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Sue And Settle: Demonizing The Environmental Citizen Suit, Stephen M. Johnson

Seattle University Law Review

In the spring of 2013, industry groups and states began a concerted lobbying effort to oppose citizen enforcement of the federal environmental laws. The United States Chamber of Commerce and lobbyists for states created a catch-phrase—“sue and settle”—to demonize citizen enforcement and the federal government’s practice of settling lawsuits it is destined to lose in court. The Chamber alleged that the federal government, by settling lawsuits brought by citizens groups rather than defending them in court, was colluding with those non-governmental organizations and excluding other affected parties to reallocate the agencies’ priorities and obligations. Federal environmental laws establish a central …

Front Matter, Natural Resources Journal

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

A Regulatory Comparison Of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Disclosure Regimes In The United States, Canada, And Australia, Allan Ingelson, Tina Hunter

Natural Resources Journal

Numerous state, provincial, and federal governments in the United States, Canada, and Australia have created guidelines, legislation, and/or regulations (or are in the process of doing so) in response to public concerns about water contamination from hydraulic fracturing. This article will compare and analyze three national regimes in the leading states and provinces in which laws have been amended, proposed, or adopted to address public concerns about the chemicals and additives in hydraulic fracturing fluids used to produce unconventional hydrocarbons. New regulations, recent legislative amendments, and, in some cases, new statutes have been proposed or adopted in the past few …

Hydraulic Fracturing: If Fractures Cross Property Lines, Is There An Actionable Subsurface Trespass, Keith B. Hall

Natural Resources Journal

The law recognizes trespass liability for subsurface intrusions, at least in some circumstances. Further, courts sometimes have stated that ownership of land extends to the earth’s center. But such statements are dicta. Few courts have carefully considered the maximum extent of subsurface ownership or subsurface trespass liability. Courts in two jurisdictions have recently addressed whether a person incurs liability when he causes hydraulic fracturing fluid to intrude into the subsurface of a neighbor’s land, but the courts reached opposite conclusions, with each suggesting that public policy supported its position. Neither adequately examined the legal issues. Careful consideration of trespass concepts …