Digital Commons Network^™

Putting A Price On Whales To Save Them: What Do Morals Have To Do With It?, Hope M. Babcock

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The author explores the moral implication of a proposal to create an international market in whale shares as an alternative to the dysfunctional International Whaling Commission. She finds the proposal amoral because whales, like humans, have an intrinsic right to life. Since this leaves whales vulnerable to whale hunting nations, she suggests that international environmental organizations might help a whale preservation norm emerge in whaling nations by using education and interventionist activities that focus on whaling’s cruelty to ultimately encourage the citizens and governments of those nations to change their self-image as whale eating cultures.

Forest Carbon (Redd+), Repairing International Trust, And Reciprocal Contractual Sovereignty, David Takacs

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Equity And The Global Policy On Climate Change: A Law And Economic Perspective, Andri G. Wibisana

Indonesia Law Review

The opponents of the global commitment to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions seem to have shifted their arguments from the one emphasing on the issue of uncertainty to the one focusing on the economic burdens disproportionately placed on the current generation in general, and some developed countries in particular. Inevitably, the issue of equity becomes of highly importance in the recent climate policy debates. This paper attempts to analyze the implementation of equity principles, i.e. intergenerational and intragenerational equity, in the global climate policy. In doing so, it will first briefly outline some prominent economic appraisals on the impacts of …

Background Reading: Department Of Agriculture, 2013 Budget Overview, United States. Forest Service, United States. Department Of Agriculture

The Future of Natural Resources Policy (December 6)

57 pages.

"Fiscal Year 2013 Budget Overview"

"February 2012"

"Background Reading"

The Future of Natural Resources Policy: This forum will provide a post-election perspective on some of the challenges and opportunities that natural resources, public lands, and energy policymakers in Washington are likely to face in the next four years. An expert panel will discuss the dynamics in the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture, and Congress, and how their evolving policies are likely to affect Colorado in the coming years.

Discrimination In The Marcellus Shale: The Dormant Commerce Clause And Hydraulic Fracturing Waste Disposal, Eric Michel

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The environmentally controversial process of hydraulic fracturing (commonly referred to as "fracking") has led to a recent explosion in the supply and sale of natural gas in the United States. However, every fracking operation creates a sizable amount of toxic wastewater that requires disposal, and drillers in Pennsylvania have increasingly been shipping their waste across the border to Ohio because of Pennsylvania's inadequate internal disposal options. In response, Ohio has passed legislation that taxes out-of-state fracking waste at a greater rate than waste derived from natural gas drilling within its borders. This Note examines whether Ohio's taxing scheme violates the …

End Of The Line: Tracking The Commodity Chain Of The Electronic Waste Industry, Jacquelynn A. Doyon

Dissertations

This study examines the transfer of electronic waste (e-waste) from core to peripheral nations, specifically coastal nations in Africa. The theoretical perspective marries green criminology with world systems theory in examining the ways in which marginalized populations bear the burden of hazardous waste disposal across the globe. The study is comparative, looking at legislation in the United States as well as international legislation and enforcement, and also employs case study methodology, contrasting e-waste disposal in Nigeria and Ghana. The final intent of this research is to determine whether or not the violation of national and/or international legislation regarding the transfer …

The Duty To Advise The Lorax: Environmental Advocacy And The Risk Of Reform, Keith W. Rizzardi

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

Lawyers have an ethical duty to advise their clients on moral, economic, social, and political matters. When applied to the changing field of environmental law, this abstract notion becomes provocative. Lawyers should advise their environmental advocacy clients of the possibility that their efforts to apply statutes or rules might initially succeed, but subsequent legislative reactions might defund, reform, or repeal the laws the client’s case relied upon. As a client’s sophistication decreases, or as the risk of adverse reactions to the client’s environmental advocacy increases, the lawyer’s duty to advise the client of these risks can shift from discretionary to …

Environmental Law And Fossil Fuels: Barriers To Renewable Energy, Uma Outka

Vanderbilt Law Review

Renewable energy is gaining momentum around the globe, but the United States has only just begun to change its energy trajectory away from fossil fuels. Today, only about 10% of electricity in the United States is generated from renewable energy, and most of that comes from hydroelectric power plants that have been operating for many years. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects 30% of new capacity over the next twenty years will utilize renewable resources, without significant changes in U.S. energy policy, but at that pace renewable energy will still account for only 16% of generated electricity. These prospects stand …

Preserving Legal Avenues For Climate Justice In Florida Post-American Electric Power, Allison Fishman

Florida Law Review

No abstract provided.

Planetarian Identity Formation And The Relocalization Of Environmental Law, Sarah Krakoff

Florida Law Review

Local food, local work, local energy production-all are hallmarks of a resurgence of localism throughout contemporary environmental thought and action. The renaissance of localism might be seen as a retreat from the world’s global environmental problems. This Article maintains, however, that some forms of localism are actually expressions, appropriate ones, of a planetary environmental consciousness. This Article’s centerpiece is an in-depth evaluation of local climate action initiatives, including interviews with participants, as well as other data and observations about their ethics, attitudes, behaviors, and motivations. The values and identities being forged in these initiatives form the basis for timely conceptions …

Environmental Law At Maryland, No. 34, Fall 2012

Environmental Law at Maryland

No abstract provided.

Environmental And Energy Law Perspectives: Fall 2012, Environmental And Energy Law Program

Environmental and Energy Law Perspectives

No abstract provided.

Fall 2012 Utton Center Newsletter, Utton Center, University Of New Mexico - School Of Law

Publications

No abstract provided.

Disaster Justice: The Geography Of Human Capability, Robert R.M. Verchick

Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum

No abstract provided.

United States Flood Control Policy: The Incomplete Transition From The Illusion Of Total Protection To Risk Management, A. Dan Tarlock

Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum

No abstract provided.

Coupling Environmental Justice With Carbon Trading, Joseph Lam

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Offsetting Programs: Struggling To Find An Equitable Solution Internationally, Silvia Fejka

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Editors' Note, Braunson Virjee, Chelsea Tu

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

“Offsetting” Crisis? - Climate Change Cap-And-Trade Need Not Contribute To Another Financial Meltdown , Victor B, Flatt

Pepperdine Law Review

In 2009, the promise of a comprehensive federal cap and trade bill to address climate change fell apart. At least in part, this was due to the fears that exotic 'carbon' financial instruments might cause more financial crises. As California launches it economy wide carbon trading system, and other regional systems and the even possibly the EPA consider cap and trade, it is important to revisit what, if anything, about carbon denominated financial instruments might lead to financial market problems. The most problematic of the instruments, offsets, can be designed to lessen financial risk from underlying asset failure.

Fairness In The Bay: Environmental Justice And Nutrient Trading, Rena I. Steinzor, Robert R.M. Verchick, Nicholas W. Vidargas, Yee Huang

Faculty Scholarship

Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and other states in the Chesapeake Bay region, with support from the Environmental Protection Agency, are working toward developing water quality trading programs intended to help meet federal pollution limits for the Bay. This white paper from the Center for Progressive Reform warns that even if a trading system succeeds in reducing overall pollution in the Bay, it might still have a dire effect on low-income and minority communities in the Bay region.

If trading programs are not carefully designed and monitored, trading can cause localized concentrations of nutrients and accompanying contaminants in local waters, posing a …

Co-Management Of Natural Resources By Indigenous People And States: A Method To Promote Environmental Justice And Sustainability, Bradford Morse

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

This paper will explore the potential contributions that could be made to achieving environmental justice, as well as local, regional and global efforts toward environmental sustainability, through embracing the concept of co-management of nature in which the natural world is a participant represented by those humans retaining traditional knowledge of sustainable co-existence. In particular, my focus will be on the potential of partnerships between settler governments with access to ‘modern’ scientific knowledge combining with Indigenous peoples relying on their ‘traditional’ ecological knowledge. I will examine how recent reinterpretation of longstanding international human rights, along with the development of international environmental …

Using Law To Advance Sustainability: The Law Of Sustainable Development, Carla D. Aceves-Avila

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

Sustainability and law as a social tool behold linkages that strengthen one another, although this conjunction is frail when analyzed under the typical standards and paradigm of most contemporary legal systems.

The role of law under sustainability must be carefully profiled and differentiated as compared to the rest of legal rules. Even though it is true that all legal rules are created and implemented with the main purpose of improving human interaction, the role of law oriented towards sustainability should be the protection and preservation of natural resources, elements, as well as the conditions associated to these in order to …

Environmental Justice And The Green Economy- Risks And Opportunities, Nathalie Chalifour

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

The last decade of environmental advocacy has been characterized by the application of economic principles to environmental challenges, resulting in an interest in using economic instruments to internalize environmental costs in decision-making and reflected in the growing use of concepts such as environmental valuation and resource productivity in policy choices. While many view this greater connection between economic principles and environmental decision-making as key to achieving sustainable development (eg. Keohane & Olmstead, 2007), others fear that the focus on the green economy may undermine goals of social equity and environmental justice (eg. Dobson, 1998; Langhelle, 2000; Hoedeman, 2012). This paper …

Environmental Justice In Nigeria's Oil Industry: Recognizing And Embracing Contemporary Legal Developments, Rhuks Ako

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

The legal framework regulating Nigeria’s oil industry is one of the major drivers of disputes and the consequent violent conflicts in the oil-rich Niger Delta region. The region has gone through different phases of peaceful and violent struggles as the indigenes of the region aim to achieve environmental justice. The amnesty initiative; the latest attempt to curb the militancy in the region that escalated the violence to new heights, is showing signs of systemic failure after a brief period of relative peace. Militancy in the region has begun to increase as attacks on oil facilities and installations are once again …

Governance And Environmental Democracy: A Global Policy, Carla Aceves-Avila

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

In legal terms, and through the late decades sustainable development has transformed from an economic development theory to a public policy obligation that in turn has also translated in practice into concrete rights and obligations in legal systems throughout the world. These rights and obligations apply both to individuals and governments through constitutional, civil, administrative, commercial and even criminal legal rules.

Environmental law has become an essential tool for governance and administration of sustainable development while environmental democracy and its elements are becoming essential for a safe and sound planetary cohabitation. Environmental democracy provides the basis for the policies and …

Sustainable Management: A Sustainable Ethic?, Trevor Daya-Winterbottom

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

New Zealand is a country rich in biodiversity and natural resources, steeped in Maori culture and indigenous values, that legislated for sustainable management under the Resource Management Act 1991. Despite the rhetoric of sustainable management, environmental law and governance in New Zealand continue to grapple with persistent challenges:

· New Zealand is a significant contributor to global biodiversity but has one of the highest species extinction rates due to continued habitat loss and invasion by pest species.

· While New Zealand has a plentiful supply of clean freshwater, water demand from agriculture and urban growth is increasing and water quality …

The Main Track Of The Development Of Environmental Framework Law: From The Conference On The Human Environment To The Conference On Environment And Development, Li Zhi Ping

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

The United Nations' Conference on Human Environment launched a new era of global environmental protection; one of its significant impacts on the world is driving the emergence and promoting the development of the environment framework law. Look back to the history, two peaks appeared in the development process of national environmental framework law, the first one arises after the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, the second one arises after the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. These two conferences have been able to play such an important role, because they brought together the human intelligence, …

Federal Constraints: Possible Constitutional Hurdles To Cross-Border Cap-And-Trade,, Shelley Welton

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Summer 2012 Utton Center Newsletter, Utton Center, University Of New Mexico - School Of Law

Publications

No abstract provided.

American Bar Association Section Of Environment, Energy, And Resources Symposium: Selected Addresses [Comments], Eileen Gauna

Faculty Scholarship

Opening remarks for Environmental Justice conference that reviews the growth and efforts made for environmental justice.