Digital Commons Network^™

Trust Or Bust: Complications With Tribal Trust Obligations And Environmental Sovereignty, Nadia B. Ahmad

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Do Sagebrush Rebels Have A Colorable Claim? The Space Between Parochialism And Exclusion In Federal Lands Management, Ann M. Eisenberg

Faculty Publications

This Article asks whether the troubling nature of the Sagebrush Rebellion and similar movements (e.g., their violence, antienvironmentalism, and racist overtones) has made us overly dismissive of a kernel of truth in their complaints. Commentators often acknowledge that federal lands management may be “unfair” to local communities, but the ethical and legal characteristics of the unfairness concern remain under-explored. Although the Sagebrush Rebellion and federal lands communities are far from synonymous, substantial overlap between the complaints and demands of Sagebrush Rebels and the complaints and demands of many regional local (and state) governments suggests that to explore the one necessitates …

Clean Electrification, Shelley Welton

Faculty Publications

To combat climate change, many leading states have adopted the aim of creating a “participatory” grid. In this new model, electricity is priced based on time of consumption and carbon content, and consumers are encouraged to adjust their behavior and adopt new technologies to maintain affordable electricity. Although a more participatory grid is an important component of lowering greenhouse gas emissions, it also raises a new problem of clean energy justice: utilities and consumer advocates claim that such policies unjustly benefit the rich at the expense of the poor, given the type of consumer best able to participate in the …

Conflicts And Laudato Si’: Ten Principles For Environmental Dispute Resolution, Lucia A. Silecchia

Scholarly Articles

Unfortunately, conflicts are all too familiar in the modern world. Global conflicts claim and threaten the lives of many. Personal conflicts strike at the heart of families and friendships. Courts, workplaces, communities, the political process, mediating institutions, businesses, and media all seem fraught with conflicts that can unnecessarily divide rather than unite.

Without a doubt, there is a certain amount of conflict that is helpful, and even vitally necessary, to any society. Without it, there is no healthy debate about things that matter, a diminished ability to reach compromises that may represent the best of competing ideas, and less opportunity …

Introduction: The Post-Carbon World: Advances In Legal And Social Theory, Gregg P. Macey

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Smell Of Neglect : A Trans-Corporeal Feminism For Environmental Justice, Dayna Scott

Articles & Book Chapters

Environmental justice struggles are increasingly contests waged over data and knowledge, involving claims of expertise and counter-expertise (Corburn 2003). A common observation is that a reliance on formal science elevates the data generated by accredited knowledge professionals to a prime political position, ‘leaving little or no room for the layperson’ (Fischer 2000: 51; Yearley 2000). This results in a growing tension between those who have ‘knowledge’ and those who do not, as well as the active re-negotiation of those categories (Wiebe 2013). Residents of pollution hotspots and their allies in the environmental justice movement make a normative claim for valuing …

“Sacrifice Zones” In The Green Energy Economy: Toward An Environmental Justice Framework, Dayna Scott, Adrian A. Smith

Articles & Book Chapters

The environmental justice movement validates the grassroots struggles of residents of places which Steve Lerner refers to as “sacrifice zones”: low-income and racialized communities shouldering more than their fair share of environmental harms related to pollution, contamination, toxic waste, and heavy industry. On this account, disparities in wealth and power, often inscribed and re-inscribed through social processes of racialization, are understood to produce disparities in environmental burdens. Here, we attempt to understand how these dynamics are shifting in the green energy economy under settler colonial capitalism. We consider the possibility that the political economy of green energy contains its own …

The Abstract Subject Of The Climate Migrant: Displaced By The Rising Tides Of The Green Energy Economy, Dayna Scott, Adrian A. Smith

Articles & Book Chapters

A controversial proposal to build the mammoth ‘Site C’ dam on the Peace River in northwestern Canada offers an opportunity to explore the intersections of climate and migration issues under debate in international environmental governance circles. Site C threatens to flood traditional fishing spots and traplines of Indigenous peoples in the name of the ‘green energy’ economy. We consider how people displaced by renewable energy projects justified as climate mitigation policies might constitute a different kind of ‘climate refugee’ in that they are ‘displaced without moving’ – the connections between the land and the people are severed to the extent …

Environmental Impacts Of The Border Wall, Sarah Krakoff, Dan Millis, Andy Gordon, Sarah Burt

Publications

On January 25, 2017, during his first week in office, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order calling for the “immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border” of the United States. Such a wall would span more than one thousand miles, across many different habitats and many different communities. Before a wall will be built, numerous questions must be answered: Which environmental laws apply? How might all this work? On February 16, ELI convened experts to discuss how environmental law and policy may interact with the Executive Order, and to spark discussion about important environmental resources and …

Alienation And Reconciliation In Social-Ecological Systems, Ann M. Eisenberg

Faculty Publications

After rancher Ammon Bundy’s forceful occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to protest federal “tyranny” in 2016, mainstream commentary dismissed Bundy and his supporters as crackpots. But the dismissal of the occupation as errant overlooked this event’s significance. This conflict: 1) involved a clash over scarce natural resources, of the type that will likely gain more frequency and intensity in the face of climate change; and 2) highlighted the popular idea that the federal government and federal environmental regulations are the enemy of the (white, rural, male) worker. This thread of antienvironmental, anti-federal alienation among many working people has …

Climate Legislation And Litigation In Brazil, Gabriel Wedy

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Brazil plays a major role in the global fight against climate change, especially because of its vast forests. However, the amount of deforestation now occurring is in great dispute. Between August 2014 and July 2015, for example, deforestation in the Amazon rainforest increased by 215% according to Imazon Research Institute. Contrarily, according to the Brazil Government, the increase was only 16%.

This paper discusses the role that legislation and litigation are playing, and the roles they may and should play in the future, in combatting deforestation and other factors relevant to climate change in Brazil.

Putting Green Infrastructure On Private Property In New York City, Justin Gundlach

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

New York City, like other cities that built combined sewer systems in the early twentieth century, is embarking on the reconfiguration of its approach to stormwater management – one that shifts away from exclusive reliance on “grey infrastructure” (asphalt, pipes, tunnels, sea walls) to greater reliance on “green infrastructure” (green roofs, bioswales, rain gardens, permeable pavements, coastal wetlands). That reconfiguration will entail physical changes as well as changes to the regulation and financing of stormwater management. And, underlying these physical, regulatory, and financial changes is New Yorkers’ role in managing and paying for stormwater runoff – that too must change …

Clean Electrification, Shelley Welton

University of Colorado Law Review

To combat climate change, many leading states have adopted the aim of creating a "participatory"g rid. In this new model, electricity is priced based on time of consumption and carbon content, and consumers are encouraged to adjust their behavior and adopt new technologies to maintain affordable electricity. Although a more participatory grid is an important component of lowering greenhouse gas emissions, it also raises a new problem of clean energy justice: utilities and consumer advocates claim that such policies unjustly benefit the rich at the expense of the poor, given the type of consumer best able to participate in the …

Pride And Prejudice And Administrative Zombies: How Economic Woes, Outdated Environmental Regulations, And State Exceptionalism Failed Flint, Michigan, Brie D. Sherwin

University of Colorado Law Review

It was just over forty years ago, shortly before the Safe Drinking Water Act was passed, that a group of mothers in the small, sleepy town of Woburn, Massachusetts realized there just may have been a connection between their children's leukemia and the town's water supply. They withstood the terrible smell and masked the water's rancid flavor with orange juice. For months they inquired, complained, and assembled in hopes that someone in a position of authority would notice what was so obvious to them. And for months they were dismissed and even ridiculed. Turns out they were right. It took …

Environmental Racism, American Exceptionalism, And Cold War Human Rights, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Faculty Articles

Environmental justice scholars and activists coined the terms “environmental racism” to describe the disproportionate concentration of environmental hazards in neighborhoods populated by racial and ethnic minorities. Having exhausted domestic legal remedies (or having concluded that these remedies are unavailable), communities of color in the United States are increasingly turning to international human rights law and institutions to challenge environmental racism.

However, the United States has ratified only a handful of human rights treaties, and has limited the domestic application of these treaties through reservations and declarations that preclude judicial enforcement in the absence of implementing legislation. Indeed, the U.S. has …

The Ends And Means Of Pollution Control: Toward A Positive Theory Of Environmental Law, David M. Driesen

Utah Law Review

An understanding of environmental law’s means and ends makes it possible to understand the field as a whole, both in terms of the overall structure of statutes and relationships between means and ends. This analysis of means and ends yields a host of valuable insights and significant research questions. It also provides an important foundation for evaluating proposed regulatory reforms. A reasonably complete theory, at a minimum, should also explain key features of the enforcement regime and the allocation of authority among governments. The theory of means and ends articulated here constitutes a very substantial step forward in constructing a …

Recent Developments In Climate Justice, Randall S. Abate, Rachel Jean-Baptiste, Maria Antonia Tigre, Patricia Ferreira, Wil Burns

Journal Publications

Climate justice can be defined generally as addressing the disproportionate burden of climate change impacts on poor and marginalized communities. It seeks to promote more equitable allocation of these burdens at the local, national, and global levels through proactive regulatory initiatives and reactive judicial remedies that draw on international human rights and domestic environmental justice theories. Yet, efforts to define climate justice as a field of inquiry remain elusive and underinclusive; a recent book, Climate Justice: Case Studies in Global and Regional Governance Challenges (ELI Press 2016), seeks to fill that void by providing an overview of the landscape of …

10 Questions To Ask About The Proposed “Global Pact For The Environment”, Susan Biniaz

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

There is no doubt that more needs to be done, both nationally and internationally, to protect the environment. It is tempting, particularly during the Trump era, to welcome any concerted effort to do so. The issue is whether the proposed “Global Pact” is the right vehicle for enhancing environmental protection.

The Global Pact was launched this past June in Paris, with support from, among others, President Macron of France and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. At least in its preliminary state, the Pact reflects broad, cross-cutting principles in legally binding form. France intends to seek support at the upcoming UN …

Regulating Cumulative Risk, Sanne H. Knudsen

Articles

This Article proceeds in four parts. Part I describes how cumulative risk assessments tackle the real-world exposure problems that lie at the heart of public health. It shows how risk science has evolved and why policy, not science, lags behind. Part II then examines why key public health concerns cannot be answered through information disclosure or consumer choice models alone.

Having established that regulatory drivers are needed, Part III begins to examine how to move forward. It does so by looking backward and examining how TSCA and FIFRA have failed historically to provide this critical public health focus despite room …

Accumulating Risk: Environmental Justice And The History Of Capitalism In Detroit, 1880-2015, Josiah John Rector

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation is an environmental history of Detroit, Michigan from the 19th century to the present. Recent scholarship on the history of capitalism has largely ignored the problem of environmental inequality, and the negative externalities of economic growth. In contrast, studies of the environmental justice movement have richly documented race, class, and gender inequalities in environmental risk exposure. However, they have neglected the relationship between the development of the environmental justice movement and the restructuring of American capitalism since the 1970s, including deindustrialization and the shift to neoliberalism. Bringing these fields together, this dissertation connects Detroit’s long-term economic transformation to …

Plan Ej 2014: Fact Or Fiction? A Critique Of The Obama Administration’S Efforts On Environmental Justice, Jeanne Zokovitch Paben

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

As President Obama’s tenure in office draws to a close, environmental injustices continue to proliferate in communities across this country. During the Obama Administration, there has been a strong government voice on combating these injustices, yet under their watch we see travesties like Flint, Michigan. Flint is the latest example of how our laws and government processes are not only inadequate in protecting overburdened communities, but also how they are complicit in perpetuating harm. This Article aims to answer how that happens, first, by cataloging the environmental justice efforts under the Obama Administration, most notably through Plan EJ 2014, then …

How Mature Capitalism Turns Pollution Into Diamonds: Malagnogenesis And The Reverse-Engineering Of Harm Into Risk, Kevin P. Martyn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, there has been a great deal of debate about the pervasiveness and persistence of neoliberal thinking. In the context of the post-2008 ‘great recession’ the resilience of neoliberalism is particularly confounding. To begin to unravel the ways in which neoliberalism is situated relative to risk, this study identifies an increasingly important neoliberal knowledge practice: malagnogenesis. Malagnogenesis is proposed herein as the production of ignorance that normalizes harm for and amongst marginalized populations. To shed light on the phenomena of malagnogenesis, this study investigated the history of leaded gasoline in the U.S. To that end, I …

Agenda: Flpma Turns 40, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

FLPMA Turns 40 (October 21)

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administers approximately 245 million acres of our public lands and yet, for most of our nation's history, these lands seemed largely destined to end up in private hands. Even when the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 ushered in an important era of better managing public grazing districts and "promoting the highest use of the public lands," such use of our public lands still was plainly considered temporary, "pending its final disposal." It was not until 1976 with the passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) that congress adopted a policy that …

Getches-Wilkinson Center Newsletter, Fall 2016, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment Newsletter (2013-)

No abstract provided.

Un Environment Guide For Energy Efficiency And Renewable Energy Laws, Richard L. Ottinger

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Guide is written as a sequel to the 2007 UN Environment Programme Handbook for Legal Draftsmen on Environmentally Sound Management of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Resources.

This Guide, as the Handbook, is written in response to needs expressed, particularly by energy efficiency and renewable energy project initiators, government officials, energy managers, project developers and particularly developing country energy legal draftsmen, asking for assistance in drafting legislative provisions for promotion and implementation of sound energy efficiency and renewable energy programs.

The Guide describes the key legal issues associated with efficiency and renewable energy resource development, and presents legislative options …

Towards Safer Seafood: What Indonesian Law Should “Say” About Mercury-Contaminated Fish, Margaretha Quina

Indonesia Law Review

Fish is a popular culinary dish in Indonesian culture and a major economic resource on which many people depend their livelihood. However, with severe pollution in Indonesian water, including uncontrolled mercury pollution which persists in the food chain and eventually gets into humans’ body as the top predator, fish safety is particularly worrying – especially taking into account the frequency of average Indonesians’ consumption of fish. In various jurisdictions, the management tool used by lawmakers and regulators with regard to this issue is information disclosure, or known as “fish advisory warning,” to cover the failure of command and control. This …

Casenote Update: The Supreme Court Restricts Plaintiff Options For Climate Change Litigation In American Electric Power Co. V. Connecticut, Matthew R. Weiss

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Environmental Justice And Community-Based Reparations, Catherine Millas Kaiman

Seattle University Law Review

This Article seeks to illuminate the lack of adequate legal remedies that are available for low-income, predominantly minority communities that have suffered historic environmental injustices. The Article not only discusses the lack of adequate legal remedies, but also proposes the use of local, state, and federal reparations programs for communities that have previously suffered environmental injustices; are still living with the effects of environmental injustices, by way of disease, air, soil, and water pollution; or are suffering current and ongoing environmental injustices. As has been recently illustrated by Michigan’s state action of providing lead-contaminated water for over a year to …

International Environmental Law And The Global South Edited By Shawket Alam, Sumudu Atapattu, Carmen G. Gonzalez, And Jona Razzaque, Nadia B. Ahmad

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Citizens Of Sinking Islands: Early Victims Of Climate Change, Erin Halstead

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This Note discusses the effects of climate change that threaten Small Island Developing States (SIDS). Specifically, with increasing global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions resulting in rising sea levels and higher frequency of extreme weather events, many citizens of SIDS are forced abandon their homelands, which are no longer livable. Although SIDS are some of the smallest contributors to GHG emissions, and therefore contribute the least to climate change, SIDS are some of the countries most heavily affected by the negative effects of climate change. The global community has an obligation to accommodate these displaced people, partially due to the significant …