Digital Commons Network^™

Humans In Nature: Creating Our New Reality Through Ecological, Cultural, Global, Ethical, And Legal Reform, John Head

UMKC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Under The Umbrella Of Water Law: Why Rainwater Harvesting Should Constitute A Valid Water Right, Jordann Krouse

Washington Law Review

Rain is a major source of water. It provides for our greatest needs, such as feeding our gardens, crops, rivers, and lakes. As global climate change continues to unfold, the impacts of water availability and water pollution simultaneously grow more urgent. Water rights are a mechanism in the United States’ legal system to allocate, regulate, and manage water as a natural resource. These rights are limited, however, in their coverage and varied in their application. For example, access to rainwater is not a recognized water right despite being a major source of water. The ecological and economic incentives of rainwater …

Decommissioning Offshore Oil And Gas Infrastructure: Report Of Proceedings, May 2, 2025 Offshore Decommissioning Workshop, Martin Lockman, Ashwin Murthy, Romany M. Webb

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

On May 2, 2025, Ocean Conservancy and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law organized a workshop at Columbia Law School on offshore oil and gas decommissioning in the United States. The overarching goal of the workshop was to bring together offshore law and policy experts to outline a research and policy agenda for offshore decommissioning. Within this broad goal, we sought to (1) identify key opportunities to reform offshore decommissioning law in the United States, both in the short term and over the next decade, (2) identify knowledge gaps and highlight areas for future research, and (3) begin to …

Are Markets Better Than Law In Achieving Sustainability And Water Security In The Face Of Climate Disruption?, Joseph W. Dellapenna

UMKC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sustainability-Competent Lawyering In The International Context, Amy L. Edwards, John C. Dernbach

UMKC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Arctic Law: Even More Sustainable? Roles Of The Us And Eu, Joseph F.C. Dimento, Jessica L. Pierucci

UMKC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Advisory Opinions In International Law In The Context Of The Climate Crisis, Maria Antonia Tigre, Armando Rocha

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Between December 2022 and March 2023, three requests for an advisory opinion were submitted to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), and the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Furthermore, a request for an advisory opinion from the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (AfCtHPR) is being prepared. As such, 2024–2025 marks an unprecedented moment in global climate litigation: as of November 2024, we are on the verge of having four of the world’s most important international and regional courts and tribunals answering crucial legal questions on the (ex …

Planning A New Paradigm: Tribal Co-Stewardship And Federal Public Lands Planning, Monte Mills, Martin Nie

Articles

Planning is a critical part of the federal government’s management of the nation’s public lands. Over the last half century, Congress has mandated that each of the four major public land management agencies; the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service, develop and rely on plans to guide their oversight of public lands and resources. Virtually every activity or decision affecting these public lands can be traced back to language in—or missing from—a plan. But, despite the importance of planning, the process by which each agency develops and …

Water Flowing Down Wall Street, Vanessa Casado-Pérez

Faculty Scholarship

Water scarcity is a perennial problem with dire consequences for the United States and governments around the world. A lack of adequate water resources is a systematic cause of environmental harm, economic damage, and societal division. Climate change has exacerbated these problems making water even more valuable and essential.

Financial actors have turned water into the new oil. These large financial actors profiteer from buying and selling water without any interest in its actual use as an input of production. Instead, they typically seek to hold these rights until dire situations, like droughts and fires, cause temporary, but large, spikes …

Filling The Sackett Gap: The Private Governance Option, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Elodie O. Currier Stoffel, Steph Tai

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court's decision in Sackett v. EPA reversed fifty years of federal Clean Water Act wetlands protections and removed federal oversight from roughly half of the wetlands in the United States. This Article proposes a viable new conceptual model and tools to close the Sackett Gap-the gap between the wetlands protected before and after Sackett. Scholars have argued for federal measures to fill the Sackett Gap, but these actions face substantial challenges. Congress is unlikely to adopt new wetlands legislation, agencies are constrained by Sackett's expansive language, the end of Chevron deference, and the 2024 presidential election, and lower …

Electricity Affordability In Context, Troy A. Rule

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

Recent residential electricity price increases in California have caused some to suggest the state is experiencing an electricity affordability crisis. Although the typical household in California and across the country spends less than three percent of its income on electricity, California’s soaring electricity rates can impose substantial burdens on some of the state’s lowest-income households. Why have retail electricity prices rapidly risen in California over the past decade while remaining relatively stable in others? What are the potential downsides of overly fixating on electricity affordability concerns in the context of energy policymaking? And what principles should guide policymakers in California …

Anticommandeering Climate Action: Defending The Necessity Of Subfederal Planet-Saving Legislation, Tyler Hall

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

Humanity is on the defensive against climate change, and state and local governments are the front line. Regrettably, Americans have waited too long for air cover in the form of federal climate regulations despite an established history of federal environmental action only emerging from the ashes of headline-grabbing catastrophes. Americans cannot wait on federal legislation to tackle the global and unprecedented problem of climate change. It will come far too late.

State and local governments’ historic police power includes protecting environmental health and public welfare, but decades of successful federal regulation have atrophied its use. Delayed by federal success, state …

Navigating Utility Liability In A Changing Climate: A Comparative Analysis Of State Utility Failures And Legal Reforms In Response To The Maui Wildfires, Danielle S. Comstock

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

This Comment will analyze the history of utility liability in climate-related disasters and examine instances where utility companies caused and mitigated damages. Drawing lessons from other states, it proposes several key solutions: clarifying legal standards for utility liability, enhancing regulatory frameworks, and leveraging federal support to drive proactive measures. This Comment aims to provide a comprehensive framework for improving utility preparedness and resilience in the face of climate-related disasters by examining how these solutions could have altered past outcomes and addressing the obstacles to their implementation.

Playing With Fire: California Homeowners Risk High Insurance Costs Or Losing Homes To Climate Change Disasters, Emily Serleth

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

California should continue to further the policy of protecting generational homeowners’ right to their property. To do this, insurance rates should be set in a way that avoids unfair premium increases that violate Proposition 103 and unfairly burden consumers. Utilizing CAT models will increase the cost of home insurance premiums due to overestimations of risk, enable bias on the part of insurance companies, and promote a lack of public scrutiny for insurance rates. This creates a confiscatory rate, which violates Proposition 103 and the California Constitution.

Generational homeowners should not be forced to adopt the FAIR plan just to maintain …

Beneath The Surface: Unearthing Legal, Cultural, And Environmental Challenges To Resource Extraction On Indigenous Land, Danara Greer

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

Much of the world’s natural capital lies on or beneath lands occupied by Indigenous peoples. Since the advent of colonialism, Indigenous communities have tirelessly safeguarded their land from encroachment by extractive industries. The contemporary consequences of resource extraction on Indigenous lands include environmental degradation and cultural heritage destruction. Rather than providing a legal pathway to self-determination, the United States Supreme Court has eroded tribal sovereignty and undermined the trust relationship between tribes and the federal government. American Indians and Alaska Natives are prohibited from tapping into their resource wealth by an intricate bureaucratic framework that dictates how resources may—and may …

A Toxic Inheritance: Addressing The Legal Implications Of Inheriting Hazardous Waste Land, Ashley Pyle

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

Inheritance law, governing the transfer of assets and rights from generation to generation, is a cornerstone of legal systems worldwide, Inheritance law’s implications extend beyond wealth management and tax strategies. This Article addresses a neglected area of overlap: inheritance law and hazardous waste. Consider Sarah, a Southern California beneficiary whose narrative exemplifies that overlap, and her story of how inheritance law combines grief, liability, and opportunity….

Inheriting toxic land poses a legal challenge to a beneficiary’s ability to abandon property as a matter of law and policy. This raises the additional question of who should bear cleanup liability for an …

Requiem For The Eu: The Internal Costs Of The Brussels Effect And The Digital Services Act As Case Study, Jordan Smith

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

The high levels of regulation of the European Union (EU) have been praised as a means of maintaining Europe’s relevance and influence on a global scale, which Professor Anu Bradford has termed “the Brussels Effect.” However, these pervasive regulations can also be characterized as roadblocks to Europe’s own economic growth and threats to its own commitment to democratic values. This paper will survey several ways in which Europe’s pervasive regulations are impacting its long-term wellbeing and then specifically examine a new EU regulation in the tech sector: The Digital Services Act.

Montana Environmental Information Center V. Montana Department Of Environmental Quality, Alexis Karbowicz

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Toward A Global Consensus On The "S" In Esg: Strengthening Human Rights And Corporate Accountability Through Global Governance, Emma O'Connor

Pace International Law Review

This paper argues that the international community, led by the United Nations, must develop a coherent global framework for the “S” in Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) to strengthen corporate accountability and human rights protections. While environmental metrics in ESG have gained global traction, the social pillar remains fragmented, inconsistently defined, and weakly enforced, opening the door to impact washing, where companies misrepresent or exaggerate their positive social impact. Drawing from international, regional, and domestic case studies, this paper illustrates how this incoherence leads to economic, ethical, and operational harms for businesses and the global community. It argues that public governance …

Puerto Rico's Coast: Preservation Through Positive Obligations On Property Owners And The State In The Context Of Climate Change, Jaime Villeta-Garcia

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

The rise in sea level, the obvious rampant coastal erosion and the uncertain future due to climate change urge the need to rethink the coast, through property and administrative law. The security of life, property and the fair and orderly use of the ultra-valuable resources that is the coast depend on a new concept for properties in the coastal zone and its effective execution by a conscious and responsible State. Centered on the community of Ocean Park in San Juan, Puerto Rico, it’s no longer a question of whether coastal property rights can contribute to safeguarding the coast, but rather …

Finnish Fashion Lessons For The Creation Of A Sustainable Textiles Industry, Susanna Monseau, Kaisa Sorsa, Heidi Salokangas

Pace International Law Review

The detrimental effects of textiles and the fashion industry on the planet are well-known.
In its 2022 Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles (the EU Textile Strategy) the EU proposed aggressive actions to transform the textile industry to implement the commitments of Europe’s Green Deal and Circular Economy Action Plan. The Textile Strategy’s aim is simple but ambitious: to end fast fashion. Its proposals will regulate textile businesses along the whole supply chain, but the views of the smaller enterprises that make up the majority of the supply chain have been overlooked, even as larger players lobby for policy changes. …

Suggested Revisions In Maine's Planning And Land Use Control Enabling Legislation—Part Ii, Orlando E. Delogu

Maine Law Review

The process which transfers land from its natural or an unintensively used agricultural state to house lots, shopping centers, or industrial sites is often referred to as land subdivision. No more long-lasting or fundamental series of changes with respect to the land can be imagined; yet the process in Maine is not only unregulated by the state and by most local levels of government, but is not at present capable of being regulated in any meaningful sense of the word. No state statutes exist which impose even the most reasonable standards, limitations, or procedural safeguards on either the process of …

Legislative Discouragement Of Maine's Marine Industrial Growth, John H. Pursel

Maine Law Review

At common law the public rights to navigation and fishing could not be alienated by the King. Dry land and the land beneath the sea could be alienated but only so long as the public rights to navigation and fishing were preserved. This common law doctrine was rejected in 1842 by the United States Supreme Court as binding precedent for limiting the alienation of the public domain by the legislatures of the various states. In Martin v. Wadell the Court reasoned that this common law principle was not applicable because the people of the United States through their act of …

Uncommon Controversy, David Getches

Maine Law Review

In the mid-nineteenth century the Indians of the Northwest were pressured by government agents into signing treaties ceding most of the land they had historically occupied to the United States. In each treaty, besides reserving small tracts of land for themselves, the Indians specifically reserved the right to fish "at all usual and accustomed grounds and stations." Because the lands which the Indians were permitted to reserve were selected so as "not to interfere with existing [non-Indian] claims, or with the progress of settlements," many traditional fishing places were located outside the reservations. The Indians' grudging acceptance of the treaties …

Conservation, Policy And The Role Of Counsel, David J. Halperin

Maine Law Review

The conservation interests in the State of Maine have been roused to a furor by the decision of Maine's highest court in State v. Johnson. The case, in substance, holds that Maine's Wetlands Act is unconstitutional when applied to prohibit the filling of a specific segment of salt water marsh. While both the decision and the underlying statute are of considerable substantive interest, the case deserves particular study for the light it sheds on the role of counsel in helping the legal process accommodate new policy concerns. A note of caution must, of course, be sounded before seeking to generalize …

Constitutional Dilemmas Posed By State Policies Against Marine Pollution - The Maine Example, Daniel Wilkes

Maine Law Review

The physical fact about coastal pollution is that, since many of its harms are irreversible, it must be prevented and not just dealt with as it arises. The legal fact about coastal pollution is that legislation which aims to prevent pollutants must survive attacks under the due process, equal protection, commerce, and privileges and immunities clauses of the federal Constitution if we are not to lose entirely the enjoyment of our coastal waters. As the following discussion of the "Environmental Protection Package" passed by the First Special Session of the 104th Maine Legislature and the earlier Wetlands Act shows, judicial …

Ransoming The Maine Environment, G. Graham Waite

Maine Law Review

The call for natural resource conservation is widely heard today. Purity of air and water are goals that most persons seem to endorse, at least in the abstract. The dollar costs of governmental programs for achieving relatively clean air and water doubtless are high, making questions of who bears them important. Some recent decisions of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court suggest that in Maine the major costs will be paid by taxpayers at large rather than by individual resource users.

A Proposal To Protect Maine From The Oilbergs Of The 70'S, Eugene C. Coughlin Iii

Maine Law Review

The oil industry is moving into Maine with plans to develop new oil ports and to build oil refineries along the coast. Although the Portland harbor is one of the busiest oil ports on the eastern seaboard, the enormous increase in oil transportation over Maine waters, as envisioned by the oil magnates, poses frightening consequences for Maine people. Responding to this threat and to a growing conservation lobby, as well as an aroused public, the 104th Legislature passed measures that hopefully will begin to cope with the problem. Hailed as landmark conservation legislation, the new laws go further than past …

Uncommon Controversy, David Getches

Maine Law Review

In the mid-nineteenth century the Indians of the Northwest were pressured by government agents into signing treaties ceding most of the land they had historically occupied to the United States. In each treaty, besides reserving small tracts of land for themselves, the Indians specifically reserved the right to fish "at all usual and accustomed grounds and stations." Because the lands which the Indians were permitted to reserve were selected so as "not to interfere with existing [non-Indian] claims, or with the progress of settlements," many traditional fishing places were located outside the reservations. The Indians' grudging acceptance of the treaties …

Conservation, Policy And The Role Of Counsel, David J. Halperin

Maine Law Review

The conservation interests in the State of Maine have been roused to a furor by the decision of Maine's highest court in State v. Johnson. The case, in substance, holds that Maine's Wetlands Act is unconstitutional when applied to prohibit the filling of a specific segment of salt water marsh. While both the decision and the underlying statute are of considerable substantive interest, the case deserves particular study for the light it sheds on the role of counsel in helping the legal process accommodate new policy concerns. A note of caution must, of course, be sounded before seeking to generalize …