Digital Commons Network^™

Prisons Built On Toxic Sites: Eighth Amendment Protections For Pregnant Incarcerated Persons, Bianca Stockmeier

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Letter From The Editor-At-Large, Ally Hayes

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Public Right Vs. Private Interest: The Role Of Corporate Entities In Eroding Free Expression, Jack Henry

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit Of Insulin: America’S Deadly Pharmaceutical Profiteering Crisis, Elizabeth Hernandez

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Did The Supreme Court Authorize Kidney Discrimination? An Analysis Of Marietta Memorial Hospital V. Davita Dialysis, Emily Miller

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Reopening The Path To Accountability: Applying Martin V. United States To Ice Misconduct In Illinois, Saylor Pershing

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Teaching At The Intersection Of Federal Indian Law And Environmental Law Courses, Mia Montoya Hammersley, Vanessa Ann Racehorse, Heather Tanana, Nadine Padilla, Gerald Torres

Publications

A discussion of the important role of Federal Indian Law in the practice of environmental and natural resources law and guidance on incorporating this intersection into traditional environmental law courses and curricula.

Standing On Slippery Ground: Pfas Products, Article Iii Standing, And The Case For Legislative Action, Bren J. Chaisson

Student Competition & Published Writings

Can implementing a new statute fix the standing obstacle that many cases involving per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) face? PFAS are a classification of thousands of common chemicals that cause a variety of adverse health effects. Hardwick v. 3M Co. highlighted the issue plaintiffs have with establishing standing when bringing forth a case. The plaintiff’s alleged injury was the presence of five specific PFAS in his bloodwork. The 6 th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the plaintiff, a firefighter who often used PFAS-contaminated foam, was unable to demonstrate that the defendants, several PFAS manufacturers, were responsible for the PFAS …

The Effectiveness Of The Minnesota Buffer Law And Its Impacts On People, Ellen P. Isakson

Journal of Earth and Life Science

In January 2015, the then-governor of Minnesota Mark Dayton announced new legislation that would require 50-foot vegetation buffers along all waterways in Minnesota; this legislation would come to be known as the Minnesota buffer law, exact requirements being “perennial vegetative buffers of up to 50 feet along lakes, rivers, and streams and buffers of 16.5 feet along ditches” (Albert, 2017; MN Board of Water and Soil Resources [MN BWSR] 4 ). A buffer in the context of vegetation and natural resource management is a strip of vegetation around a body of water “designed to intercept stormwater runoff and minimize soil …

Climate Change And Corporate Law In The United States: Not "Woke" But Eyes Open., Cynthia A. Williams

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Essay discusses the evidence that climate change and nature loss create financially material risks for corporations that must be carefully considered by officers and directors pursuant to their fiduciary duties of loyalty and care. This analysis concludes that under the current state of fiduciary duty law and the known financial risks presented by climate change and nature loss, officers and directors of corporations may breach their fiduciary duties by failing to implement and monitor a robust system to identify and manage each type of industry-specific climate-related and nature related risk. Risk of breach is particularly acute for entity-specific compliance …

Teitiota And Climate Non-Refoulment: The International Law Obligation To Create Domestic Protection Mechanisms, Helen Kerwin

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Designing A Victims’ Compensation System Amidst California’S Insurance Crisis: The Aftermath Of The 2025 Los Angeles Wildfires, Federica Simonelli

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

This Commentary will explore critical aspects necessary for creating victims’ compensation mechanisms capable of handling claims stemming from the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires from a theoretical perspective. Drawing from the successful examples of the 2020 PG&E Fire Victim Trust, the 2023 Maui Wildfires compensation schemes, and other forms of dispute resolution (such as mediation), this Commentary will demonstrate that the challenging fallouts of environmental disasters pose increased challenges and necessitate unique dispute system design to better respond to the need for fair and equitable solutions. These systems increasingly rely on settlement funds tailored to claimants’ specific needs and have proven …

Tides Of Power: Coastal Conservation Association V. State And The Clash Of Environmental Rights, Legislative Authority, And Judicial Limits In North Carolina, Dylan Long

Campbell Law Review

Environmental policy in North Carolina has primarily been within the discretion of the General Assembly. There has been little judicial determination as to what duty, if any, the state has in maintaining its natural resources for public use. North Carolina courts have provided limited judicial input on the General Assembly’s minimum, constitutionally required duty to protect the state’s natural resources. The courts’ sparse decisions have been inconsistent on what the legislature’s minimal obligations are. A recent and ongoing case has brought this issue to a head. The courts will soon be required to rule on the merits of this issue, …

The Legal Debate: Corner Crossing And Public Land Access, Kaden Leverenz

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Is it legal to cross from one corner of public land to an adjacent corner of public land across checkerboarded landscapes in the American West? This question regarding corner crossing has become one of the most prominent and unresolved issues in public land access. Although federal courts in Iron Bar Holdings v. Cape (2025) confirmed corner crossing, without touching or damaging private land, does not constitute trespass, the legal landscape still remains unsettled. Public land users play a significant role in shaping the direction of this issue, as demonstrated by past public mobilizations against large-scale land sell-offs. Therefore, this paper …

An Introduction To U.S. Groundwater Law: Domestic And Transboundary Considerations, Caleb Cook, Gabriel Eckstein

Faculty Scholarship

In light of the scientific and historical factors that have shaped the development of groundwater law and policy, this chapter seeks to provide a primarily descriptive account of its current state in the United States and to lay a foundation for future efforts to address gaps in the regime. Section 8B.02 considers the importance of groundwater in modern American society, with a particular focus on its uses and the threats these resources face. Section 8B.03 describes the U.S. framework for the domestic governance of groundwater resources. Section 8B.04 describes the mechanisms for transboundary governance of groundwater between the United States …

Unveiling The Environmental Impact Of Large Language Models On Indigenous Communities: A Call For Action And Liability, Nina-Simone Edwards

Library Scholarship

Large Language Models (LLMs) have rapidly gained popularity for their language generation and comprehension capabilities, promising increased efficiency in various sectors. However, while celebrated for their transformative potential, LLMs exacerbate current climate issues. This Article highlights the detrimental environmental footprint of LLMs, with a focus on their role in escalating climate change and their disproportionate effects on Indigenous communities. These communities, closely tied to their land, bear the brunt of environmental degradation, further aggravated by LLM-induced emissions.

This Article first dissects the interplay between environmental justice and technological innovation, advocating for a reevaluation of the trust relationship between tribal nations …

Into The Legal “Twilight Zone”: State Tenth Amendment Jurisdiction Displacing Climate Supremacy, Steven Ferrey

Lewis & Clark Law Review

The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution notwithstanding, western states have utilized their reserved Tenth Amendment Constitutional authority, upheld by federal circuit courts, arbitrarily to block their adjacent states’ sustainable infrastructure to address climate change. The Biden Administration set in motion a rapid electrification of the entire U.S. economy via three different new laws enacted sequentially in 2021, 2022, and 2023. A re-directed federal executive branch now oversees these programs and laws. This Article analyzes how each of those three laws suffers from a critical omission plaguing this most significant infrastructure program in the last half century—now forecast counter-intuitively by some …

Is Originalism Bullshit?, Michael L. Smith

Lewis & Clark Law Review

It’s finally time to answer the big question. This Article draws on the surprisingly robust literature examining the definition, essence, and significance of bullshit and evaluates whether originalist constitutional interpretation fits the bill. I begin with Harry Frankfurt’s definition of bullshit as utterances made in pursuit of the speaker’s goals without regard for their truth value. I also rely on alternate formulations, including bullshit as unclarifiable nonsense as well as contextual and audience-centric variations of bullshit.

While not all instances of originalism are bullshit, I identify those instances which are, and go on to demonstrate that originalism is uniquely prone …

The Public Trust Doctrine And Lake Abert: Saving Oregon’S Only Salt Lake, Joseph Arzt

Lewis & Clark Law Review

The public trust doctrine creates a relationship between states and their citizens under which the states are entrusted with protecting natural resources for public use. Though Oregon recognizes the public trust doctrine, recent decisions from Oregon’s Supreme Court have displaced and fractured this doctrine, leaving the current legal landscape surrounding the public trust doctrine in disarray. This Note focuses on Lake Abert, Oregon’s only saline lake, which in recent years, due to mismanagement and neglect, has undergone dramatic ecological shifts. By looking at arguments rooted in Oregon’s Constitution, as well as judicial approaches taken in neighboring states, this Note examines …

Anti-Democratic Rights Of Nature, Noah M. Sachs

Law Faculty Publications

The global Rights of Nature (RoN) movement, which seeks to confer enforceable rights on organisms and ecosystems, has become a political force, and governments are now codifying legal rights for nature in legislation. But policymakers and legal scholars are overlooking how assertions of vague rights held by a limitless class of non-humans could lead to repressive, anti-democratic outcomes. Many scholars view recognition of nature’s rights as an expansion of the boundaries of democracy, but a critical examination of RoN scholarship and advocacy shows that RoN principles are designed to check and constrain democratic institutions. Core tenets of the RoN movement …

Ecosocialism, Degrowth, And Global South Thought: Critical Legal Transformations, Nicholas F. Stump

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

This Article explores how Critical Legal Research (CLR) can help drive transformations of our ecological political economy towards true system change. CLR entails a critical legal theory–informed approach to legal and broader socio-legal research. After articulating the CLR framework, this Article explores its potential in the context of leading and intertwined bodies of theory for transformative change: ecosocialism, degrowth, and Global South and Indigenous thought. Next, this Article offers concrete avenues to help pursue such emancipatory change—i.e., specifically focusing on the popular conception of an “ecosocialist transition.” Ecosocialist transition strategies include non-reformist reforms, dual power, a radical just transition, and …

The North American Gap Ungulates Must Migrate Physically And Legally: Elk As A Case Study, Alex Wendlandt

Wyoming Law Review

Humans have tracked elk hoof prints in North America since ancient times, recognizing the significance of these migratory ungulates in culture, mythology, dietary value, and utility. As migratory ungulates, elk respond to changes in their environment by migrating to and from their summer and winter ranges. Today, elk migrations continue across the jurisdictional boundary of the northern United States and southern Canada, spreading ecological and economic benefits with each track they make. Unfortunately, ungulate migration is an “endangered phenomenon” due to loss of connectivity and loss of habitat. While the United States and Canada have acknowledged the importance of, and …

“There Is No Fashion On A Dead Planet:”1 How A Mandatory Reporting Directive Shared By The Us And The Eu And Centered On Transparency Could Be The First Step To Increased Sustainability In The Fashion Industry, Adrienne Redman

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The fashion industry hangs on self-expression and individualism, yet our methods of consumption and their resulting environmental impacts are far from an individualistic concern. This paper examines the global fashion industry’s substantial contribution to pollution, resource-depletion, and waste as evidence that the self-regulation model is insufficient to curb the environmental footprint of the industry. Self-regulation presumes that consumer awareness and the desire to purchase sustainably will be enough to limit the industry’s environmental impact. However, this presumption is undermined by a lack of standardized and enforceable regulations necessary for consumer-decision making. Instead, greenwashing and deceptive environmental claims have pervaded the …

Human Rights Risks In Clean Energy Supply Chains: Racial Capitalism, Critical Minerals, And Corporate Responsibility, Erika George

Faculty Scholarship

This paper argues that decarbonization will fail to deliver climate justice unless the transition to clean energy confronts the racialized political economy that has historically structured extractive activity and shaped international economic law. Grounding its analysis in racial capitalism, the paper contends that the growing demand for critical minerals risks reproducing patterns of exploitation, expropriation, and expulsion. Using lithium extraction in Chile as a case study, it shows how colonial legacies, dictator-era neoliberal reforms, and present-day regulatory architectures governing foreign investment and natural resource extraction have prioritized investors over human rights and the environment. Recent decisions of the International Court …

Uncharitable Think Tanks, Faith Stevelman

FIU Law Review

As people debate whether the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is good policy, what’s being overlooked is that it’s likely unlawful as the work product of a charitable think tank. (Think tanks nearly always are qualified as charities under the tax code.) To reinforce think tanks’ educational mission, tax law sets rigorous content requirements for their materials. It also bans them from campaigning, sharply limits their lobbying, and prohibits their benefiting private parties. The doctrines are intended to keep think tanks charity-worthy educators, but they have not succeeded.

Ironically, the failure reflects other features of tax law that incentivize using think …

Introduction, Sydney Gass

FIU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutionalizing Climate Rights, Mark Nevitt

FIU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Hunger Games: Food As A Right, Not A Privilege, Camesha F. Little

FIU Law Review

Despite the United Nations' explicit declaration that all humans have a right to food, food insecurity and hunger remain persistent problems in the United States and around the globe. The dystopian landscapes depicted in novels such as The Hunger Games and Parable of the Sower—societies crippled by poverty, oppression, and pervasive starvation—resonate with sobering contemporary realities. This Article examines existing food laws, food rights, and the current protections safeguarding the United States food supply from a humanitarian perspective. Ultimately, this Article argues that the human right to food must expand to encompass a right to healthy or natural food, and …

Colorado River Insights, 2025: Dancing With Deadpool, Colorado River Research Group

Books, Reports, and Studies

No abstract provided.