Digital Commons Network^™

Session 3: Virtual Luncheon Session, Student Submissions

SITIE Symposiums

A Working Lunch brainstorming discussion, moderated by Professor Smirniotopoulos, to discuss “What Comes Next?” in the context of Innovating the Built Environment: How the Law Responds to Disruptive Change.

Registered students in Prof. Smirniotopoulos’s Innovating the Built Environment course will take one-to-two minutes each to present their initial project ideas for their Final Projects in the course, as well as outlining and moderating a discussion of the Challenges and Opportunities presented by their ideas. Symposium participants are encouraged to set up lunch in front of their computers and participate actively in discussing each student’s project idea, providing relevant …

Justice For Juristac: Using International And Comparative Law To Protect Indigenous Lands, Zartner, Dana

Santa Clara Journal of International Law

Justice for Juristac: Using International and Comparative Law to Protect Indigenous Lands

Indigenous Feminism Perspectives On Environmental Justice, Deborah Mcgregor

Articles & Book Chapters

In this chapter, you will learn about the emergence of a distinct theoretical, methodological, and practical approach for accounting for gender in relation to environmental justice called Indigenous feminism. Indigenous feminism will be defined and outlined as an important field of study to advance the contributions, insights, rights, and responsibilities of Indigenous women. While the ideology of feminism has been in existence for decades, Indigenous feminism has only recently emerged. Joyce Green, an Indigenous scholar, writes that Indigenous feminism seeks to “raise issues of colonialism, racism and sexism and unpleasant synergies between these three violations of human rights” (Green, 2007, …

Note: Building Blocks Of A Fundamental Right: A Thought Experiment On The Constitutional Right To A Livable Climate, Melanie Hess

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

When civil rights lawyers sought to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson in the years leading up to Brown v. Board of Education, they faced a history of institutionalized segregation and inequality, constitutional acceptance of the “separate but equal” doctrine, and sharp social divisions on the issue. Other landmark cases of rights recognition, such as Obergefell v. Hodges and Roe v. Wade, similarly built upon years of evolution in law, precedent, and social opinion that made them inconceivable before their time. Early versions of the litigation strategies envisioning these judgments might have been tentative and vague, lacking in factual, legal, …

Hatching A Plan For Local Communities: Environmental Justice In Poultry Siting Decisions, Diana Stanley

Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy

One of the implementation problems for environmental justice is reconciling the need to protect public health with the economic realities of struggling communities. This article explores that tension through the lens of siting decisions for large scale poultry operations in rural communities. Poultry siting decisions have major economic and environmental impacts and have been underdiscussed in the environmental justice literature. This article focuses on the role of law and policy in concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) siting— from community benefit agreements to Right to Farm legislation. It uses a Kansas CAFO siting and the wider Kansas experience as a case …

Table Of Contents

Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Integrative Environmental Law: A Prescription For Law In The Time Of Climate Change, Alyson C. Flournoy

Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum

As the magnitude of the threat posed by climate change has become increasingly apparent, scholars and practitioners have begun a dialogue about how to reform environmental law to meet the challenge. Concepts like adaptive management, sustainability, and resilience have emerged in succession, as policy makers and scholars search for new moorings for our ethical and legal framework. While useful, these concepts have failed to provide a vision, goal, or solid ethical grounding for environmental law in the era of climate change.

This project takes a new approach by exploring what we can learn from the field of Integrative Medicine. The …

Imagining Global Health With Justice: Transformative Ideas For Health And Wellbeing While Leaving No One Behind, Lawrence O. Gostin, Eric A. Friedman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color in the United States and immense vulnerabilities in lower-income countries has revealed a global health reality that is often overshadowed by decades of progress in overall global health, with new lows in child and maternal deaths every year, more people with HIV receiving access to lifesaving anti-retroviral therapy, and rising life expectancies. That reality is one of vast national and global inequalities, with the lived experiences of members of marginalized populations far removed from laudatory health headlines.

Here, we propose an ambitious agenda to bridge the gap between progress in global …

Civil Justice And The (Green) New Deal, Zachary D. Clopton

DePaul Law Review

No abstract provided.

Desert In The Deluge: Using Data To Drive Racial Equity, Elizabeth J. Kennedy

Catholic University Law Review

Corporations, governments, and research institutions have learned to harness the power of data to make strategic and operational decisions that drive profitability, efficiency, and efficacy. Making meaningful use of an unprecedented and expanding volume of high velocity, complex and variable data sets—so called “big data—has also been heralded to help solve social problems like human trafficking, homelessness and climate change. Despite this data deluge, those engaged in the advancement of racial equity in workforce development operate in a data desert. Structural barriers to workplace opportunity and advancement perpetuate racialized gaps in wages and household wealth and result in poorer outcomes …

Roger Williams University School Of Law Commencement, May 15, 2020, Bristol, Rhode Island, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Commencement (1996- )

No abstract provided.

Recent Case Decisions

Oil and Gas, Natural Resources, and Energy Journal

No abstract provided.

Concerning Catskill: Missed Opportunity, Broken Precedent And The Plight Of American Waters, Chase Corey

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

As society progresses and the population grows, uninhibited and unregulated pollution has become a pressing dilemma for current and future generations. Whether it is plastic on the beaches, oil in the oceans, or smog in the air, modern citizens of the Earth face a daily onslaught of visible consequences from the actions of polluters. But what about the not so visible consequences? Every day there is pollution occurring at a microscopic level, yet many are unaware of its presence. This infinitesimal issue is nutrient pollution, and despite its diminutive cause, it is deeply affecting one of the world’s most vital …

Environmental Justice: Law, Policy & Regulation, Clifford Villa, Nadia Ahmad, Rebecca Bratspies, Roger Lin, Clifford Rechtschaffen, Eileen Gauna, Catherine O'Neill

Faculty Book Display Case

Environmental Justice: Law, Policy, & Regulation explores theory and practice in this dynamic subject, which fuses environmental law and civil rights enforcement. From early concerns over toxic waste in minority communities, environmental justice expanded to consider the range of environmental threats facing poor, immigrant, and indigenous communities; women, children, and seniors; and other vulnerable populations. This third edition provides extensively updated materials to address environmental justice concerns today, including oil drilling in the Arctic, the Dakota Access Pipeline, drinking water contamination in Flint, and the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Featuring new chapters addressing disaster justice and …

Journal Of Food Law & Policy - Spring 2020, Journal Editors

Journal of Food Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Dairy Tales: Global Portraits Of Milk And Law, Jessica Eisen, Xiaoqian Hu, Erum Sattar

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Cow’s milk has enjoyed a widespread cultural signification in many parts of the world as “nature’s perfect food.”1 A growing body of scholarship, however, has challenged the image of cow’s milk in human diets and polities as a product of “nature,” and has instead sought to illuminate the political, scientific, colonial and postcolonial, economic, and social forces that have in fact defined the production, consumption, and cultural signification of cow’s milk in human societies. This emerging attention to the social, legal, and political significance of milk sits at the intersection of several fields of academic inquiry: anthropology, history, animal studies, …

Moses Lukwanda And 9 Others V Zambia Airforce Projects Limited And 7 Others Caz/08/323/2019, Pamela T. Sambo

SAIPAR Case Review

No abstract provided.

Tear Gas + Water Hoses + Dispersal Orders: The Fourth Amendment Endorses Brutality In Protest Policing, Karen Pita Loor

Faculty Scholarship

Thirty years ago, in Graham v. Connor, the Supreme Court determined that excessive-force claims against police should proceed via the Fourth Amendment, which theoretically protects an individual against unreasonable seizures. However, the Court showed extreme deference to law enforcement’s use of force by using a permissive reasonableness analysis that bestows on police great leeway to make quick split-second decisions in tense and rapidly evolving circumstances. The result is a test that, from its inception, has been too forgiving of police violence and misconduct. This lax reasonableness standard, along with qualified immunity principles, has shielded police from § 1983 civil rights …

Issuance Of The Keystone Xl Permit: Presidential Prerogative Or Presidential "Chutzpah", Hope M. Babcock

Montana Law Review

No abstract provided.

Issuance Of The Keystone Xl Permit: Presidential Prerogative Or Presidential “Chutzpah”, Hope M. Babcock

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article uses President Trump's issuance of the Keystone XL Pipeline permit to illustrate the dangers of an imperial presidency, one in which the exercise of discretionary authority, based on neither the text of Article II of the Constitution nor a statute, will in all likelihood be unchecked by Congress, the courts, or popular opinion. To understand the dimensions of this concern, Part I of this article briefly describes the process and requirements for a presidential permit. Part II identifies key facts surrounding issuance of the Keystone XL Pipeline permit, the chronology of its issuance, and commonly given reasons supporting …

Death By Crosspollination: The Uncontrollable Natural Occurrence That Could Kill Organic Farming And The Legal Solutions To Save An Industry, Austin Warhime

Belmont Law Review

No abstract provided.

"Forever Chemicals": Forever Altering The Legal Landscape, Leticia M. Diaz, Margaret R. Stewart

Belmont Law Review

No abstract provided.

Out To Save The World: The Intersection Of Animal Welfare Law, Environmental Law, And Respect For Fragile Ecosystems, Stacey G. Sterling

Belmont Law Review

No abstract provided.

Citizen Engagement In Aquatics Equity: The Case Of Winston Waterworks, Steven N. Waller Phd, James H. Bemiller Jd, Emliy J. Johnson, Chermaine D. Cole, Jason Scott Phd, Angela Wozencroft, Phd

International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education

Historically, swimming pools have been a source of inequity when it comes to the distribution of recreation services in the United States. Many of the problems that correlate with the inequitable allocation of recreation resources including public swimming pools began with ideas about race, geography, poor planning practices and faulty policymaking (Rothstein, 2017). Moreover, one of the primary outcomes of engaged, inclusive planning is equity in the provision of recreation programs and facilities. In this essay, we offer a summary of key legal cases that help address questions related resource allocation related to public swimming pools. Finally, we present a …

The Basel Convention On The Control Of Transboundary Movements Of Hazardous Wastes And Their Disposal: A Legal Misfit In Global Ship Recycling Jurisprudence, Ishtiaque Ahmed

Washington International Law Journal

The Basel Convention has tempted developed nations into the practice of exporting hazardous waste into undeveloped nations’ territories simply for money in the name of recycling. Being extremely business unfriendly, particularly for the recycling industry, this convention has not been welcomed by many developing nations, leading to serious policy and legal uncertainty in those jurisdictions. However, in the absence of any dedicated, enforceable international legal instrument, the Basel Convention currently remains the foundation of ship-recycling jurisprudence in the domestic courts of all dominant, ship-recycling states and the rest of the world, and the basis for curbing the movement of end-of-life …

Environmental Justice In Little Village: A Case For Reforming Chicago’S Zoning Law, Charles Isaacs

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Chicago’s Little Village community bears the heavy burden of environmental injustice and racism. The residents are mostly immigrants and people of color who live with low levels of income, limited access to healthcare, and disproportionate levels of dangerous air pollution. Before its retirement, Little Village’s Crawford coal-burning power plant was the lead source of air pollution, contributing to 41 deaths, 550 emergency room visits, and 2,800 asthma attacks per year. After the plant’s retirement, community members wanted a say on the future use of the lot, only to be closed out when a corporation, Hilco Redevelopment Partners, bought the lot …

Building A Law-And-Political-Economy Framework: Beyond The Twentieth-Century Synthesis, K. Sabeel Rahman, Amy Kapczynski, David Singh Grewel, Jedediah Britton-Purdy

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Suffering Matters: Nepa, Animals, And The Duty To Disclose, David N. Cassuto, Tala Dibenedetto

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires the federal government to disclose potential environmental harms arising from agency actions. Animal suffering is an environmental harm, yet no court has ruled that its infliction triggers a reporting obligation under NEPA. This Article argues that animal suffering should be a cognizable environmental harm under NEPA, that considerations of animal suffering should factor into whether an agency must prepare an EIS--and should be discussed in the content of the EIS.

Part II of this Article introduces and explains the procedural requirements of NEPA. Part III discusses animal suffering--how it is defined, how laws …

Changing Consultation, Elizabeth Kronk Warner, Kathy Lynn, Kyle Whyte

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

As climate change and fossil fuel extractive industries ravage Indian country and burden many Indigenous communities with risks, the negative impacts on tribal sovereignty, health, and cultural resources demand consultation between tribes and the federal government. Yet, this is an area where the law fails to provide adequate guidance to parties who should be engaging or are already engaging in tribal consultations. The law, both domestic and international, may require that consultation occurs, but leaves parties to determine themselves what constitutes effective and efficient consultation. The legacy of the law’s inability to provide effective guidance has generated a litany of …

Indigenous Communities Versus Oil Companies: Identifying Trends In Tactics And Success Of Indigenous-Led Anti-Petroleum Movements In The Ecuadorian Amazon, Ella V. H. Carlson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In roughly the last 50 years, the Ecuadorian Amazon has become the epicenter of petroleum production in Ecuador. As oil companies attempt to exploit more and more of the rainforest, they have encroached on indigenous lands, leading to violations of indigenous rights through environmental destruction. As their territories have been invaded, indigenous groups throughout the Amazon have formed movements large and small in resistance to petroleum activities. Scholars have studied select campaigns in the past, but the literature lacks a comparative review of the characteristics of those movements. This paper compiles histories of seven campaigns against petroleum in the Ecuadorian …