Digital Commons Network^™

Taking On Water: Winters, Necessity And The Riparian East, Jacqueline Goodrum

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

In the eastern United States, a natural abundance of water has historically satisfied regional water needs. However, rapid population growth and expansive development, as well as changing climate conditions, threaten to deplete and diminish regional water resources. Riparianism, the reigning water rights regime in the American East, is insufficient to address concerns arising from these emerging forces because it assumes sufficient water will be available for all users. Recent interstate disputes, such as Virginia v. Maryland and Florida v. Georgia, highlight a new hydrological reality characterized by not only increased consumption of eastern water resources, but also by increased …

Stepping Into The Breach: State Constitutions As A Vehicle For Advancing Rights-Based Climate Litigation, Benjamin T. Sharp

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

The perceived failures of the political branches to mitigate climate change have led climate change activists to seek alternative means to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions; many are turning to litigation. The claims in these cases rely on a variety of legal bases, but this Note will focus on those cases claiming that governments’ failures to prevent climate change amount to violations of the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Rights-based climate change litigation is likely to increase in the future. Among the most prominent of the surviving rights-based cases is Juliana v. …

Emissions Trading In The United States: Using Rggi As A Model For Addressing Disproportionate Impacts Of Climate Change, Joshua T. Bleisch

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

2016 - California Land Use And Management - A Resource Management Strategy Of The California Water Plan

Miscellaneous Documents and Reports

Land use planning and management cuts across many resource management strategies. More efficient and effective land use is linked to several resource management strategies including watershed, water use efficiency, groundwater quality, flood management, parks and recreation, climate change adaptive management and agricultural lands stewardship. Directly development away from agricultural lands permits multi-objective management of these lands for agricultural preservation, floodplain management, water quality, habitat conservation, and sustainable development. In addition, planning for more compact and sustainable communities, both urban and rural, will assist in reducing reliance on the state-s water supply, and result in more efficient use of California’s water …

Specialization Trend: Water Courts, Vanessa Casado-Pérez

Faculty Scholarship

Definition of property rights is not useful unless there is an enforcement system, either public or private, that backs it up. While the definition of property rights as a solution to the tragedy of the commons has been carefully analyzed in the literature, the enforcement piece has been somewhat overlooked. Water is becoming scarcer and conflict is rising. As a result, the need for an efficient and fair enforcement system is more necessary than ever due to climate change.

Given the complexity of water law and the backlog in the judicial system, introducing specialization in the resolution of water cases …

Innovative Financing Solutions For Community Support In The Context Of Land Investments, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Communities affected by agricultural, forestry, and other resource investments urgently need increased funding for legal and technical support. Without support, communities risk losing access to critical land and resources, suffering human rights violations, or missing opportunities to benefit from investments. A lack of community support can also lead to conflict and challenges that are damaging for companies and host governments.

Donors and support providers have found ways to finance support for communities, but such efforts can only extend so far. Promising new opportunities exist for filling the financing gap, yet they will require sustained efforts by a range of actors. …

The Wild West Re-Lived: Oil Pipelines Threaten Native American Tribal Lands, Ashley A. Glick

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

The Time Has Come For A Universal Water Tribunal, Tarek Majzoub, Fabienne Quilleré-Majzoub

Pace Environmental Law Review

Since its inception in 1981, the International Water Tribunal has emerged as a non-governmental body with a multidisciplinary composition and a mandate based on conventional and customary international water law, which holds public hearings in order to address water-related complaints. This Article describes the historical background of the proposed Universal Water Tribunal (“UWT”) and significant difficulties on the horizon facing the proposed Tribunal (including political, practical, and legal-technical considerations). It then summarizes the key factors of such Tribunal and, finally, touches upon the proposed model based on an expanded concept of jurisdiction. The main underlying thesis is that, whereas the …

Half A Century Of Supreme Court Clean Air Act Interpretation: Purposivism, Textualism, Dynamism, And Activism, David M. Driesen, Thomas M. Keck, Brandon T. Metroka

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Article addresses the history of the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Clean Air Act, which now goes back almost half a century. Many scholars have argued that the Court has shifted from an approach to statutory interpretation that relied heavily on purposivism—the custom of giving statutory goals weight in interpreting statutes—toward one that relies more heavily on textualism during this period. At the same time, proponents of dynamic statutory interpretation have argued that courts, in many cases, do not so much excavate a statute’s meaning as adapt a statute to contemporary circumstances.

Manure Management For Climate Change Mitigation: Regulating Cafo Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under The Clean Air Act, Katrina A. Tomas

University of Miami Law Review

Climate change is the defining challenge of our time, which if unbridled, will imperil our communities and the viability of future generations. Efforts to reduce global temperature rise require more than merely reforming carbon dioxide emissions from the energy and transportation sectors. Notably, climate solutions cannot be reached without simultaneously addressing the more potent methane and nitrous oxide gases. In the United States, intensive factory farms, legally known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (“CAFOs”), are responsible for large emissions of these two greenhouse gases due to manure mismanagement. While there are no federal environmental regulations in place for mitigating CAFOs’ …

Standing Rock Plaintiffs File First Amended Complaint, Columbia Center For Contemporary Critical Thought

Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought

New York, February 1, 2019—Today, Cissy Thunderhawk, Wašté Win Young, the Reverend John Floberg, and José Zhagñay filed their First Amended Complaint in response to state and local defendants’ motions to dismiss. The amended complaint clarifies the civil rights violations caused when defendants closed, to the Tribe and its supporters, the primary road connecting the Standing Rock Reservation to both Bismarck and to numerous public sites of great expressive and religious significance. The plaintiffs are represented by Columbia Law School Lecturer in Law Noah Smith-Drelich and Professor Bernard E. Harcourt through the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought.

China’S Emissions Trading System: Steps Toward Article 6 Linkage, Melinda Melvin

Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum

No abstract provided.

Waste Size: The Skinny On The Environmental Costs Of The Fashion Industry, Elisha Teibel

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

The fashion industry is a web of complex global markets currently valued at $3 trillion that employs somewhere around sixty million people worldwide and is estimated to be one of the most labor-intensive industries on the planet. Over the past couple of decades, the industry has evolved into a highly fragmented sector with complicated supply chains and completely unstandardized production practices, which vary by factory and by country. The most significant facet of the fashion trade is the clothing and textile industry. The current total value of the clothing and textiles trade is estimated at $726 billion and a staggering …

Grassroots Organizing And Medicaid Expansion In Virginia: The Lee County Chapter Of Virginia Organizing And Medicaid Expansion, Brian Johns, Rosemary Gould, Ladelle Mcwhorter

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

The ability to participate in grassroots organizing derives implicitly from the Constitution’s declaration of “We the People” and explicitly from the First Amendment’s guarantee of the right to petition the Government for redress. At Virginia Organizing, we take this grant of power very seriously as is evident from our recent grassroots organizing for Medicaid expansion in Virginia. Our work focused predominately on more rural parts of the Commonwealth where our chapter members have experienced the consequences of a lack of access to health care. By mobilizing individuals passionate about Medicaid expansion and those who suffer from the lack of it …

Remixing Riverside: Environmental Racism And Hip Hop As A Mirror Of Society, Charles E. Murphy

North Carolina Central Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Takeover: Hip Hop's Evolution And Influence In The Law School, Todd J. Clark

North Carolina Central Law Review

No abstract provided.

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 61 Number 1, Winter 2019, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

14 - IN THE BEGINNING An interview with Santa Clara University President Kevin O’Brien, S.J. on what's next and noticing what we swim in. Matt Morgan

22 - ADAM, EVE, AND THE APPLE If making—and appreciating—art makes us human, what happens when we get help making a masterpiece from something unhuman? Lauren Loftus.

28 - BEDROCK When faced with tough decisions, Santa Clara values stand as good guides, says Leon Panetta ’60, J.D. ’63. Leslie Griffy.

Foundations: Curriculum & Faculty, University Of Michigan Law School

Miscellaneous Law School History & Publications

Michigan Law Faculty are the best of the best. As you look through these pages, you will see some of their accomplishments: They serve as senior advisers to policymakers and governments around the world, they argue important cases in courts of every level, and they produce superb research that addresses society's greatest problems.

Our faculty also take teaching very seriously. They are dedicated to using their research and experience to help create a curriculum that will challenge and transform you. Michigan Law's rich curriculum features foundational courses that evolve with the needs of the profession, a wide array of upper-level …

Thirsty For Justice: The Fight For Safe Drinking Water, Debi Ores

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

The United States First Climate Relocation: Recognition, Relocation, And Indigenous Rights At The Isle De Jean Charles, Adam Crepelle

Belmont Law Review

While this article focuses almost exclusively on the Isle de Jean Charles relocation, it hopes to be useful to other climate induced relocations. Section I begins with a discussion of the two major factors contributing to the disappearance of Louisiana’s coast, the blocking of the Mississippi River and the oil industry. In Section II, the article provides an overview of federal recognition, a short history of Louisiana’s coastal tribes, and how being denied federal recognition has impacted them. Section III compares federal Indian law with the rights of indigenous peoples under international law, along with a discussion of the numerous …

Justice And Public Health, Govind Persad

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This chapter discusses how justice applies to public health. It begins by outlining three different metrics employed in discussions of justice: resources, capabilities, and welfare. It then discusses different accounts of justice in distribution, reviewing utilitarianism, egalitarianism, prioritarianism, and sufficientarianism, as well as desert-based theories, and applies these distributive approaches to public health examples. Next, it examines the interplay between distributive justice and individual rights, such as religious rights, property rights, and rights against discrimination, by discussing examples such as mandatory treatment and screening. The chapter also examines the nexus between public health and debates concerning whose interests matter to …

Front Matter

St. Thomas Law Review

Front Matter includes Masthead, advisors, Table of Contents, Preface by Keith Rizzardi, Congratulatory letter from The Vatican, and selected excerpts from The Second International Conference on Climate, Nature, and Society for St. Thomas Law Review Volume 32, Issue 1, Fall 2019.

Transnational Climate Law, Natasha Affolder

All Faculty Publications

Climate change leaves little on this planet untouched. The concept of transnational law is no exception. Transnational law has long functioned as a mechanism for illuminating particular legal subjects, processes, and spaces: the empty space left by existing doctrinal perspectives, the relationships between, around and outside of national laws, the importance for law of private actors and the power and powerlessness of those actors. It offers a way of opening our eyes to spheres of normativity other than the nation state and distinct ways of conceiving of the nation state itself. But climate change shatters the idea that jurisdictional borders …

Climate Change, The Paris Agreement, And Subsidiarity, 52 Uic J. Marshall L. Rev. 257 (2019), Paul Lewis, Giovanni Coinu

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Conservation Easements & Their Critics: Is Perpetuity Truly Forever…And Should It Be?, 52 Uic J. Marshall L. Rev 677 (2019), Richard Roddewig

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Comparative Analysis: Legal And Historical Analysis Of Protecting Indigenous Cultural Rights Involving Land Disputes In Japan, New Zealand, And Hawai'i, Zachary Browning

Washington International Law Journal

This article explores how courts in developed market economies address the tension between recognizing the rights of indigenous groups and addressing questions of land development that supposedly benefit the majority populations. Using a comparative approach, the article identifies three jurisdictions in the Pacific Rim with indigenous populations: (1) the State of Hawai‘i in the United States, (2) Japan, and (3) New Zealand and analyzes how land use courts and administrative bodies have addressed the thorny question pursuing development while fulfilling their obligations to indigenous populations. While the State of Hawai‘i has explicit state constitutional protections, Japan and New Zealand each …

The Impact Of Citizen Environmental Science In The United States, George Wyeth, Lee C. Paddock, Alison Parker, Robert L. Glicksman, Jecoliah Williams

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

An increasingly sophisticated public, rapid changes in monitoring technology, the ability to process large volumes of data, and social media are increasing the capacity for members of the public and advocacy groups to gather, interpret, and exchange environmental data. This development has the potential to alter the government-centric approach to environmental governance; however, citizen science has had a mixed record in influencing government decisions and actions. This Article reviews the rapid changes that are going on in the field of citizen science and examines what makes citizen science initiatives impactful, as well as the barriers to greater impact. It reports …

Clean Energy Justice: Charting An Emerging Agenda, Shelley Welton, Joel Eisen

Faculty Publications

The rapid transition to clean energy is fraught with potential inequities. As clean energy policies ramp up in scale and ambition, they confront challenging new questions: Who should pay for the transition? Who should live next to the industrial-scale wind and solar farms these policies promote? Will the new “green” economy be a fairer one, with more widespread opportunity, than the fossil fuel economy it is replacing? Who gets to decide what kinds of resources power our decarbonized world? In this article, we assert that it is useful to understand these challenges collectively, as part of an emerging agenda of …

Reversing Course On Environmental Justice Under The Trump Administration, Uma Outka, Elizabeth Kronk Warner

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This Article traces how policy reversals in the first years of the Trump Administration implicate protections for diverse, low-income communities in the context of environmental pollution and climate change. The environmental justice movement has drawn critical attention to the persistent inequality in exposure to environmental harms, tracking racial and income lines. As a result of decades of advocacy, environmental justice has become an established, if not realized, principle in environmental law. Shifting positions under the Trump Administration now undermine this progress. To illustrate, this Article uses three exemplary contexts — agency transition, environmental law implementation, and international relations on climate …

"Enough's Enough": Protest Law And The Tradition Of Chilling Indigenous Free Speech, Alix H. Bruce

Celebrating WCL Student Authors

Indigenous peoples in the United States were not granted the full scope of their rights as citizens under the Constitution until the enactment of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. Before that—and after—several state and federal campaigns worked to stifle the civil rights of Indigenous peoples. Many of those unjust and unconstitutional policies were upheld by the Supreme Court. In the current era, the anti-pipeline protests on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota sparked a new recognition of Indigenous resistance under the First Amendment—and vicious state and federal backlash against Indigenous free speech via the …