Digital Commons Network^™

Editing Nature: Reconceptualizing Biotechnology Governance, Jonas J. Monast

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Sioux's Suits: Global Law And The Dakota Access Pipeline, Stephen Young

American Indian Law Journal

The Sioux Tribe’s lawsuits and protests against the Dakota Access Pipelines (DAPL) received an incredible amount of international attention in ways that many Indigenous peoples’ protests have not. This article argues that attention exists because the Sioux Tribe has been at the epicenter of the Indigenous peoples’ rights movement in international law. Accordingly, they have invoked or claimed international human rights—particularly free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC)— to complicate, and perhaps destabilize, the DAPL’s development. However, the importance of their activism is not merely in claiming human rights.

Based upon a global map of law that involves multiple and overlapping …

The “Right” Right To Environmental Protection: What We Can Discern From The American And Indian Constitutional Experience, Deepa Badrinarayana

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Should there be a constitutional right to environmental protection? Arguments for and against are aplenty, but there is no consensus on this issue. Drawing on the experience within the U.S. and Indian Constitutions, this article posits that the right to environmental protection has normative and practical significance, because a constitutional right attaches to an individual and, hence, can protect an individual from environmental harms, whereas environmental laws, that focus primarily on reducing adverse environmental impact on a general population, may not. It further argues that, to be effective, three constitutionally-embedded rights that are central to preserving the right to environmental …

Advanced Biotechnology Tools For Invasive Species Management, Invasive Species Advisory Committee

National Invasive Species Council

Increasingly, genetic tools are being used to detect and solve pressing environmental, social, and health-related challenges. It is clear that investments in technology innovation can be game changing, as advances in biotechnology may provide new methods to protect the nation’s resources from the negative impacts of invasive species. The current toolbox of management options is recognizably insufficient to deal with many of the high-impact species that have been introduced. However, “surrendering” to these species is generally not a viable option from ecological, health, economic, socio-cultural, or political perspectives. Cost-efficient solutions to these “grand invasive species challenges” need to be found. …

A Just Transition: Why Transitioning Workers Into A New Clean Energy Economy Should Be At The Center Of Climate Change Policies, J. Mijin Cha

Fordham Environmental Law Review

With a hostile federal administration, states must take up the fight against climate change. Shortly after the United States withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord, governors from several states announced efforts to meet the targets. This article argues that state level climate actions must consider the economic consequences of climate policy. A shift away from fossil fuels is a fundamentally necessary step in the fight against climate change. However, the economic impact of this shift will be felt most acutely by fossil fuel workers and communities, many of which are already facing economic hardships. Attention and resources must be focused …

Toward Civil Rights Enforcement In The Environmental Justice Context - Step One: Acknowledging The Problem, Marianne Engelman Lado

Fordham Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Barriers And Disincentives To Self-Sufficient Disaster Preparation In The United States, Haley Palfreyman Jankowski

Hofstra Law Review

In the wake of Hurricane Harvey and a slew of other natural disasters affecting the United States, all Americans cannot help thinking about effective damage control for current and future disasters. I grew up in Houston, Texas where we went through countless hurricanes, torrential rainstorms, and the resulting power outages, and after surviving each one, we inevitably thought: What can we do to prepare better for the next one? Preparing to be self-sufficient in the aftermath of a life-changing disaster should be a top priority not just for individuals but for the government as well. After all, the more prepared …

The Ecowas Court, Activist Forces, And The Pursuit Of Environmental And Socioeconomic Justice In Nigeria, Okechukwu Emmanuel Effoduh

LLM Theses

The thesis has two objectives. The first (and central) objective is to examine the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS Court (a sub-regional international court in West Africa), and its role within the West African region, especially how the Court has served as a resource for the Activist Forces that operate in the sub-region, in their pursuit of Environmental and Socioeconomic Justice in Nigeria. The second goal of this thesis, which is ancillary to the first, is to investigate the Courts jurisprudence in three landmark cases: SERAP v. Nigeria & Anor (2010); …

Environmental Injustice And The Problem Of The Law, Uma Outka

Maine Law Review

Over the past fifteen years, legal academia has produced a sizeable body of scholarship on the widely acknowledged problem of environmental injustice. Although there have been positive responses in the policy arena, no similar level of concern is evident in the courts. Most legal claims directly addressing environmental injustice fail, recent developments in civil rights case law are discouraging, and current constructions of environmental laws are proving theoretically inadequate to protect communities already subjected to disproportionate toxic exposure or threatened by new pollution. This Comment explores the state of the law of environmental justice and offers an analysis of why …

The War On Coal, John Copeland Nagle

LSU Journal of Energy Law and Resources

No abstract provided.

Understanding The Linkages Between Urban Transportation Design And Population Exposure To Traffic-Related Air Pollution: Application Of An Integrated Transportation And Air Pollution Modeling Framework To Tampa, Fl, Sashikanth Gurram

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rapid and unplanned urbanization has ushered in a variety of public health challenges, including exposure to traffic pollution and greater dependence on automobiles. Moreover, vulnerable population groups often bear the brunt of negative outcomes and are subject to disproportionate exposure and health effects. This makes it imperative for urban transportation engineers, land use planners, and public health professionals to work synergistically to understand both the relationship between urban design and population exposure to traffic pollution, and its social distribution. Researchers have started to pay close attention to this connection, mainly by conducting observational studies on the relationship between transportation, urban …

Water, Lead, And Environmental Justice: Easing The Flint Water Crisis With A Public Water Contamination Liability Fund, Jonathon Lubrano

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

A Comparative Study On Carbon Emission Reduction Systems, Mingde Cao

Dissertations & Theses

The overwhelming majority of scientists have concluded that global warming is unequivocal. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fifth report in 2013 concluded that the challenge of climate disruption to human beings is even more imperative than the previous report claimed, and that anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions have extremely likely been the dominant causes of the observed global warming since the mid-20th century.

Anthropogenic GHGs emissions have many implications, including more intensive, extreme meteorological events, spreading of diseases, and threatening human health and life. Climate change also causes injustice in human society because of the dislocation of the …

Flint Of Outrage, Toni M. Massaro, Ellen Elizabeth Brooks

Notre Dame Law Review

Officials replaced safe water sources with contaminated water sources for tens of thousands of people living in Flint, Michigan, from April 2014 to October 2015. Overwhelming evidence indicates that the officials knew the water was potentially harmful to residents’ health and property. This unfathomable disregard for the residents of Flint sparked national outrage and prompted criminal charges as well as multiple civil suits.

Residents’ civil claims included two strands of substantive due process: that the actions infringed residents’ fundamental liberty rights to bodily integrity and to state protection from harmful acts by third parties, and that the government actions “shocked …

Seeing The Place Makes It Real: Place-Based Teaching In The Environmental And Planning Law Classroom., Estair Van Wagner

Articles & Book Chapters

A model for place-based teaching in land use and environmental law subjects based on theoretical and experiential foundations - argues legal education should prepare legal graduates to understand and engage in the work of translation and transformation involved in land use disputes - the need for a critical approach to place-based law teaching in order to address calls for the Indigenisation and decolonization of legal education.

Lamarck Revisited: The Implications Of Epigenetics For Environmental Law, Michael P. Vandenbergh, David J. Vandenbergh, John G. Vandenbergh

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

For generations, a bedrock concept of biology was that genetic mutations are necessary to pass traits from one generation to the next, but new developments in genetics are challenging this fundamental assumption. A growing body of scientific evidence demonstrates that chemical alteration of the way a gene functions, whether through exposure to chemicals, foods or even traumatic experiences, may not only affect the exposed individual, but also the individual’s offspring for two generations or more. This interaction between genes and the environment, known as epigenetics, has revolutionized the understanding of how genes are expressed within an individual and how they …

Water Security, Rhett B. Larson

Northwestern University Law Review

Climate change, as the dominant paradigm in natural resource policy, is obsolete and should be replaced by the water security paradigm. The climate change paradigm is obsolete because it fails to adequately resonate with the concerns of the general public and fails to integrate fundamental sustainability challenges related to economic development and population growth. The water security paradigm directly addresses the main reasons climate change ultimately matters to most people—droughts, floods, plagues, and wars. Additionally, this new proposed paradigm better integrates climate change concerns with other pressing global sustainability challenges—including that economic development and population growth will require 50% more …

Where There's A Will, There's A Way: The Cause For A Cure And Remedial Prescriptions For Forum Non Conveniens As Applied In Latin American Plaintiffs' Actions Against U.S. Multinationals, E.E. Daschbach

Law and Business Review of the Americas

No abstract provided.

Food With Integrity?: How Responsible Corporate Officer Prosecutions Under The Federal Food, Drug, And Cosmetic Act Deny Fair Warning To Corporate Officers, Clay D. Sapp

Arkansas Law Review

[W]hen it comes to food safety, we have to rely on the companies that manufacture and distribute food to ensure that the food we buy is safe. In fact, most consumers give little thought to the safety of their food. I know I don’t and I bet many of you don’t either. We simply don’t expect to get sick from the food at our favorite restaurant, or from peanut butter or the eggs or the cantaloupes or the countless other products that we buy at the supermarket. That is why food safety is a priority for the Justice Department. Our …

Death Row Conditions Through An Environmental Justice Lens, Andrea C. Armstrong

Arkansas Law Review

Glenn Ford lived on death row at Louisiana State Penitentiary for twenty-nine years, three months and five days. Typically, he was confined in his cell for at least twenty-three hours of a given day, seven days a week. Glenn was convicted of the armed robbery and murder of Isadore Rozeman. After prosecutors Martin Stroud and Carey Schimpf used six of their eight peremptory challenges to exclude African-Americans from the jury venire, Glenn was sentenced to death in 1984 by an all-white jury. He was a devoted friend to many and, to the extent possible given his incarceration, a committed father …

Laudato Si’: Engaging Islamic Tradition And Implications For Legal Thought, Russell Powell

Seattle University Law Review

This Essay considers the 2015 papal encyclical Laudato si’s engagement with Islamic religious and legal traditions in order to identify shared ethical and jurisprudential commitments and their broader implications for law. By 2025, Muslims will constitute 30% of the population of the world, while Catholics will likely be between 15% and 20%. The history of interreligious conflict is long and enduring. In many cases, legal structures related to security and immigration have exacerbated these tensions, prompting uncertainty and instability.5 Laudato si’ is a strategic document, intended to address climate change, increasing economic inequity, and interreligious conflict by opening a space …

Law & Health Care Newsletter, Fall 2017

Law & Health Care Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Getches-Wilkinson Center Newsletter, Fall 2017, 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.

Case Global: Alumni, Faculty And Students Join Fight For Immigrant Rights In U.S., Case Western Reserve University School Of Law, The Frederick K. Cox International Law Center

Case Global Newsletter

Vol. 9, No. 1 (2017)

• Alumni, faculty and students join fight for immigrant rights in U.S. (cover)
• Special Report: Fighting for Immigrant Rights
• LLM Program Earns Top Ranking
• Jessup and Vis Teams Win Top Honors
• Journal of International Law Celebrates 50th Year
• Law School in Cutting Edge in Foreign Partnerships
• Foreign Policy Talk Radio Show Renewed for Fifth Year
• Law School Partners in Nation’s First Graduate Program in Military Ethics
• Financial Integrity Degree Expanding to D.C.
• Law School Receives Historic Grant for Human Trafficking Program
• Law Students Intern Around the World
• “How I Spent My Summer”
• 2017-18 Conferences and Lectures …

Lamarck Revisited: The Implications Of Epigenetics For Environmental Law, Michael P. Vandenbergh, David J. Vandenbergh, John G. Vandenbergh

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

For generations, a bedrock concept of biology was That genetic mutations are necessary to pass traits from one generation to the next, but new developments in genetics are challenging this fundamental assumption. A growing body of scien- tific evidence demonstrates that chemical alteration of the way a gene functions, whether through exposure to chemicals, foods or even traumatic experiences, may not only affect the exposed individual, but also the individual's offspring for two generations or more. This interaction between genes and the environment, known as epigenetics, has revolutionized the understanding of how genes are expressed within an individual and how …

An Examination Of Policy Options For Achieving Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions In New Jersey, Gabriel Pacyniak

Faculty Scholarship

An Examination of Policy Options for Achieving Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions in New Jersey surveys emissions and energy trends, describes a “deep decarbonization pathway” for the state, and identifies the types of policies that would be necessary to achieve those reductions. Many of the policies address the power and transportation sectors, which account for more than 60 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions from New Jersey. The report also includes options for improving building efficiency, reducing methane leaks from natural gas infrastructure, restoring natural carbon sinks in forests and wetlands, and incorporating equity considerations to address the needs of frontline …

Address At The Lincoln Charter Of The Forest Conference, Bishop Grosseteste University: The Charter Of The Forest: Evolving Human Rights In Nature, Nicholas A. Robinson

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This conference is a singular event, long over due. It has been 258 years since William Blackstone celebrated “these two sacred charters,”1 Carta de Foresta and Magna Carta, with his celebrated publication of their authentic texts. In 2015, the Great Charter of Liberties enjoyed scholarly, political and popular focus. The companion Forest Charter was and is too much neglected.2 I salute the American Bar Association, and Dan Magraw, for the ABA’s educational focus of the Forest Charter, as well as Magna Carta. Today we restore some balance with this conference’s searching and insightful examination of the Forest Charter’s significance.

You Probably Shouldn’T Build There: Watershed-Based Land Use Strategies For Mitigating Global Climate Change In New Jersey’S Freshwater Systems, Matthew Knoblauch

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

The Dangers Of Water Privatization: An Exploration Of The Discriminatory Practices Of Private Water Companies, Elana Ramos

Environmental and Earth Law Journal (EELJ)

No abstract provided.

The Place Of Private Property In Land Use Law: A Relational Examination Of Ontario's Quarry Conflicts, Estair Suarez Van Wagner

PhD Dissertations

Land use law structures the way we make decisions about how we live together and with the world around us. In doing so, it shapes our relationships not only with the people around us, but with the places we inhabit and encounter. This dissertation examines how land use law structures the relations between people and the more-than-human world to uphold the ownership model of property relations and to privilege particular forms of land use. Through documentary and interview-based qualitative research, it presents an eco-relational examination of one of the most contentious land uses in Ontario aggregate mineral extraction.

The primacy …