Digital Commons Network^™

Review Of Heart Of Sky, Heart Of Earth Directed By Frauke Sandig And Eric Black, Beth Williford

Societies Without Borders

No abstract provided.

“It Is Laced With Faults”: American Indians, Public Participation And The Politics Of Siting A High-Level Nuclear Waste Repository, Jesse P. Van Gerven

Societies Without Borders

In this article I analyze American Indian claims made during the siting process for a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. By utilizing the concepts of distribution and recognition (Fraser 2003) to analyze American Indian claims for financial compensation, cultural artifact/resource protection, and environmental justice I reveal the existence and extent of both objective and intersubjective obstacles preventing greater public participation in environmental decision-making. Through a textual/discourse analysis of public documents associated with the Yucca Mountain Project, my analysis demonstrates how distributive and recognitional injustices impede democratic participation in environmental decision-making, which contributes to the continuation of environmental …

Complex Value Choices At The Environment-Energy Interface, Hari M. Osofsky

Articles

This dilemma of environment-energy decisions that have major positives and negatives from either a health or ecosystem perspective poses an important ethical challenge that this Essay explores. Namely, in many cases, one can value humans, species, and ecosystems, and still not be able to resolve the best way forward. The Essay focuses in particular on a core problem at the environment-energy interface: people demand cheap and reliable energy, which pushes us towards new technology or the massive expansion of existing technology, both of which carry risks and possibilities for a cleaner future. The Essay considers this dilemma in the U.S. …

Hybrid Energy Governance, Hari M. Osofsky, Hannah J. Wiseman

Articles

This Article develops a novel theory of energy governance and uses it to assess how institutional innovation can help meet critical challenges. Energy law is substantively complex and deeply fragmented. Each energy sector - including fuel extraction and pipelines, electricity generation and transmission, and transportation - has its own legal regime and federalism approach; confusion often exists at moments of crisis about how much authority federal, state, and local regulators have in these areas. The complexity and fragmentation of energy law are particularly problematic because the energy system faces major transitions due to emerging technology, more unpredictable and extreme weather …

The Market For Local Public Goods, H. Spencer Banzhaf

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

Are Mothers Hazardous To Their Children’S Health?: Law, Culture, And The Framing Of Risk, Linda C. Fentiman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article examines the psychosocial processes of risk construction and explores how these processes intersect with core principles of Anglo-American law. It does so by critiquing current cultural and legal perceptions that mothers, especially pregnant women, pose a risk to their children’s health. The Article’s core argument is that during the last four decades, both American society and American law have increasingly come to view mothers as a primary source of risk to children. This intense focus on the threat of maternal harm ignores significant environmental sources of injury, including fathers and other men, as well as exposure to toxic …

Local Government And The Closing Of The Coast: Parking Bans And The Beach As A Traditional Public Forum, Robert Thompson

Fordham Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Weathering Nepa Review: Superstorms And Super Slow Urban Recovery, John Travis Marshall

Faculty Publications By Year

Delays in implementing long-term neighborhood housing recovery measures following urban disasters profoundly disrupt a city's revitalization and resurgence. Following recent large-scale urban disasters, some blame the National Environmental Policy Act environmental and historical review requirement for greatly slowing the long-term recovery process. They claim that the National Environmental Policy Act review is ill suited for the exigencies of disasters. Finding effective ways to advance urban disaster recovery as quickly as possible, while not compromising key environmental quality objectives, is a central challenge to implementing effective post-disaster recovery plans. This Article addresses how best to balance necessary regulation with critical disaster …

The Social Value Of Mortality Risk Reduction: Vsl Vs. The Social Welfare Function Approach, Matthew D. Adler, James K. Hammitt, Nicolas Treich

Faculty Scholarship

We examine how different welfarist frameworks evaluate the social value of mortality risk reduction. These frameworks include classical, distributively unweighted cost–benefit analysis—i.e., the “value per statistical life” (VSL) approach—and various social welfare functions (SWFs). The SWFs are either utilitarian or prioritarian, applied to policy choice under risk in either an “ex post” or “ex ante” manner. We examine the conditions on individual utility and on the SWF under which these frameworks display sensitivity to wealth and to baseline risk. Moreover, we discuss whether these frameworks satisfy related properties that have received some attention in the literature, namely equal value of …

Hispanic Communities And Environmental Justice: A Comparative Study Of Mobility And Exposure To Air Toxics In Houston, Maricarmen Hernandez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Environmental justice research has focused too little attention on immigrant communities. This study extends from the premise that themes of immigration and mobility among racial/ethnic minority communities must be more carefully analyzed by environmental justice (EJ) scholars. By clarifying why Hispanic people live where they live, and what factors shape their exposures to cancer risks from hazardous air pollutants, this study aims to contribute to the existing EJ body of knowledge. The analysis employs qualitative methods, implemented as part of a larger National Science Foundation-funded study. In-depth semi-structured phone interviews were conducted with randomly selected Hispanic individuals, some of whom …

Identity: Lesbian Lawyers In South Florida An Oral History, Charlene L. Smith, Eileen Smith-Cavros, Ana Alvarez

Nova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nova Law Review 38, #1

Nova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Symbolic Politics For Disempowered Communities: State Environmental Justice Policies, Tonya Lewis, Jessica Owley

Journal Articles

Environmental law is riddled with symbolisms of protecting the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the environment in which we live. Sometimes these symbols are simply inherent characteristics of the legislation or policy as their very creation symbolizes or represents the politico’s stance on an issue. Other times, the legislation or policy is used primarily as a symbol, without ever addressing the issue or effectuating change, sometimes referred to as symbolic politics. In this research, we apply the theory of symbolic politics to New York State’s decade-old policy on environmental justice and postulate that although the policy has …

Comeback Of Community-Based Forest Management: The Need To Revamp Strategies To Promote Decentralized Environmental Governance In India And Brazil, Naysa Ahuja

Florida A & M University Law Review

The governance of forests and their resources has always been a contentious issue. It has created a divide between developing and developed countries, as well as within them. With the increasing recognition of forests as valuable commodities in the global market, the management of forests in developing countries is becoming a matter of constant concern for ecologists, economists, and politicians.

Part I of this article provides an overview of the Participatory Forest Management (PFM) approach in the international context. Part II and III examine environmental governance in the forest sector of two rapidly emerging economies of the world, India and …

President Obama And The New Politics Of Inclusion In The Climate Change Debate, Leslie G. Fields, Royce G. Brooks

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

¡Peligro! Si Usted No Entiende La Etiqueta, Busque A Alguien Para Que Se La Explique A Usted En Detalle: The Need For International And Domestic Implementation Of Bilingual Pesticide Labeling To Enhance Protection Of Migrant Farmworkers In Florida, Vanessa Calcano Thomas

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Responding To Environmental Injustice: The Civil Rights Act And American Federal Institutional And Systemic Barriers To Private Redress Of Disparate Environmental Harm, Michael B. Jones, Peter J. Jacques

Florida A & M University Law Review

This article discusses the use of private action in federal institutions for relief from disparate racial impacts. The courts have eliminated consideration of § 602 disparate impact regulations as the basis for a private right of action challenging environmental harms. Legislative action seems unlikely in this era of gridlock and partisan polarization. Agency action seems to offer the most avenues for consideration of environmental justice concerns. However, agencies are bureaucratic and subject to election results, Congressional oversight and budgetary limitations, and backlogs of determination of environmental justice complaints. Deeply rooted systemic institutional racism further constrains possible reforms to the federal …

Move, Or Wait For The Flood And Die: Protection Of Environmentally Displaced Populations Through A New Relocation Law, Jessica Scott

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The 'Compelling Government Interest' In School Diversity: Rebuilding The Case For An Affirmative Government Role, Philip Tegeler

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

How far does Justice Kennedy’s “moral and ethical obligation” to avoid racial isolation extend? Does the obligation flow primarily from Supreme Court case law, does it derive from an evolving consensus in the social sciences, or does it also have a statutory basis in Title VI and other federal law? In addition to its value as a justification for non-individualized, race-conscious remedial efforts by state and local governments, does the compelling interest identified in Parents Involved also suggest an affirmative duty on the part of the federal government? And if so, how far does this affirmative duty extend, and how …

Front Matter

Michigan Law Review

No abstract provided.

Lawyering That Has No Name: Title Vi And The Meaning Of Private Enforcement, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this Essay examines the problem of private enforcement of Title VI. The Essay reviews the unduly constrained approach to private enforcement taken by courts in prominent decisions such as Regents of the University of California v. Bakke and Alexander v. Sandoval. Yet the Essay argues that to focus primarily on private court enforcement of Title VI will continue to relegate the provision to the margins of civil rights discourse, to make the provision appear largely as the "sleeping giant" of civil rights law. The practice …

Transnational Forfeiture Of The Getty Bronze, Derek Fincham

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

Italy has been engaged in an ongoing fifty-year struggle to recover an ancient Greek bronze. The "Bronze Statue of a Victorious Youth" has a remarkable story. It was lost at sea in the Adriatic in antiquity; found by chance in international waters; smuggled into the Italian seaside village of Fano; hidden first in a bathtub, then a cabbage field; smuggled and hidden in Brazil; later conserved in Germany and London; and ultimately purchased by the Getty Museum only months after the death of the Trust's namesake, J. Paul Getty. Getty refused to allow his museum to purchase the statue during …

Combatting Reproductive Oppression: Why Reproductive Justice Cannot Stop At The Species Border, Marya Torrez

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article argues that the oppression of nonhuman animals and marginalized humans, particularly women of color and low-income women, are deeply interconnected, especially through reproductive exploitation. It contends that the reproductive justice movement must expand its scope to include nonhuman animals, as their exploitation mirrors and perpetuates the oppression of marginalized humans. The article emphasizes that achieving true reproductive justice requires addressing the intertwined systems of domination based on species and sex.

Disparity In Judicial Misconduct Cases: Color-Blind Diversity?, Athena D. Mutua

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Equally Recognized? The Indigenous Peoples Of Newfoundland And Labrador, Sébastien Grammond

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

In Canada, certain Indigenous groups are struggling to obtain official recognition of their status and rights. This is particularly so in Newfoundland and Labrador, where the authorities took the stance, when the province joined Canada in 1949, that no one would be legally considered Indigenous. This paper analyzes the claims of the Indigenous groups of that province, which have resulted, over the last thirty years, in various forms of official recognition. In particular, this article highlights how the concept of equality was used by these Indigenous groups to buttress their claims. Equality, in this context, was mainly conceived of as …

Climate Change And Environmental Justice: Lessons From The California Lawsuits, Alice Kaswan

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

This essay does not debate the political wisdom of suing; instead, it takes the suits as a given and attempts to enhance understanding of the environmental justice community’s climate justice agenda. It describes the role of environmental justice in the development of California’s climate law, AB 32, describes the lawsuits, and suggests some of the larger lessons about climate policy, cap-and-trade, and environmental justice that these lawsuits reveal. Ultimately, the environmental justice lawsuits highlight two primary themes: (1) the importance of a holistic approach to climate change policy that recognizes and integrates its multiple dimensions, including co-pollutant implications; and (2) …

Health Law As Social Justice, Lindsay Wiley

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Health law is in the midst of a dramatic transformation. From a relatively narrow discipline focused on regulating relationships among individual patients, health care providers, and third-party payers, it is expanding into a far broader field with a burgeoning commitment to access to health care and assurance of healthy living conditions as matters of social justice. Through a series of incremental reform efforts stretching back decades before the Affordable Care Act and encompassing public health law as well as the law of health care financing and delivery, reducing health disparities has become a central focus of American health law and …

Protecting Your Environment, Exacerbating Justice: Avoiding "Mandate Havens", David Takacs

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Paternalistic Interventions In Civil Rights And Poverty Law: A Case Study Of Environmental Justice, Anthony V. Alfieri

Articles

No abstract provided.

Objecting To Race, Anthony V. Alfieri

Articles

No abstract provided.