Digital Commons Network^™

Unequal Homes, Unequal Health: Applying The Loss Of Chance Doctrine To Landlord-Tenant Cases, Delaram Takyar

Publications

Low-income families and families of color in the U.S. are disproportionately likely to live in homes that are negligently maintained by landlords, with significant implications for their physical health. Despite suffering harm, tenants often cannot seek legal relief without ruling out all possible alternate causes of their injuries. For example, if a tenant develops asthma after being exposed to black mold in her home and can show that her landlord had knowingly refused to remediate the mold, the tenant would still be barred from relief if she were genetically predisposed to developing asthma or could have also been exposed to …

Pachamama Over People And Profit: A Case For Indigenous Ecology And Environmental Personhood, Hilda Loury

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nepantla/Coatlicue/Conocimiento, Gerald Torres

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. By Gloria Anzaldúa.

Faulty Foundations: An Investigation Into Toxic Homes In The Blackfeet Nation, Kathleen Elyse Shannon

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In 2002, a class action lawsuit came out of the Blackfeet Nation. The plaintiffs were residents of a federally-funded housing project called Glacier Homes, and they were suing Blackfeet Housing and the Department of Housing and Urban Development because their homes were making them sick. The case got some local media coverage for a couple years. But it was ultimately forgotten and the plaintiffs never got a remedy.

This long-form audio project revives this story and asks listeners to think about these plaintiffs’ arguments in a modern light. The Glacier Homes offer a lens through which to think about several …

Mai Bhago And Amrita Devi Bishnoi: Women Of Strength, Sowmya Ayyar

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Mai Bhago (1670-1720), also known as Bhag Kaur, distinguished herself on the battlefield to defend the Sikh faith. Amrita Devi Bishnoi (d. 1730) is said to have sacrificed her life with 362 others to protect the Khejari trees in the Rajasthan desert. Both women continue to inspire social justice and ecological activism.

Energy Insecurity Mitigation: The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program And Other Low-Income Relief Programs In The Us, Andrea Nishi, Diana Hernández, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

Energy insecurity, defined as the “inability to meet basic household energy needs,” can be both a chronic and an acute problem. Chronic energy insecurity manifests as an inability to access or afford adequate supplies of energy, while acute energy insecurity arises when infrastructural, maintenance, environmental, or other external sources disrupt or impede access to energy. A substantial number of individuals and families across the United States experience energy insecurity, which can lead to a variety of adverse consequences including residential instability and poor health outcomes.

New York Environmental Legislation In 2022, Michael B. Gerrard, Edward Mctiernan

Faculty Scholarship

Several significant environmental bills were enacted by the New York legislature and signed by Gov.Kathy Hochul in 2022, and several others were vetoed. As a result of measures enacted last year, New York will see $4.2 billion invested in environmental protection, restoration, climate resiliency and clean energy projects; potential disproportionate and inequitable impacts on disadvantaged communities will become a key factor in determining whether environmental permits are issued; and apparel containing intentionally added per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) will no longer be sold in the state. In addition, important changes were made to New York’s brownfield and wetlands laws. These …

New York Adopts Nation’S Strongest Environmental Justice Law, Michael B. Gerrard, Edward Mctiernan

Faculty Scholarship

On March 3, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the strongest environmental justice (EJ) law in the United States. While federal guidelines and the laws of some other states — notably California, Massachusetts, and Washington — require analysis, disclosure and consideration of EJ issues, only a New Jersey law adopted in 2020 imposed substantive limitations, as we discussed in our May 12, 2021, column. New York’s new law—building on enactments in 2019 and 2020 — is even more restrictive.

The new law — which we’ll call the EJL — provides that the Department of Environmental Conservation(DEC) “shall not issue an …

The Prosecution Bar, William Ortman

Scholarly Works

The American legal profession needs a prosecution bar. Before lawyers are permitted to appear for the government in a criminal case, they should be licensed not just to practice law, but to practice prosecution. The two are not the same. Regulating them as if they were fosters injustice and fortifies the carceral state.

“Doing justice” is the orienting creed of prosecutorial ethics, in theory, while on the ground, American prosecutors routinely indulge in unjust practices. This Article argues that prosecutors’ membership in an undifferentiated legal profession is the key to understanding the contradiction. Lawyers’ training, socialization, and professional regulation fixate …

Annotated Legal Bibliography

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Synthesizing Energy Transitions, Danielle Stokes, Nadia Ahmad, Uma Outka, Hannah Wiseman

Law Faculty Publications

This Article assesses the growing and cross-disciplinary literature on energy transitions to explore how it can guide law and policy reforms for the energy sector. The modern conception of energy transition centers primarily on clean energy—a shift away from fossil energy dependence. It also, however, incorporates equity as a core principle, as an increasing emphasis on energy justice and just transition seeks to create guiding norms for the energy sector’s current state of change. The concept of energy transition is critical for describing and giving meaning to a fundamental societal shift at the local, regional, national, and global scales, aligned …

ศึกษาและวิเคราะห์ความสอดคล้องระหว่างแนวคิดว่าด้วยการจัดการทรัพยากรร่วมโดยมีชุมชนเป็นฐานกับพระราชบัญญัติป่าชุมชน พ.ศ. 2562, ปลายฟ้า โตศักดิ์สิทธิ์

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

ในการศึกษาและวิเคราะห์ความสอดคล้องระหว่างแนวคิดว่าด้วยการจัดการทรัพยากรร่วม โดยมีชุมชนเป็นฐานกับพระราชบัญญัติป่าชุมชน พ.ศ. 2562 มีวัตถุประสงค์เพื่อศึกษาและวิเคราะห์ หลักการสำคัญของพระราชบัญญัติป่าชุมชน พ.ศ. 2562 และเพื่อศึกษาความสอดคล้องกันระหว่าง หลักการจัดการร่วมที่มีชุมชนเป็นฐาน (Community-Based Co-Management) กับพระราชบัญญัติ ป่าชุมชน พ.ศ.2562 รวมทั้งเพื่อเสนอแนวทางการพัฒนากฎหมายป่าชุมชนเพื่อให้เกิดความ สอดคล้องกับหลักการจัดการร่วมที่มีชุมชนเป็นฐาน ทั้งนี้ การตราพระราชบัญญัติป่าชุมชน พ.ศ. 2562 เป็นการสอดรับบทบัญญัติมาตรา 43 (2) ของรัฐธรรมนูญแห่งราชอาณาจักรไทย พุทธศักราช 2560 ในเรื่องสิทธิของชุมชนในอันที่จะจัดการ บำรุงรักษา และใช้ประโยชน์จากทรัพยากรธรรมชาติ สิ่งแวดล้อม และความหลากหลายทางชีวภาพ อย่างสมดุลและยั่งยืน จากการศึกษาการจัดการทรัพยากรร่วมกันได้อย่างมีประสิทธิภาพ ในศึกษา กรณีพระราชบัญญัติป่าชุมชน พ.ศ. 2562 พบว่ามีประเด็นทางข้อกฎหมายดังต่อไปนี้ 1) ประเด็นเรื่องสิทธิในจัดการทรัพยากรป่าไม้ในป่าชุมชน 2) ประเด็นเรื่องความหมายของป่าชุมชนตามพระราชบัญญัติป่าชุมชน พ.ศ. 2562 ตามมาตรา 4 พื้นที่ที่จะนำไปจัดตั้งเป็นป่าชุมชนได้นั้น ต้องเป็นป่าที่อยู่นอกเขตป่าอนุรักษ์หรือพื้นที่อื่นของรัฐนอกเขตป่าอนุรักษ์ เป็นการให้อำนาจแก่กรมป่าไม้เข้ามาจัดการและควบคุมกำกับการจัดการป่าชุมชน 3) ประเด็นเรื่องการจัดตั้งป่าชุมชนตามพระราชบัญญัติป่าชุมชน พ.ศ. 2562 ในการขออนุญาตเพื่อจัดตั้งป่าชุมชนตามพระราชบัญญัติป่าชุมชน พ.ศ. 2562 นั้น ชุมชนจะต้องมีการจัดเตรียมเอกสารมากมาย ตามมาตรา 33 รวมไปถึงการตรวจสอบจากสำนักจัดการทรัพยากรป่าไม้แห่งท้องที่อย่างเข้มงวด และได้รับการอนุมัติจากคณะกรรมการป่าชุมชนประจำจังหวัดในการพิจารณาคำขอจัดตั้งป่าชุมชน แผนจัดการป่าชุมชน และรายงานผลการตรวจสอบซึ่ง แสดงให้เห็นถึงการตรวจสอบจากรัฐและยังคงไว้ซึ่งการรวมอำนาจในการจัดการทรัพยากรธรรมชาติไว้ที่รัฐ ซึ่งขัดแย้งต่อการรับรองสิทธิของชุมชนตามรัฐธรรมนูญแห่งราชอาณาจักรไทย พุทธศักราช 2560 ในมาตรา 43 (2) 4) ประเด็นเรื่องการขาดการมีส่วนร่วมของชุมชนในป่าชุมชน ตามมาตรา 16 ผู้ที่มีอำนาจควบคุมกำกับการจัดการป่าชุมชนไม่ใช่ตัวแทนจากภาคประชาชนที่อยู่ภายในพื้นที่เขตป่าชุมชน แต่เป็นตัวแทนของรัฐจากส่วนกลาง ทำให้ขาดความใกล้ชิดกับสภาพปัญหา สภาพภูมิศาสตร์ และเศรษฐกิจในพื้นที่ รวมถึงวัฒนธรรมความเชื่อ ส่งผลให้ภาคประชาชนไม่ได้ร่วมมือร่วมใจกันในการจัดการควบคุมการใช้และการอนุรักษ์ทรัพยากรธรรมชาติและสิ่งแวดล้อม 5) ประเด็นเรื่องการกระจายอำนาจ (Decentralization) ให้แก่องค์กรปกครองท้องถิ่น ตามพระราชบัญญัติกำหนดแผนและขั้นตอนการกระจายอำนาจให้แก่องค์กรปกครองส่วน ท้องถิ่น พ.ศ. 2542 ในมาตรา 16 (24) บัญญัติให้กระจายอำนาจให้ อบต.หรือเทศบาล มีอำนาจ จัดการ การบำรุงรักษา และการใช้ประโยชน์จากป่าไม้ …

Using State Law Before The Glaciers Thaw: Climate Torts After Bp V. Baltimore, Jillian Mayer

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

We are living in the beginning stages of Earth’s sixth mass extinction. Since the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century, the burning of fossil fuels has released huge quantities of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses (“GHGs”) into the atmosphere. The increased concentration of GHGs causes the atmosphere to retain more heat. Consequently, ecosystems and weather patterns shift and change faster than most plants, animals, and human societies can adapt. Climate change threatens global peace, crashes economies, and creates humanitarian crises.

Osgoode Syllabus Of Courses And Seminars: 2023 - 2024, Office Of Student Services

Syllabi

No abstract provided.

A Contractual Relationship With Environmental Justice, Seema Kakade

American University Law Review

While corporations have long grappled with environmental issues, environmental justice is different. Corporations regularly manage compliance with environmental permits over a polluting facility’s long lifespan. Justice issues, however, are a fast-growing space for corporations as they wrestle with employee, government, customer, and public demands to step up for the communities that are directly impacted by the pollution their facilities produce. This Article explores the relationship between corporate polluters and impacted communities, with a focus on private-ordering tools like contracts. Such a focus enriches environmental justice law’s traditional focus on government decisionmakers, moving instead to corporate decision-making about where, how, and …

Present And Future Of Environmental Law In Cuba, Daimar Cánovas González

FIU Law Review

The environmental legal framework in Cuba is based on constitutional article 75 and Law 81, of July 11, 1997, on the environment, a framework law on the matter, with a series of complementary provisions with the rank of Decree Law or Ministerial Resolution. The adoption of the new constitutional text in 2019 is followed by the updating of all environmental legislation that requires a new framework law, which fills the gaps in the current one and leads to more effective environmental management. The paper addresses some of the areas in which significant changes have occurred or should occur. In particular, …

Cuba's Energy Future: Options Based On Renewables And Non-Carbon-Based Sources, Colin Crawford

FIU Law Review

My intention is to research and write on article on Cuba's energy future. Specifically, I plan to consider the options for a sustainable energy future using renewable energy sources and not carbon-dependent sources. This analysis will require both an examination of the island's historical energy challenges as well as consideration of the options for developing a sustainable energy infrastructure with international governmental (e.g. UN, World Bank etc.) and regional governmental (e.g. EU) support- an analysis that will also require consideration of the island nation's socialist political system and its willingness to engage internationally. The topic is one, clearly, with implications …

Litigation To Protect The Marine Environment: Parallels And Synergies With Climate Litigation, Randall S. Abate, Nadine O. Nadow, Hayley-Bo Dorrian-Bak

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This paper reviews recent successes and obstacles in using litigation as a tool to address issues in several contexts in the marine environment. It surveys developments at the international, national, and sub-national levels and offers lessons from creative climate litigation strategies as a way to enhance litigation to protect the marine environment. It also recommends ways in which the ocean-climate nexus can provide mutual benefits in advancing the agendas of climate change regulation and ocean stewardship.

Why Stop Grazing The Climate Commons?, Brigham Daniels

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Many have argued that climate change is the textbook example of a tragedy of the commons. Assuming that is correct, to make headway on climate change, we would expect an enforceable agreement that provides for global collective action. The tragedy of the commons assumes that those who cut back when others do not are—to use the formal language of game theorists—suckers. So, the last thing we would expect is a surge of unilateral action. Contrary to theory, for the past decade, unilateral climate action has flourished among governments, businesses, other organizations, and individuals.

Is the number of climate suckers growing …

Resilient Carbon, Lingxi Chenyang

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Carbon offsets allow polluters to pay someone else to reduce, avoid, or remove emissions to counterbalance their own emissions. For some, carbon accounting concerns render offsets a necessary evil to be tightly regulated on the path toward decarbonization. For others, moral and political concerns render offsets a dangerous mistake to be thrown out of the climate law toolbox. This Article defends the critical role of carbon offsets in climate law, reframing the problem as the broader challenge of “climate resilience” and explaining why offsets are uniquely suited to integrate decarbonization and adaptation. It calls attention to overlooked adaptive practices like …

Regulatory Trading, David A. Weisbach

Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Research Paper Series

Regulatory trading systems, such as the SO2 cap and trade system, are ubiquitous in environmental and natural resources law. In addition to cap and trade systems for pollutants such as SO2, NOx and CO2 , environmental and natural resources law uses trading in areas such as endangered species, water quality, wetlands, vehicle mileage, and forestry and farming practices. Trading, however, is rarely used as a regulatory approach in other areas of law. This paper seeks to identify the reasons for this dichotomy. To understand the dichotomy, the paper examines the uses of trading in environmental and natural resources law, where …

Rationing Access, Roy Baharad, Gideon Parchomovsky

Vanderbilt Law Review

Protection of common natural resources is one of the foremost challenges facing our society. Since Garrett Hardin published his immensely influential The Tragedy of the Commons, theorists have contemplated the best way to save common-pool resources-—national parks, fisheries, heritage sites, and fragile ecosystems-—from overuse and extinction. These efforts have given rise to three principal methods: private ownership, community governance, and use restrictions. In this Essay, we present a different solution to the commons problem that has eluded the attention of theorists: access rationing. Access rationing measures rely not only on restrictions on the number of users but also on a …

Waste And Chemical Management In A 4°C World, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

Many chemicals and hazardous substances are kept in places that can withstand ordinary rain, but not severe storms or floods. If these events occur and the chemicals are released, people and the environment may be endangered. This Article discusses the hazards posed to chemical and waste disposal facilities by extreme weather events that would be worsened as a result of climate change, and how U.S. laws do (or do not) deal with these hazards; and considers how the law would need to change to cope with what would happen to these facilities in a potentially 4°C world. It is adapted …

Survey Of 2022 Cases Under State Environmental Quality Review Act, Michael B. Gerrard, Edward Mctiernan

Faculty Scholarship

The courts in New York issued 43 opinions in 2022 under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA). Of these, the largest number — 27 — upheld agency decisions not to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS), and eight overturned such decisions. Six cases upheld actions that had been the subject of an EIS; none overturned such actions. Two cases can’t be classified in this fashion.

These numbers are in line with the longstanding pattern that a project’s greatest litigation vulnerability under SEQRA is the failure to prepare an EIS; if an EIS has been prepared, very rarely will the …

Front Matter And Table Of Contents

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sovereign Lands, Brent D. Chicken, Amanda J. Dick

Oil and Gas, Natural Resources, and Energy Journal

No abstract provided.

Climate Change And Indigenous Groups: The Rise Of Indigenous Voices In Climate Litigation, Maria Antonia Tigre

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Climate change’s pervasive human rights impacts on populations worldwide are widespread and now widely known. One avenue to address these human rights impacts is the growth of rights-based climate litigation. There are now hundreds of cases worldwide grounded on human rights claims. However, less attention has been brought to how vulnerable groups are disproportionally affected by climate change. Indigenous groups, in particular, are disproportionately affected by climate change due to their connection to their land and dependence on their ecosystems. To increase global attention and seek legal remedies to address how Indigenous communities are impacted by climate change, Indigenous groups …

Note From The Editor

Alaska Law Review

No abstract provided.

Keynote Address: Alaska Native Peoples And The Environment, Elizabeth Saagulik Hensley, Esq.

Alaska Law Review

No abstract provided.

Heat Waves And A Public-Private Partnership In Alaska, Karen Sandrik, Sarah Matsumoto

Alaska Law Review

The recently-passed Inflation Reduction Act represents the largest single step that Congress has taken to combat harms from climate change. In its over $360 billion commitment, the Act incentivizes clean energy development and generation, includes methods to directly lower residential utility bills and increase home efficiency, promotes cleaner transportation and agricultural practices, and funds states' and cities' efforts to meet their individual climate goals. While many environmental organizations applauded the Act's passage, some—even simultaneously—expressed concern about its tradeoffs: the Act continues to invest in fossil fuels, subsidizing pipeline construction and guaranteeing new oil and gas leases, specifically expanding leasing in …