Digital Commons Network^™

Hidden Burdens: Household Water Bills, “Hard-To Reach” Renters, And Systemic Racism, Martha F. Davis

Seton Hall Law Review

No abstract provided.

Procedural Environmental Justice, Jonathan Skinner-Thompson

Washington Law Review

Achieving environmental justice—that is, the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies—requires providing impacted communities not just the formal right, but the substantive ability, to participate as equal partners at every level of environmental decision-making. While established administrative policy purports to provide all people with so-called meaningful involvement in the regulatory process, the public participation process often excludes marginalized community members from exerting meaningful influence on decision- making. Especially in the environmental arena, regulatory decisions are often …

Sexual And Reproductive Health Care For Undocumented Californians: Universal Health Care & Reproductive Justice, Josephine Emily Roberts

Master's Theses

Universal Health Care can hardly be achieved if the Sexual Reproductive Health needs of a population are not met. In other words, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Universal Health Care are mutually reinforcing, and the state of California should consider this when implementing Medi-Cal health care for all Undocumented Californians. In 2016, California implemented an extension of Medi-Cal treatment to undocumented children up to 26 years of age. Comparable to the United States Federal Medicaid program aimed to help cut health care costs for low-income and vulnerable populations, Medi-Cal offers some coverage for emergency medical services to undocumented individuals of …

For The Sake Of The Smith Island Cake: A Reinterpretation Of The Stafford Act To Facilitate Culturally Informed Community Buyouts And Relocation, Chloe Shostak

Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum

No abstract provided.

Polarizing Impact: Indigenous Consultation Under International Labor Organization Convention 169 And The Emerging Polar Shipping Industry, Danika Elizabeth Watson

Fordham Law Review Online

This Article analyzes U.S. ratification of International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 169, Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (“Convention 169” or “C. 169”), by evaluating the impact in terms of its ability to solidify its protections of the land and lifeways of Arctic Indigenous people and strengthen the United States’s position as an international leader in Arctic life, development, and policy. Part I presents the issues. Part II introduces the growth of a polar shipping industry in the context of a rapidly melting Arctic. Part III provides a brief gloss on the complex and shifting international legal framework governing Arctic sovereignty …

Beyond Brownfields Redevelopment: A Policy Framework For Regional Land Recycling Planning, Joseph Schilling

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

The fields of urban policy and urban planning lack a cohesive and comprehensive framework for recycling vacant and abandoned properties. Past and present efforts to repurpose vacant land and abandoned properties were often narrow responses driven primarily by economic redevelopment policies such as urban renewal of the 1950s & 1960s, deindustrialization of the 1970s & 1980s, and the public-private partnerships featured during the 1990s & 2000s. The 2008-2015 mortgage foreclosure crisis and Great Recession put the policy spotlight on how to address the widespread impacts from thousands of vacant and/or foreclosed homes that affected diverse markets and communities across the …

Four Modes Of Engagement: Positioning University Urban Design And Research Centers For The Future, Courtney Crosson

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

University urban design and research centers, which link academic pedagogy and research activities to real-world projects, have grown in number over the last several decades. As the rate of urbanization accelerates and universities’ missions become increasingly grounded in visible impact and financial self-sufficiency, these centers continue to offer an important and appealing model. This paper looks at the evolution of these centers from their beginnings in the 1950s, advancement in the 1980s, resurgence in the first decade of the 2000s, and current growing status. From a survey of over fifty centers throughout the United States, a typology is established based …

Saving The World Through Zoning: The Sustainable Development Code, Regeneration, And Beyond, Jonathan Rosenbloom, Chris Duerksen

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

The land use and planning community began to address sustainability at the local level in the 1990s, but in reality, state-of-the-art development codes drafted in the 1990s and early 2000s did little to address climate change, energy conservation, community health, loss of biodiversity, shifting biochemical cycles, racial justice, food supply, and other key sustainability issues. This article reviews past challenges that had to be overcome for sustainable development codes to become mainstream. The good news is that an increasing number of local governments are adopting ambitious sustainable development codes that hold great promise to not only protect the environment and …

Forty Years Of Environmental Justice: Where Is The Justice?, Jon A. Mueller, Taylor Lilley

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

Environmental Justice (or“EJ”) has been recognized as a concept since

at least 1982. After decades of incremental and ineffective efforts by the federal

government, it has become clear that EJ must evolve beyond the concept

stage if it is to be an effective vehicle for social and legal change. At its heart,

EJ is a function of social inequities and environmental harms, and the disproportionate

correlation between those components can no longer be ignored

by state and federal actors. The way forward must be paved with practical

legal solutions and affirmative application of regulatory authority. This

article examines the history …

The Albany Answers Plant Incinerator : Environmental Justice And Slow Violence At The New York State Capital, Matthew D. Saddlemire

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The ANSWERS plant and its impact on the residents of Sheridan Hollow has recently been accepted by many as a case of environmental injustice. Simply looking at the benefits and burdens of environmental processes shows clearly that the primarily black community faced most of the health burdens that came from waste in the capital region, while white residential areas who sent their trash to ANSWERS faced minimal risk. The state benefitted from energy production, which was used to heat and cool the Empire State Plaza, the Alfred E. Smith State Office Building, the state Education Building and New York State …

Moderating From Nowhere, Gilad Abiri

BYU Law Review

We are living in the midst of a battle over online hate speech regulation, and the stakes could not be higher. Hate speech not only harms its intended victims, be they individuals or groups, but it also polarizes and divides society in ways that undermine the health of democratic regimes. While there is widespread agreement that the current situation of online discourse is untenable, scholars and policymakers are deeply divided on the best way to improve it.

Until recently, American free speech norms have dominated the content moderation policies of digital media platforms. First Amendment norms are extremely resistant to …

Maroons, The Law And Degrowth: A Sustainable People In A Sustainable Environment, Brenda Reddix-Smalls

Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum

Maroon settlements in North America's Mid-Atlantic colonies have recently received extensive attention from scholars and researchers. While anthropological and archaeological research and explorations have unearthed significant material liminal artifacts to indicate the presence of maroon communities in the Great Dismal Swamp (GDS) located between Virginia and North Carolina, few human remains from the interior have been reported and unearthed. Colonial records, slave laws, deeds, and newspaper advertisements of the early colonial period (1600s–1800s), provide written documentary evidence of maroon presence in the GDS. However, scant attention has been paid to the correlation between the profit motives of the colonial settlers, …

Sdlp After 20: Sustainable Development In The Anthropocene, David Hunter

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

This volume marks the 20th anniversary of Sustainable Development Law and Policy (SDLP) published by the students of American University’s Washington College of Law. SDLP was founded to explore the legal and policy dimensions of sustainable development (i.e. the simultaneous pursuit, or integration, of economic development, environmental protection, and social welfare). During its twenty years, SDLP has provided a forum for scholars, practitioners, and students to analyze the complex challenges to achieving economic and social justice within the constraints of our planet’s natural environment. From its first volume addressing liability for carbon trading, the regulation of genetically modified organisms, and …

Access Is Everything - Post Rhpa Virginia - What's Next? The Case For Rhea And Other Matters, Galina Varchena, Margie Del Castillo

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

Virginia has taken positive forward steps to liberalize its abortion legislation,

bringing it closer in line with medical science and common sense. However,

accessing abortion care remains difficult for many, and additional legislative

measures are necessary to make the full range of reproductive

healthcare accessible for all, regardless of immigration status, race, gender,

income, or geography. The Reproductive Equity Healthcare Act, a bill modeled

in part on its Oregon namesake, is the next logical step forward towards

making reproductive justice a reality for all Virginians. While the details of

the final bill may vary, there are fundamental pillars that reproductive …

Prospects For Reform? The Collapse Of Community Policing In Chicago, Wesley G. Skogan

University of Chicago Law Review

In an era of renewed enthusiasm for police reform, it could be instructive to examine how reforms—even successful reforms—fail. In the 1990s and 2000s, Chicago’s community-policing initiative was widely recognized as one of the most impressive in the country. In short order, it then collapsed. Community policing’s accomplishments were numerous, but it fell victim to issues commonly facing reform: money—especially the impact of economic downturns; leadership turnover and policy preferences; changes in the social, political, and crime environments; and the emergence of new technologies for responding to community concerns.

Hoosier Public Health: Reinvigorating Indiana Lead Law Using A Lens For Health Equity, Cassidy Segura Clouse

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

Cle Working Paper No. 1/2022--How Law Shapes Food Sovereignty In Urban Canada, Julia Witmer

Centre for Law and the Environment

Inspired by the right to the city, this paper outlines the legal architecture of food sovereignty activities in urban Canada. The architecture is rooted in three fields of law: constitutional law, municipal and planning law, and health law, and explored through various case studies in urban centers. The paper reviews legal instruments in each field and analyzes how they shape different food sovereignty activities in supportive and restrictive ways. Constitutional law generally proves restrictive in its limited recognition of local government as true government, restricted provincial power in agricultural regulation, and its general treatment of food as a commodity. Municipal …

Centering Environmental Justice In California: Attempts And Opportunities In Ceqa, Lena Freij

UC Law Environmental Journal

Environmental justice communities and advocates have used the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) as a necessary tool to incorporate their concerns into agency decision-making. However, environmental justice is neither mentioned in the statutory language of CEQA, nor was it intended as a fundamental purpose of CEQA as an environmental review statute. Thus, in order to understand where CEQA reform would be most successful in serving communities that are disproportionately impacted by environmental burdens, CEQA’s history must be evaluated with comprehensive principles of environmental justice. As such, this paper explores why and how environmental justice principles can and should be implemented …

Grizzlies, Wolves, And Law In The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem: Wildlife Management Amidst Jusidictional Complexity And Tension, Robert Keiter

Wyoming Law Review

No abstract provided.

Procedural Environmental Justice, Jonathan Skinner-Thompson

Publications

Achieving environmental justice—that is, the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies—requires providing impacted communities not just the formal right, but the substantive ability, to participate as equal partners at every level of environmental decision-making. While established administrative policy purports to provide all people with so-called “meaningful involvement” in the regulatory process, the public participation process often excludes marginalized community members from exerting meaningful influence on decision-making. Especially in the environmental arena, regulatory decisions are often buried …

The Legal Relations Of ‘Private’ Forests: Making And Unmaking Private Forest Lands On Vancouver Island, Estair Van Wagner

All Papers

While the vast majority of forestlands in Canada are considered ‘Crown land’, there are key areas of private forestland. On private land the incidents of fee simple ownership mean the owner emerges as land use decision maker – the “agenda setter” for the land. Yet a richer set of legal relations exists in these forests.

Indigenous legal orders derived from an enduring relationship with the land and place also govern forestlands. Using the case of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway lands in British Columbia, this article explores the intersection between historical and contemporary human-forest relations upheld by Anglo-Canadian law and …

Sustainable Communities Or The Next Urban Renewal?, Moira O’Neill, Giulia Gualco-Nelson, Eric Biber

Faculty Scholarship

Inadequate housing supply in California’s most expensive metro areas drives a statewide housing crisis that challenges climate policy implementation, fair housing goals, and poverty reduction. Many scholars and policy makers agree that increasing dense infill transit-oriented residential development (TOD) in high-cost metro areas could address this housing crisis while also mitigating the impacts of climate change. But some advocates and scholars liken state policy that promotes TOD to twentieth century urban renewal—contending that state-incentivized TOD disproportionately displaces lower income communities. To explore this issue, and to examine the relative influence of both state law promoting TOD and local law regulating …

Improving New Market Tax Credit Accessibility To Address Food Vulnerability, Zahraa Nasser

Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

No “Box To Be Checked”: Environmental Justice In Modern Legal Practice, Clifford J. Villa

Faculty Scholarship

For nearly thirty years, environmental justice has been part of our civic conversation and included in the mission of federal agencies. But while public attention to environmental justice has waxed and waned over time, environmental justice principles have endured and developed into rules of law. This development may be expected to continue and accelerate with recent events such as the nationwide outcry after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, the disparate impacts of COVID-19 on people of color, and the express priorities of the Biden administration. This paper seeks to help legal practitioners and other interested parties comprehend …

Small Suburbs, Large Lots: How The Scale Of Land-Use Regulation Affects Housing Affordability, Equity, And The Climate, Eric Biber, Giulia Gualco-Nelson, Nicholas Marantz, Moira O’Neill

Utah Law Review

Housing costs in major coastal metropolitan areas nationwide have skyrocketed, impacting people, the economy, and the environment. Landuse regulation, controlled primarily at the local level, plays a major role in determining housing production. In response to this mounting housing crisis, scholars, policymakers, and commentators are debating whether greater state involvement in local land-use decision-making is the best path forward.

We argue here that there are good reasons to believe that continuing on the current path—with local control of land-use regulation as it is— will lead to persistent underproduction of housing. The benefits of housing production are primarily regional, including improved …

Small Suburbs, Large Lots: How The Scale Of Land-Use Regulation Affects Housing Affordability, Equity, And The Climate, Eric Biber, Giulia Gualco-Nelson, Nicholas Marantz, Moira O’Neill

Faculty Scholarship

Housing costs in major coastal metropolitan areas nationwide have skyrocketed, impacting people, the economy, and the environment. Landuse regulation, controlled primarily at the local level, plays a major role in determining housing production. In response to this mounting housing crisis, scholars, policymakers, and commentators are debating whether greater state involvement in local land-use decision-making is the best path forward. We argue here that there are good reasons to believe that continuing on the current path—with local control of land-use regulation as it is— will lead to persistent underproduction of housing. The benefits of housing production are primarily regional, including improved …

Out Of Jail And Out Of Luck: The Effect Of Negligent Hiring Liability And The Criminal Record Revolution On An Ex-Offender's Employment Prospects, Ryan D. Watstein

Florida Law Review

No abstract provided.

Implementation Of Human Rights Certification As A Request For Human Rights Protection To Workers In The Fishery Industry, Tito Pramudita

"Dharmasisya” Jurnal Program Magister Hukum FHUI

The responsibility of the state is one of the important keys in the life of the state, one of which is in labor matters. In its implementation there are several records of violations of human rights in the Indonesian Sea, namely Trafficking in Persons, Forced / Slavery Labor, Child Labor, Overtime and the absence of health insurance. Research Objectives To analyze regulations in Indonesia regulating the protection of human rights for workers in the fishing industry in Indonesia and Fisheries Human Rights Certification contained in the Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Regulation No. 35 of 2015 has effectively provided …

Rewriting Our Nation's Deadly Traffic Manual, Sara C. Bronin, Gregory H. Shill

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Every day, Americans entrust their lives to a road system that is governed by the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways (the Manual). On its face, this Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) publication is a straightforward technical document. It contains over eight hundred pages of engineering guidance on everything from traffic-light placement to the font of highway signs. It also establishes acceptable methods for officials to modify speed limits.

While such provisions may sound inconsequential, some of the Manual’s provisions have far-reaching, even deadly, consequences. They prioritize vehicular speed over public safety, mobility over other uses of …

Caring For The Souls Of Our Students: The Evolution Of A Community Economic Development Clinic During Turbulent Times, Gowri J. Krishna, Kelly Pfeifer, Dana Thompson

Articles

Community Economic Development (CED) clinicians regularly address issues surrounding economic, racial, and social justice, as those are the core principles motivating their work to promote vibrant, diverse, and sustainable communities. When COVID-19 arrived, and heightened attention to police brutality and racial injustice ensued, CED clinicians focused not only on how to begin to address these issues in their clinics, but on how to discuss these issues more deeply and effectively with their students. This essay highlights the ways in which the pandemic school year influenced significant rethinking of one CED clinic’s operations: first, the pandemic sharpened the clinic’s mission to …