Digital Commons Network^™

Sidewalk Living, Michael C. Pollack

Articles

In City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment does not prohibit a city from enforcing a criminal ban on encampments on public property such as parks and sidewalks. But even if municipalities are now permitted to use tactics such as policing, encampment clearing, arrests, and imprisonment, these are not the right ways to address the problems of public homelessness.

Instead, homelessness must be understood as one of many conflicts over limited public space. At its best, vibrant sidewalk life enhances communities and local economies. But at its worst, every use of these finite …

State Climate Superfunds, Rachel Rothschild

Articles

The harmful effects of climate change have already arrived in cities and states across America, with disasters increasing markedly in recent years along with more gradual environmental changes like sea-level rise and drought. To protect populations and natural resources, significant funding will be necessary for preventative measures as well as disaster response.

At present, it is states and ordinary taxpayers who must shoulder the enormous costs and planning for climate adaptation. A number of state legislators, however, have recently proposed enacting new laws that would require the companies who have most profited from fossil fuel usage to assist in funding …

Rethinking The Fund Termination Sanction, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Articles

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is often referred to as the “sleeping giant” of civil rights law. It is a “giant” because it prohibits any form of race discrimination engaged in by any recipient of federal financial assistance, and because the remedy set forth in the statute for a violation is the termination of federal funds. And it is “sleeping” because, except for a brief moment during the desegregation era, the federal government had never seriously attempted to terminate a recipient’s federal grants for a violation of the statute. Nor had the federal government seriously attempted …

Constitutional Futurism As Pedagogy, Jeremiah Chin

Articles

Constitutional Law has transformed from a course on history to a discussion of current events. Cases like Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo reveal that the study of constitutional law is not a static, or even linear, discussion of constitutional text and history. Law is a shifting, changing enterprise that reflects social constructions of power, authority, and identity. How do we teach, learn, and understand constitutional law that is so laden with history, riddled with theories of consistency and adherence to precedent, but ultimately subject …

Comparing Conventional And Alternative Mechanisms Of Discovering And Accessing The Scientific Literature, William H. Walters

Articles

This study compares the bibliographic and full-text coverage of 15 conventional and alternative discovery/access mechanisms: two multidisciplinary library databases (Scopus and the Web of Science Core Collection), five single-subject databases, the integrated library search (ILS) mechanism of Manhattan University, a scholarly search engine (Google Scholar), two web-based scholarly databases (Dimensions and OpenAlex), two academic social networks (Academia.edu and ResearchGate), and two pirate sites (Anna’s Archive and Sci-Hub). The analysis is based on known-item searches for 875 target documents in chemistry, materials science, cardiology, public health, economics, education, and psychology. Overall, Google Scholar, OpenAlex, and the ILS are the most comprehensive …

Property Values: Accounting For Racial Valorization And Stigmatization In Development, Audrey G. Mcfarlane

Articles

No abstract provided.

Integrating Standards For Infrastructure Improvement And Resilience In University Curricula, Lisa Greenwood, Jennifer Schneider, Sumita Mishra, Yewande S. Abraham, Shriram Karpoora Sundara Pandian

Articles

In today’s ever-changing world, we are increasingly vulnerable to shocks and stresses that disrupt industry and society. Persistent threats from natural and manmade hazards require our communities and infrastructure to be resilient despite possible disruption. Creating robust infrastructures is founded on operational and physical standards to withstand and respond to threats such as environmental exposures, climate change, and informational security breaches. The significant U.S. investment in infrastructure projects through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has amplified the need for professionals in engineering and related fields who – in addition to technical knowledge - possess the necessary knowledge and skill …

Environmental Geography And Law: Toward A Synthesis, Michaela Anang-Hadjicostandi, Sophia Borgias, Karrigan Börk, Ann M. Eisenberg, Guadalupe M. Franco, Cinnamon Carlarne Hirokawa, Keith H. Hirokawa, Jonathan London, Melinda Morgan, Jessica Owley, Shannon Roesler, Sonya Ziaja

Articles

This Article introduces the new interdisciplinary field of Environmental Geography and Law, which has deep roots in ecology, social science, and law. Environmental and natural resources laws are situated in specific times and places where the climate, ecosystems, history and political economy influence both the land and the law. These places drive and constrain the way law develops. In turn, the law shapes places, from the dispossession and forced migration of indigenous groups, to land development via railroad land grants, to patterns of resource extraction and infrastructure development. Past efforts to integrate law and geography have focused more on critical …

Waste, Property, And Useless Things, Meredith Render

Articles

How should the law respond to intentionally useless objects that are constructed from scarce materials and thrust into an overcrowded world?

Approximately sixty million tons of electronic waste, or "e-waste" -for example, discarded iPhones, refrigerators, desktop computers -is produced each year. This annual pile of electronic rubbish represents sixty-two billion dollars' worth of tangible raw materials (such as gold and other scarce metals) that has been rendered useless. In addition to wasting raw materials, e-waste clogs our landfills, poisons the groundwater, and taxes our capacity to store it. Worst of all, much of this waste is intentionally created …

Development Of The Navigation Guide Evidence-To-Decision Framework For Environmental Health: Version 1.0, Nicholas Chartres, Max T. Aung, Sustan L. Norris, Courtney Cooper, Lia A. Bero, Roger Chou, Devon C. Payne-Sturges, Wendy E. Wagner, Jessica W. Reyes, Lisa M. Askie, Daniel A. Axelrad, Deysi Flores Vigo, Jill E. Johnston, Juleen Lam, Keeve E. Nachman, Eva Rehfuess, Rachel Rothschild, Patrice Sutton, Lauren Zeise, Tracey J. Woodruff

Articles

Environmental exposures, including widespread industrial pollution, impact human health and are amplified in more highly exposed communities. Policy and regulatory frameworks for making decisions and recommendations on interventions to mitigate or prevent exposures tend to narrowly focus on exposure and some health-related data related to risks. Typically, such frameworks do not consider other factors, including essentiality, health equity, and distribution of benefits and costs. Further, decisions and recommendations lack transparency regarding how they were developed. We developed the Navigation Guide Evidence-to-Decision Framework for Environmental Health (E2DFEH) to provide a structured and transparent framework incorporating a range of scientific information and …

Obamacare For Homeowners Insurance: Fixing America's Broken Insurance Markets In A Time Of Climate Change, Daniel Benjamin Schwarcz

Articles

Over the last decade, homeowners insurance markets nationwide have experienced unprecedented instability due to climate change. These disruptions, which are likely to accelerate in the coming years, risk destabilizing real estate markets, triggering financial instability, and undermining the nation’s resilience to climate change. Despite these massive stakes, federal and state reforms to date have largely failed to result in more accessible and affordable homeowners insurance coverage that promotes climate change resilience. This Article offers a new way forward, arguing that today’s troubled homeowners insurance markets resemble the broken, state health insurance markets that pre-dated the 2010 passage of the Affordable …

Examining State Climate Superfund Legislation, Madison Calhoun, Rachel Rothschild, Jonathan Binder, Elenda Mihaly, Justin Mankin, Ben Lippard, Mary Wood

Articles

There has been an influx of “climate superfund” bills introduced and adopted in state legislatures across the country. Modeled after the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), these laws are designed to recover costs from large emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to pay for climate adaptation infrastructure. Following CERCLA’s strict liability framework, major polluters in New York and Vermont would be required to pay into state-managed funds in proportion to their shares of total GHG emissions; California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Oregon have proposed similar bills. On March 19, 2025, the Environmental Law Institute hosted a …

Living The Good Life In The Anthropocene, Karrigan Bork, Karen Bradshaw, Rebecca Bratspies, Cinnamon Carlarne, Bruce Carpenter, Robin Kundis Craig, Sarah Fox, Josh Galperin, Francis Hicks, Keith Hirokawa, Kevin Lynch, Ruhan S. Nagra, Michele Okoh, Jessica Owley, Amber Polk, Melissa Powers, Shannon Roesler, J.B. Ruhl, Danielle Stokes, Anastasia Telesetsky

Articles

The Stockholm Resilience Centre has concluded that the number of "planetary boundaries" we are crossing has increased from three in 2009, when the Centre's researchers first introduced the concept, to six in 2023. Crossing these boundaries means humans are changing basic attributes of planetary systems to the point of risking the future of civilization. And the distinction between "safe" and "just" planetary boundaries raises questions regarding how to conceptualize the "good life." In this latest in a biannual series of essays, members of the Environmental Law Collaborative explore conceptions of the "good" as well as the various elements necessary to …

Alternative Dispute Resolution In Agency Administrative Programs, Kristen Blankley, Kathleen Claussen, Judith Starr

Articles

This Article studies how federal agencies use and might better use different types of alternative dispute resolution (ADR)-including mediation, conciliation, facilitation, factfinding, minitrials, arbitration, and the use of ombuds-in the programs Congress has entrusted them to administer. The use of ADR by the executive branch of the federal government to resolve disputes with or among private actors has deep historical roots. ADR related to managerial agency matters such as employment or procurement is well-established across the government and performed under a uniform set of laws. Much less has been known, however, about the scope and reach of ADR in the …

Water Management And Conservation In India Fostering Water Justice: Arguing For Adopting Just Sustainability In Water Governance, Gayathri D Naik Dr, Sanjay Shenoi P

Articles

The water sector is characterised by everyday water injustices where factors like social discrimination, economic disparities, and political preferences influence the determination of water resource access, allocation, and management. The increasing anthropogenic impacts on water resources and consequent threats to sustainability add to the water injustices, often impacting the poorer, socially downtrodden communities that bear the brunt of water scarcity and cannot afford alternatives. The current water governance patterns, prioritising equality over equity, fail to address the issues of water injustices created by social, political, and economic factors in water management and sideline the ecological impacts on water resources. Moving …

Permitting The Energy Transition, James W. Coleman

Articles

The United States now has a landmark climate and clean energy law: the Inflation Reduction Act. The Act may provide more than a trillion dollars in spending on new clean-energy technology—over $8,000 for every household in the United States. What will Americans receive for this titanic investment? The answer largely turns on how quickly new clean-energy projects will receive permission to build.

As this Article explains, a fundamental irony of the energy system is that the cleaner energy sources we are now funding are more dependent on building far-flung infrastructure than our traditional energy sources. Coal and oil built the …

The Additionality Double Standard, James Salzman, David Weisbach

Articles

Carbon offsets are widely criticized for lacking additionality. The public debate, how- ever, has failed to recognize that the problem of additionality goes far beyond offsets. It arises any time the government subsidizes an activity. Programs with longer histories than offsets and far more money at stake offer valuable lessons for managing lack of additionality in offsets. The article sets out the current efforts to prove offset additionality, explains why major gov- ernment programs present comparable additionality challenges, and show why other programs’ problems of additionality are perceived as significantly different than those for offsets. We examine the toolkit used …

21st-Century Environmental Challenges And Revitalizing Epa Enforcement, David Uhlmann

Articles

This is a profound moment for environmental protection efforts in our country. Over the past half-century, under presidents of both parties, we have made great progress addressing the challenges that led to the enactment of our environmental laws during the 1970s. Our air is cleaner, our rivers and streams are healthier, and we have far fewer hazardous waste sites. We have achieved those successes because of conscientious companies across America who meet their environmental obligations and the vigilance of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Justice Department when companies break the law and put their profits before the …

The Next Generation, Jeremiah Chin

Articles

What would the law look like if we let children remake it? Laws govern, classify, and circumscribe children who inherit the law and its consequences. Discourses of power invoke children as rhetorical strategies to gain political favor or obviate a position—yet children are uncritically excluded from participating in the systems that control them. Children are subjected to the laws and objects of legislation, but denied the rights, autonomy, or authority to participate in the making of law and policy. Even the conceptualization of the constitutional rights of children is treated as an assumption, ill-defined and under theorized by traditional legal …

Harm Egalitarianism, Michael E. Herz

Articles

In the last few years, law schools and law professors have given new attention to how questions of race can be interwoven into courses that are not explicitly about race. Much has been written about how to do so in both first-year and upper-level courses, and, from all reports, the law school classroom has meaningfully changed. My sense, though it is completely impressionistic and unscientific, is that the typical Administrative Law course may have changed less than many others. It seems fair to say, at least, that there has not developed a standard suite of topics that a professor wanting …

Review Of Daniel Farber, Inequality And Regulation: Designing Rules To Address Race, Poverty, And Environmental Justice, David Weisbach

Articles

No abstract provided.

Cinnamon P. Carlarne, Albany Law School's Nineteenth President And Dean, Garry W. Jenkins, Katrina Fischer Kuh, Jonathan Rosenbloom, Marc Roark, Jessica Owley, Robin Kundis Craig, Keith H. Hirokawa

Articles

No abstract provided.

Role Of Courts In Ensuring Water Justice In India: Brasilia Declaration On Water Justice And Beyond, Gayathri D. Naik

Articles

Water being a scarce resource, questions of its allocation and distribution, coupled with concerns of its depletion have troubled policy makers, legislators, and judges alike. While, over the years there has been significant development on the discussion surrounding the rights-duty paradigm of water resources, by establishing the obligation of states, discussion surrounding a certain value-based approach to guide the minds of important stakeholders in creating and enforcing policy has gained far less traction comparatively. It is in this context that this paper explores an alternative justice-based approach to water, drawing from the works of Amartya Sen on capabilities and more …

Vermin Of Proof: Arguments For The Admissibility Of Animal Model Studies As Proof Of Causation In Toxic Tort Litigation, Kristen Ranges, Jessica Owley

Articles

Toxic torts is a body of law that aims to compensate individuals for harms they suffer from exposure to hazardous substances. To successfully bring a toxic tort claim, a plaintiff must prove the main elements of a general tort cause of action: duty, breach, causation, and damages. Causation in a toxic tort case is particularly challenging to prove given the nature of toxic substances. To prove the toxicant in question caused the damages alleged, plaintiffs often present expert testimony based on scientific studies. Animal model studies, in particular, can help factfinders understand the health implications of the toxicants at issue. …

Regulating For Energy Justice, Alexandra B. Klass, Gabriel Chan

Articles

In this Article, we explore and critique the foundational norms that shape federal and state energy regulation and suggest pathways for reform that can incorporate principles of “energy justice.” These energy justice principles—developed in academic scholarship and social movements—include the equitable distribution of costs and benefits of the energy system, equitable participation and representation in energy decision making, and restorative justice for structurally marginalized groups.

While new legislation, particularly at the state level, is critical to the effort to advance energy justice, our focus here is on regulators’ ability to implement reforms now using their existing authority to advance the …

Why Are You Here? Modeling Illicit Massage Business Location Characteristics With Machine Learning, Anna White, Seth Guikema, Bridgette Carr

Articles

Illicit massage businesses are a venue for sex and labor trafficking in the United States. Though many of their locations are made publicly available through online advertising, little is known about why they choose to locate where they do. In this work, we use inferential modeling to better understand the spatial distribution of illicit massage businesses within the U.S. Based on addresses web-scraped weekly from online advertisements over 6 months, we modeled illicit massage business prevalence at the census tract and county levels. We used publicly available data to characterize census tracts and counties, finding that the state in which …

Black Transit: When Public Transportation Decision-Making Leads To Negative Economic Development, Audrey G. Mcfarlane

Articles

No abstract provided.

(Re)Framing Race In Civil Rights Lawyering, Anthony V. Alfieri, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Articles

This Review examines the significance of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s new book, Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow, for the study of racism in our nation's legal system and for the regulation of race in the legal profession, especially in the everyday labor of civil-rights and poverty lawyers, prosecutors, and public defenders. Surprisingly, few have explored the relevance of the racial narratives distilled by Gates in Stony the Roa - the images, stereotypes, and tropes that Whites constructed of Blacks to deepen and ensure the life and legacy of white supremacy-to the practice …

Does Interest Convergence Today Offer Opportunities For The Working Class, Much As It Did For Minorities In The Fifties And Sixties?: A Comment On Spencer Bowley, Richard Delgado, Jean Stefancic

Articles

No abstract provided.

Climate-Induced Human Displacement And Conservation Lands, Jessica Owley

Articles

As climate change leads to both internal displacement and mass migrations, we need not only new places for people to live but also new locations for infrastructure projects and other public needs. Some of the most attractive areas for these new land uses are currently unoccupied land, including land set aside for conservation. Numerous laws restrict the availability and possible uses of public conservation land. Individual agreements and property restrictions encumber private conservation land, varying in the ease with which the restrictions can be modified. For example, privately protected areas in the United States are often encumbered with perpetual conservation …