Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 30 of 67
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
Ecocide In Palestine: A Call For A New Criminal Designation For Environmental Crimes, Carley A. Bomrad
Ecocide In Palestine: A Call For A New Criminal Designation For Environmental Crimes, Carley A. Bomrad
UC Law Environmental Journal
Gaza has frequently been the target of environmental damage from Israel. Dating back to its immigration to Palestine, Israel has impacted Palestine’s water systems, destroyed its natural landscape, and forcibly changed much of the landscape through invasive species. This environmental harm is only worsened by the repeated conflict in the region, which has damaged infrastructure and water systems and caused contamination of air, water, and soil. Gaza was already struggling with these environmental concerns, coupled with its susceptibility to climate change, when the conflict with Israel intensified in October 2023. All progress that was being made to strengthen Gaza’s infrastructure …
The Esg Disclosure Paradox: Gaps In Environmental Justice Criteria, Barbara Ballan
The Esg Disclosure Paradox: Gaps In Environmental Justice Criteria, Barbara Ballan
UC Law Environmental Journal
Environmental Justice (“EJ”) and Environmental Social Governance (“ESG”) are terms used to address the impacts of corporate actions as well as environmental and social regulation on the people and the planet. ESG disclosure is a corporate-driven invention that aims to measure progress towards sustainability and disclose environmental and social criteria while fostering value for businesses. EJ, by contrast, emerged as a social movement that evolved into regulatory frameworks. Governmental agencies and EJ advocates are utilizing EJ mapping tools and metrics to assess inequalities in environmental impacts caused by private and public policy and decision-making. Though these concepts may initially create …
The Inequitable Impacts Of Sea Level Rise: How East Palo Alto Serves As Both A Warning And Beacon Of Hope For Coastal Communities, Justin Capone
The Inequitable Impacts Of Sea Level Rise: How East Palo Alto Serves As Both A Warning And Beacon Of Hope For Coastal Communities, Justin Capone
UC Law Environmental Journal
As sea level rise and coastal flooding continue to threaten communities globally, the impacts on shoreline residents will not be distributed equally. Projections of physical damage do not account for other environmental and socioeconomic contexts that overlap to disproportionately burden the most vulnerable communities. East Palo Alto, a city that regularly suffers from destructive flooding, is at high monetary and social risk from sea level rise due to a history of racially discriminatory practices that contributed to residents’ current socioeconomic disadvantage. This inequity poses a distinct environmental justice issue, requiring adaptation strategies that place the city’s environmental burden within past …
Ratemaking’S Trilemma And The Case For Time-Based Electricity Rates, Kyle J. Blasinsky
Ratemaking’S Trilemma And The Case For Time-Based Electricity Rates, Kyle J. Blasinsky
UC Law Environmental Journal
Ratemaking has a trilemma. How should utilities and policymakers balance the competing goals of ratemaking: sufficiency, efficiency, and equity? Sufficiency is principally a legal constraint that creates a revenue floor during ratemakings to address concerns about unconstitutional takings. The latter goals—efficiency and equity—have fewer legal limitations but compel important policy tradeoffs when designing rate structures for electricity consumers. Recently, technological ad-vancements and shifting social priorities have prompted a rebalancing of these seemingly conflicting goals. New technologies have made time-based electricity rates a viable means of demand response in many communities, reducing the need for expensive and polluting peaker plants and …
The Disproportionate Burden On Vulnerable Communities In The Trade Of Plastic Waste: How Environmental Justice Should Be Integrated Into The United Nations Treaty On Plastic Pollution, Jackson Moffett
UC Law Environmental Journal
The United Nations Environment Assembly passed a resolution to end plastic pollution with a legally binding treaty in response to growing international concern over the destruction of the environment and human health from plastic pollution. Plastic waste disposal is currently regulated under the Plastic Waste Amendments of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal (Basel Convention), which subjects it to prior informed consent (PIC) and the environmentally sound management of waste (ESM). Unfortunately, the increasing amount of plastic production and limited number of recycling facilities around the world have rendered the Basel …
Editors’ Foreword, Ivan Ditmars, Gaby Salazar Kitner
Editors’ Foreword, Ivan Ditmars, Gaby Salazar Kitner
UC Law Environmental Journal
No abstract provided.
An Electronics Eco-Labeling System For Reducing Toxic Wastewater Runoff In The Tijuana River Estuary, Keari Platt
An Electronics Eco-Labeling System For Reducing Toxic Wastewater Runoff In The Tijuana River Estuary, Keari Platt
UC Law Environmental Journal
The wastewater pollution crisis at the United States-Mexico border garners renewed attention every few decades as sewage and toxic runoff overburden treatment facilities in the border region, polluting the Southern San Diego County coastline. Following several years of increasingly catastrophic sewage discharge incidents, the City of Imperial Beach filed suit against the federal government, alleging that the United States Section of the International Boundary Water Commission’s frequent discharge of pollutants into the Tijuana River violated the federal Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The lawsuit prodded the federal government to appropriate $300 million to the Environmental …
Centering Environmental Justice In California: Attempts And Opportunities In Ceqa, Lena Freij
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 …
The Green Police In The Golden State: An Analysis Of The Criminal Enforcement Of Environmental Law In The State Of California, Joshua Ozymy, Melissa Jarrell Ozymy
The Green Police In The Golden State: An Analysis Of The Criminal Enforcement Of Environmental Law In The State Of California, Joshua Ozymy, Melissa Jarrell Ozymy
UC Law Environmental Journal
The use of criminal enforcement tools is necessary for deterring and punishing environmental offenses involving significant harm or culpable conduct. Yet we have very limited empirical knowledge of how the criminal enforcement of environmental laws has functioned historically in the Golden State. Through content analysis of prosecution summaries for every federal criminal investigation undertaken by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the State of California that led to criminal prosecution, 1983-2019, we are able to provide a comprehensive account of what laws are violated, how prosecutors charge environmental criminals, and how these criminals are sentenced, illustrating broader themes in …
Nepa’S Teeth: How To Challenge Chemical And Fossil Fuel Complexes Using A Climate And Environmental Justice Argument, Camilla Getz
Nepa’S Teeth: How To Challenge Chemical And Fossil Fuel Complexes Using A Climate And Environmental Justice Argument, Camilla Getz
UC Law Environmental Journal
Flooding and sea level rise in the United States is projected to become more frequent and severe due to climate change. Such climate events increase the risk of chemical spills into the environment, which disproportionally impact the health of low-income communities and communities of color. Despite international agreement that climate change is an immediate threat that endangers human health and the environment, the United States does not have a national climate policy, but rather a few bedrock environmental laws where climate policy is mentioned. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is one such law. NEPA includes a provision for the …
Prioritizing Tree Planting In Shade-Deprived Urban Areas As A Response To Climate Change, Susana María Aguilera
Prioritizing Tree Planting In Shade-Deprived Urban Areas As A Response To Climate Change, Susana María Aguilera
UC Law Environmental Journal
This paper discusses the planting of trees in areas where tree canopy is lacking as both mitigation and adaptation measures to climate change. I argue that cities must prioritize planting trees in low-income neighborhoods as a form of mitigation from extreme heat because those areas tend to be hotter than wealthier areas of the same city. The shade provided by trees will cool the area and reduce health impacts and mortality during extreme heat events. Section I discusses the urban heat island effect and how redlining is directly connected to low tree canopy. Section II highlights initiatives cities have taken …
Protecting Cultural Heritage By Recourse To International Environmental Law: Chinese Stances On Faultless State Liability, Riccardo Vecellio Segate
Protecting Cultural Heritage By Recourse To International Environmental Law: Chinese Stances On Faultless State Liability, Riccardo Vecellio Segate
UC Law Environmental Journal
Several international policy documents define the environment as made of “natural heritage” and “cultural heritage” together, along the lines of concepts such as “biosphere” or “ecosystem” which have been introduced relatively recently to define the complexity of humanenvironment interactions. Nevertheless, distinguishing natural heritage from the cultural one helps analyse situations where damage inflicted to the former negatively impacts the latter. In fact, cultural heritage sits under siege worldwide due to polluting activities and environmental degradation, which are causing irreparable damage to—or even the disappearance of— valuable expressions of civilisations’ legacy. Most damages are transboundary, thereby calling into question bilateral forms …
Shining A Light On High Seas Transhipment: The Need To Strengthen Observer Reporting Of Transhipments In The Western And Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, Chris Wold, Alfred “Bubba” Cook
Shining A Light On High Seas Transhipment: The Need To Strengthen Observer Reporting Of Transhipments In The Western And Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, Chris Wold, Alfred “Bubba” Cook
UC Law Environmental Journal
No abstract provided.
The Shortcomings Of Regulating Pesticides Internationally And How Disadvantaged Communities Pay The Price, Alex Sauerwein
The Shortcomings Of Regulating Pesticides Internationally And How Disadvantaged Communities Pay The Price, Alex Sauerwein
UC Law Environmental Journal
Glyphosate is a toxic pesticide heavily used in food production. As a result, glyphosate ends up in the air we breathe and the water we drink. The increasing spread and use of glyphosate have many negative impacts on public and environmental health. Researchers are finding links between the use of glyphosate and cancer, Parkinson disease, and lower IQ rates in humans. Researchers have also linked glyphosate to environmental harms, like decreased biodiversity and unintended killing of fish near farms. International law has attempted to limit the use of toxic chemicals through hard law principles like the Rotterdam Convention and soft …
Thirsty For Justice: The Fight For Safe Drinking Water, Debi Ores
Thirsty For Justice: The Fight For Safe Drinking Water, Debi Ores
UC Law Environmental Journal
No abstract provided.
Bridging The Safe Drinking Water Gap For California’S Rural Poor, Camille Pannu
Bridging The Safe Drinking Water Gap For California’S Rural Poor, Camille Pannu
UC Law Environmental Journal
No abstract provided.
California’S Cap And Trade Extension: How Senate Bill 775 Envisioned A New Path To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Bob Wieckowski
California’S Cap And Trade Extension: How Senate Bill 775 Envisioned A New Path To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Bob Wieckowski
UC Law Environmental Journal
No abstract provided.
Hope Is A Song In A Weary Throat: An Interview With Julia Olson, Olivia Molodanof, Jessica Durney
Hope Is A Song In A Weary Throat: An Interview With Julia Olson, Olivia Molodanof, Jessica Durney
UC Law Environmental Journal
No abstract provided.
Towers, Trees, And Transmission Lines: The Fight Between Property Rights, Power, And Profit, Meredyth Merrow
Towers, Trees, And Transmission Lines: The Fight Between Property Rights, Power, And Profit, Meredyth Merrow
UC Law Environmental Journal
No abstract provided.
California’S Next Environmental Frontier: Climate Justice Leadership, Suma Peesapati
California’S Next Environmental Frontier: Climate Justice Leadership, Suma Peesapati
UC Law Environmental Journal
No abstract provided.
California Environmental Quality Act Lawsuits And California’S Housing Crisis, Jennifer Hernandez
California Environmental Quality Act Lawsuits And California’S Housing Crisis, Jennifer Hernandez
UC Law Environmental Journal
No abstract provided.
The Breathers Of Bayview Hill: Redevelopment And Environmental Justice In Southeast San Francisco, Lindsey Dillon
The Breathers Of Bayview Hill: Redevelopment And Environmental Justice In Southeast San Francisco, Lindsey Dillon
UC Law Environmental Journal
No abstract provided.
The True Cost Of “Cheap” Seafood: An Analysis Of Environmental And Human Exploitation In The Seafood Industry, Tiffany T. V. Duong
The True Cost Of “Cheap” Seafood: An Analysis Of Environmental And Human Exploitation In The Seafood Industry, Tiffany T. V. Duong
UC Law Environmental Journal
No abstract provided.
Environmental Justice Act Of 2017: A Fighting Chance For Frontline Communities, Jeremy Orr
Environmental Justice Act Of 2017: A Fighting Chance For Frontline Communities, Jeremy Orr
UC Law Environmental Journal
No abstract provided.
Safeguarding Development: Risk Reduction In U.S. Government Foreign Aid And Investment Facilitation Beyond The Current Patchwork, Naomi Roht-Arriaza
Safeguarding Development: Risk Reduction In U.S. Government Foreign Aid And Investment Facilitation Beyond The Current Patchwork, Naomi Roht-Arriaza
UC Law Environmental Journal
No abstract provided.
An Introduction To The Student Pieces, Hadar Aviram, David Takacs
An Introduction To The Student Pieces, Hadar Aviram, David Takacs
UC Law Environmental Journal
No abstract provided.