Digital Commons Network^™

The Patterns Of Pollution: Providing Evidence Of The Unequal Distribution Of Pollution In Environmental Justice Communities, David Deganian

Environmental and Animal Law

The Center for International Law & Justice and the Environment, Development & Justice Project Present the Third Annual Spring Environmental Justice Lecture featuring Professor David Deganian.

Mapping, Modeling, And The Fragmentation Of Environmental Law, Dave Owen

Utah Law Review

In the past forty years, environmental researchers have achieved major advances in electronic mapping and spatially explicit, computerbased simulation modeling. Those advances have turned quantitative spatial analysis—that is, quantitative analysis of data coded to specific geographic locations—into one of the primary modes of environmental research. Researchers now routinely use spatial analysis to explore environmental trends, diagnose problems, discover causal relationships, predict possible futures, and test policy options. At a more fundamental level, these technologies and an associated field of theory are transforming how researchers conceptualize environmental systems.

Advances in spatial analysis have had modest impacts upon the practice of environmental …

Environmental Law And Fossil Fuels: Barriers To Renewable Energy, Uma Outka

Vanderbilt Law Review

Renewable energy is gaining momentum around the globe, but the United States has only just begun to change its energy trajectory away from fossil fuels. Today, only about 10% of electricity in the United States is generated from renewable energy, and most of that comes from hydroelectric power plants that have been operating for many years. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects 30% of new capacity over the next twenty years will utilize renewable resources, without significant changes in U.S. energy policy, but at that pace renewable energy will still account for only 16% of generated electricity. These prospects stand …

“Offsetting” Crisis? - Climate Change Cap-And-Trade Need Not Contribute To Another Financial Meltdown , Victor B, Flatt

Pepperdine Law Review

In 2009, the promise of a comprehensive federal cap and trade bill to address climate change fell apart. At least in part, this was due to the fears that exotic 'carbon' financial instruments might cause more financial crises. As California launches it economy wide carbon trading system, and other regional systems and the even possibly the EPA consider cap and trade, it is important to revisit what, if anything, about carbon denominated financial instruments might lead to financial market problems. The most problematic of the instruments, offsets, can be designed to lessen financial risk from underlying asset failure.

Offsetting Programs: Struggling To Find An Equitable Solution Internationally, Silvia Fejka

PEEL Alumni Scholarship

Carbon offsetting can have some laudable goals, including protection of the most pristine resources left on earth. As a category, however, carbon offsetting and markets are inappropriate international solutions to climate change and environmental degradation. The two current carbon offsetting mechanisms have dubious environmental value and maintain destructive behavior rather than addressing current emissions. Climate change is an example of a collective action problem, where benefits are diffuse, creating little incentive for individual nations to act. This renders carbon offsetting programs particularly susceptible to free riders.

Dangerous Separation: An Ecosystem And Way Of Life In The West Bank At The Brink Of Destruction, Elena Katz Mink

PEEL Alumni Scholarship

Israel is currently planning to build the separation wall on the edge of Battir, separating farmers from their fields. If the wall is constructed, residents face the specter of abandoning their way of life and severely restricting their movement, while at the same time the hydrology and ecology of the area will become severely imperiled. In early December, the Israeli Supreme Court (ISC) issued an interim decision ordering the Israeli Defense Ministry (IDM) to submit plans for an alternate route for the wall within ninety days, indicating that the Court is not willing to let Israeli’s security interests override consideration …

Reflecting On Measured Deliberations, Nicholas A. Robinson

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

“Environmental law is essential for the protection of natural resources and ecosystems and reflects our best hope for the future of our planet”. This declaration, made by participants at the Rio+20 World Congress on Justice, Governance and Law for Environmental Sustainability, reflects the maturing of environmental law around the world. Usually implicitly, but often explicitly, the deliberations at Rio+20 in June 2012 addressed the dual needs for more effective implementation of existing environmental norms and enacting further laws to stem global degradation of the environment. Rio+20 recommended that, in the autumn of 2012, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) act …

Free, Prior, And Informed Consent: Implications For Transnational Enterprises, Tendai Zvobgo

PEEL Alumni Scholarship

This paper examines the scope of FPIC as an aspect of environmental justice and a tool for poverty alleviation. It also explains some of the difficulties encountered by transnational enterprises when they attempt to utilize FPIC and the benefits that accrue to indigenous communities and transnational enterprises when the principle is properly applied.

On Fertile Ground: The Environmental And Reproductive Justice Movements As A Unified Force For Reforming Toxic Chemical Regulation, Angie Mccarthy

PEEL Alumni Scholarship

The Environmental Justice (“EJ”) and Reproductive Justice (“RJ”) movements share important common ground: They aim to improve socioeconomic conditions for those living in poverty, increase involvement of traditionally marginalized communities in policy decisions affecting them, and recognize the right of women to have healthy pregnancies and of parents to raise healthy children. The time is ripe for the EJ and RJ movements to collaborate and harness their joint potential to effect policy reform and ensure that vulnerable women are not exposed to toxic chemicals that harm their reproductive health.

Edible Communities: Institutionalizing The Lawn-To-Garden Movement To Promote Food Independence For Low-Income Families, Chelsea Tu

PEEL Alumni Scholarship

The local food movement arose in response to overarching political support for large-scale commercial agriculture at the federal and state levels, which still dominates the national food system. Beyond this, particular challenges for institutionalizing innovative food initiatives for low-income residents include a lack of sustained funding, zoning restrictions, insufficient training and institutional support, as well as locating and converting productive land in urban and suburban areas. Thus, despite the positive impact of local food systems, 14.9 % of U.S. households were still food insecure in 2011.

Using Law And Equity For Poor And The Environment, Dinah L. Shelton

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This chapter discusses ways of overcoming “adaptation apartheid,” a term used to describe the differences in reactions to environmental disasters between poor and wealthy people and countries. The chapter focuses on “environmental protection and poverty alleviation.” The first section describes the connections between poverty and environmental damage, and the second section discusses distributive justice, defined as “an ethical imperative based on the notion of moral reciprocity.” Third, the chapter lists the sources of law pertaining to environmental justice, including private law, regulation, market mechanisms, and rights-based approaches. The chapter concludes by noting the advantages and challenges to a rights-based approach …

The Second Annual Environmental Law And Justice Symposium Issue, Randall S. Abate

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sustainability As A Means Of Improving Environmental Justice, Patricia E. Salkin, John C. Dernbach, Donald A. Brown

Scholarly Works

This article explains why environmental justice provides much of the foundation for sustainable development, and shows how sustainability can improve our ability to achieve environmental justice. The article first explains a basic but often unrecognized truth about environmental policy: environmental pollution and degradation, sooner or later, harms humans. Both sustainable development and environmental justice respond to this problem, though in somewhat different ways. Sustainable development, however, suggests a broader set of tools to address this problem than are often employed for environmental justice. The article shows how four broad approaches — more and better sustainability options, law for sustainability, visionary …

The Wilderness Myth: How The Failure Of The American National Park Model Threatens The Survival Of The Iyaelima Tribe And The Bonobo Chimpanzee, Mark Hopson

Environmental and Earth Law Journal (EELJ)

The Wilderness Myth

Abstract by Mark Hopson

Contrary to popular opinion, and the vast majority of legal scholarship on the subject, the traditional American model for a national park is scientifically and logically unsound. Further, this model has been adopted at a terrible social cost to the indigenous tribes who lived on the land that became national parks. Every government that has chosen to implement the American national park model has done so at the expense of indigenous people.

This article chronicles the creation of the world’s first national parks, Yosemite and Yellowstone, and the legal battles involved. The article …

Looking Backward From The Year 2099: Ecozoic Reflections On The Future, Samuel Alexander

Environmental and Earth Law Journal (EELJ)

Looking Backward from the Year 2099: Ecozoic Reflections on the Future

Abstract by Samuel Alexander

Story, myth, and narrative played a central role in Thomas Berry’s writings. He told new stories about the Universe and our place in it, stories not only about where we have been and where we seem to be going, but also stories about where we could go, if only we exercised our freedom in different ways. Inspired by Berry, in this paper I have dared to experiment with story, by attempting to look back on the 21st century from the vantage point of the year …

Evolving From Dominion To Communion: How Legal Rights For Nature Can Exist In Balance With Individual Property Rights In A Global Commons, Dan Leftwich

Environmental and Earth Law Journal (EELJ)

Abstract coming soon.

Practically Grounded: Convergence Of Land Use Law Pedagogy And Best Practices, Patricia E. Salkin, John R. Nolon

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

The Logic And Limits Of Environmental Criminal Law In The Global Setting: Brazil And The United States--Comparisons, Contrasts, And Questions In Search Of A Robust Theory, Robert F. Blomquist

Law Faculty Publications

Strict but arguably unfair and counterproductive systems of criminal environmental law and enforcement exist in both the United States and Brazll in the twenty-first century. In order to create a sovereignty dividend encompassing the rule of law and evenhanded administrative control in the competitive global setting, both countries should rethink and reform their respective systems of environmental criminal law by seeking answers to several questions of legal philosophy in search of a robust theory.

Climate Change And Small Island States: Adr Ift In A Raising Sea Of Legal Uncertainty, Jeremy Kelley

PEEL Alumni Scholarship

In 1999, the rising sea level swallowed two islands of the nation Kiribati. Rising sea level is one of the effects of climate change to which small island nations are particularly susceptible. Considering that the average elevation of this nation of ninety thousand people on thirty-three islands and atolls is only about two meters above sea level, it is no surprise that Kiribati’s President Anote Tong considers the rising sea a threat to the very existence of his nation.6 Taking a cue from a policy first announced by the Maldives, President Tong has suggested that the solution to his nation’s …

A Failure Of Conscience: How Pakistan’S Devastating Floods Compare To America’S Experience During Katrina, Oded Cedar

PEEL Alumni Scholarship

Americans, seeing the destruction this summer from floods in Pakistan, cannot help but draw comparisons to the devastation in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Both raised serious questions about governmental response to natural disasters, although the failings of both governments do not permit easy comparisons. Despite the differences between the two, Pakistan can learn from the U.S. response to Katrina: that with overcrowding in urban areas and limited resources, Pakistan will likely be unable to overcome the geographic challenges of evacuation. Instead, Pakistan must rely on flood prevention techniques, primarily in its cities, as its central line of defense.

Introduction To The Environmental Law And Justice Symposium Issue, Randall S. Abate, Robert H. Abrams, Robert Graggs

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

New Directions In Environmental Justice, Randall S. Abate, Moderator, Robert Abrams, Moderator, Marcia Allen Owens, Moderator

Lectures and Presentations

The inaugural Environmental Law and Justice Symposium will feature an overview of the latest international, national, regional, state and local developments in environmental justice.

The Future Of Animal Law: Moving Beyond Preaching To The Choir, Megan A. Senatori, Pamela D. Frasch

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Developing An Ecological Social Justice Framework For Ocean Energy Technologies: Case Studies From The Phillipines, Jay Batongbacal

PhD Dissertations

Unless subjected to skeptical and conscious scrutiny, environmentally-friendly ocean energy technologies can become Trojan machines of social inequity due to the subtle re-organizing influences of technologies on culture and the society. Environmental laws that promote or regulate ocean energy technologies can act as Trojan legal regimes in the absence of a framework for assessing and anticipating their adverse impacts on social justice. Environmental justice is inadequate for this task, so an alternative framework is proposed: ecological social justice, drawn from the Third Worlds perspective of sustainable development as equitable sharing. Though overshadowed by the prevalent notion of sustainable development as …

Reviewing Carbon Charges And Free Allowances Under Environmental Law And Principles, Steve Charnovitz

ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law

In late June 2009, a slim majority of the U.S. House of Representatives enacted the American Clean Energy and Security Act

2001 Supreme Court Redux, Mary Stevens

PEEL Alumni Scholarship

In 1959, petitioner and his fellow corporate associates purchased a waterfront parcel of land in Rhode Island that was primarily a salt marsh plagued by tidal flooding. Over a period of many years, the corporation filed several petitions seeking to develop the land with various government agencies and was consistently denied. In 1971, Rhode Island promulgated regulations designating salt marshes, such as petitioner's, as protected coastal wetlands. In 1978, petitioner became the corporation's sole shareholder and received title for the land. In the 1980's, he applied to the state to fill in his marshland and was rejected based on the …

Coral Reefs In The Philippines, Mary Stevens

PEEL Alumni Scholarship

In 1959, petitioner and his fellow corporate associates purchased a waterfront parcel of land in Rhode Island that was primarily a salt marsh plagued by tidal flooding. Over a period of many years, the corporation filed several petitions seeking to develop the land with various government agencies and was consistently denied. In 1971, Rhode Island promulgated regulations designating salt marshes, such as petitioner's, as protected coastal wetlands. In 1978, petitioner became the corporation's sole shareholder and received title for the land. In the 1980's, he applied to the state to fill in his marshland and was rejected based on the …

Adapting To Climate Change With Law That Bends Without Breaking, Holly Doremus

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

Climate change, the key environmental challenge of this century, is a tough problem for law in many ways. The topic of this panel, instrument choice, highlights a particularly difficult, important, and under-recognized aspect of the climate change challenge: the difficulty of devising a system of environmental law that combines the flexibility necessary to deal with a changing world with the rigidity and accountability essential to hold us to the difficult task of environmental protection.

Fighting The Good Fight: The Role Of Environmental Civil Rights Litigators Going Forward And The Need For A Continuance Of The Litigation Tool In The Environmental Justice Movement, Sean-Patrick Wilson

Western New England Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Globalization Of Environmental Law, Robert V. Percival

Faculty Scholarship

Legal systems across the globe are responding to environmental concerns in surprising new ways. As nations upgrade their environmental standards, some are transplanting law and regulatory policy innovations derived from the experience of other countries, including nations with very different legal and cultural traditions. New national, regional, and international initiatives have been undertaken both by governments and private organizations. Greater cross-border collaboration between government officials, nongovernmental organizations, multinational corporations and other entities is shaping environmental policy in ways that blur traditional private/public/and domestic/international distinctions. The result has been the emergence of a kind of “global environmental law”-law that is neither …