Law Commons^™

Evaluating Climate Migration Through Discourse Analysis Of International Policy Framework And “El Progreso” Community Blog, Olusola Akanni

Master's Theses

ABSTRACT

Environmental changes are driven by global warming, such as rising temperatures, melting ice, and increased natural disasters which directly affect the living conditions of huma thereby driving migration. This study highlights the inadequacies of current migration management policies as the United States is seeing a significant influx of migrants from Central America. The focus of this discourse analysis is on the role of inadequate policies and the failure of international efforts like the Paris Climate Agreement in addressing the issue of climate-induced migration effectively. Despite the goals set by such international agreements to mitigate the effects of climate change …

Climate Change And Internal Displacement In Colombia: Chronicle Of A Tragedy Foretold, Camila Bustos

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

One of the key challenges stemming from climate change will be climate displacement, as sudden and gradual events disrupt livelihoods and force millions to leave their homes. Despite the existing scholarship's focus on cross-border movement, the majority of climate displaced people will move internally instead of or before seeking refuge outside their nation's borders. What obligations do states owe to their citizens when those states have historically not been emitters but have still failed to protect domestic populations from displacement related to environmental disasters and climate change impacts? Through exploring the disaster management framework in Colombia and conducting a case …

Avoiding Performative Climate Justice, Katrina F. Kuh

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The Article first sketches the contours of precommitment strategies by identifying examples of precommitment strategies in existing climate change law, and contrasting them with other approaches for advancing justice that are not sticky, automatic, and early, and thus would not be considered precommitments. It then contemplates whether and why sticky, automatic, and early precommitments to justice may be an important strategy to advance justice goals in anticipation of and at high levels of warming. It concludes by analyzing the use of precommitments to justice in the context of the expedited siting and construction of renewable energy infrastructure.

New York Falling Behind In Implementing Bold Climate Law, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

In July 2019, shortly after Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), I wrote in an op-ed, “The champagne corks are still popping. But the realization is dawning that implementing the new law will be really, really hard. New York is boldly going where no state has gone before … It will take a great deal of sweat and treasure (no one knows just how much), as well as a continuation of the political will that brought us to this point.”

We still do not know how much sweat and treasure will be required, but …

New York Environmental Legislation In 2023, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

In 2023, New York enacted laws to aid the state in achieving the renewable energy and greenhouse gas emissions reduction mandates of the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).The state also now has new laws to reduce exposure to lead in drinking water and paint; to ban natural gas furnaces and stoves in new buildings; to restrict neonicotinoid pesticides; and to encourage “nature-based solutions” for stabilizing tidal coastlines. These and other new and amended environmental and energy laws—as well as notable vetoes—are discussed in this article.

Feeding The Good Fire: Paths To Facilitate Native-Led Fire Management On Federal Lands, Kevin Burdet

Seattle University Law Review

In 2003, nearly twenty Native American reservations were devastated by wildfires that originated on adjacent federal lands. The San Pasqual Reservation’s entire 1,400 acres were burned along with over a third of its homes, and seventy-five percent of the Rincon Reservation was burned, taking twenty homes with it. These devastating fires, along with others in 2002, brought about the Tribal Forest Protection Act of 2004 (TFPA), which offered hope for Tribes to propose projects on bordering or adjacent federal lands and protect reservation lands in the process. Unfortunately, twenty years later, the TFPA has had a marginal effect in enabling …

Making Sense Of Abatement As A Tort Remedy, Anthony J. Sebok

Faculty Articles

Controversy over public nuisance in recent high profile cases invites the question of whether, and to what extent, it is limited by its roots in tort law. This article, which was prepared for the 2023 Clifford Symposium on “New Torts” focuses on causes of action in which the state seeks to enjoin the defendant by requiring that it abate the consequences of the invasion of a public right. In the most controversial of these public nuisance actions, such as lead paint and opioids, the wrongful conduct that is remedied by the injunctive relief has already ceased, and the state does …

Climate Change And Constitutional Overreach, Jonathan Adler

Faculty Publications

The failure of the political process to produce meaningful policies to mitigate the threat of climate change has encouraged aggressive and innovative litigation strategies. An increasing number of climate lawsuits seek to control greenhouse gas emissions, impose liability on fossil fuel producers, or otherwise force greater action on climate change. In many of these cases, litigants have made aggressive constitutional claims that stretch the bounds of existing constitutional doctrine. This essay, prepared for the 2024 Drake University Constitutional Law Center Symposium, “Climate Change, the Environment, and Constitutions,” critically assesses some of the constitutional arguments made in climate cases, including Massachusetts …

Boom Or Bust: The Public Trust Doctrine In Canadian Climate Change Litigation, Hassan M. Ahmad

All Faculty Publications

Over the past few years, Canadian courts have heard the first climate change cases. These claims have been commenced on behalf of youth and future generations who allege that governments have failed to meet or, otherwise, uphold greenhouse gas reduction targets under the Paris Agreement. This novel area of litigation has brought forth creative legal arguments to expand or re-envision existing doctrines in order to place blame for what continues to be a warming planet and increasingly unstable ecosystems. This article investigates the public trust doctrine. In Canadian courts, the doctrine’s limited and arguably parochial interpretation has diverged from its …

Climate Security Insights From The Covid-19 Response, Mark Nevitt

Indiana Law Journal

The climate change crisis and COVID-19 crisis are both complex collective action problems. Neither the coronavirus nor greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions respect political borders. Both impose an opportunity cost that penalizes inaction. They are also increasingly understood as nontraditional, novel security threats. Indeed, COVID-19’s human cost is staggering, with American lives lost vastly exceeding those lost in recent armed conflicts. And climate change is both a threat accelerant and a catalyst for conflict—a characterization reinforced in several climate-security reports. To counter COVID-19, the President embraced martial language, stating that he will employ a “wartime footing” to “defeat the virus.” Perhaps …

Opening Speech, Claudio Grossman

American University International Law Review

Good morning and good afternoon, depending on your time zone. It is a great pleasure to introduce this conference on “Sea Level Rise and International Law: Assessing its Impacts on the Americas.” Sea level rise is a pressing global challenge that could generate catastrophic effects, including in the Americas, which are surrounded by four oceans: the Arctic, the Antarctic, the Atlantic, and the Pacific. Several of the countries in the Region could suffer disproportionately from the consequences of this serious phenomenon. The implications for States and people all over the world are devastating, making rising sea levels a matter of …

Sea Level Rise And Maritime Delimitation In The Eastern Caribbean: A Comparative Approach, Rosemarie Cadogan

American University International Law Review

Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Let me just start by thanking the organizers today for having me on the program, and I want to extend to everyone my gratitude for having me here today. I am going to look at, as the title suggests, sea level rise and maritime delimitation in the Eastern Caribbean, and I am going to take a comparative approach as I compare it with the Pacific–South Pacific region. I am going to take it that all protocols have been observed, and, in the interest of time, I will go straight through to my presentation with the one …

Legal Cooperation Issues On Sea Level Rise, Maria Teresa Infante

American University International Law Review

This is a very timely event. Although there have been several cases in which experts—both academics and governments—discuss the connection between sea-level rise and the legal framework, this event is important because it will bring to the forefront the fact that the practice in the Americas and the Caribbean should be analyzed when discussing this pressing topic. This is a very important initiative; I encourage the Inter-American system and the juridical committee to tackle this issue. I hope it will be in connection with the work that is being conducted by the International Law Commission itself.

Stars, Stripes, And Surveillance: The United States' Failure To Regulate Data Privacy, Sam Begland

American University International Law Review

In the wake of the United States Supreme Court's devastating decision to strip Americans of their constitutional right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, data privacy is more salient than ever. Without adequate data regulations, state governments and anti-abortion activists alike can harass and prosecute pregnant people attempting to exercise their bodily autonomy. This comment argues that the United States has violated its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Article 17 by failing to protect against interference with the use and collection of reproductive health data. Further, this comment analyzes interpretations of …

Urgenda Vs. Juliana: Lessons For Future Climate Change Litigation Cases, Paolo Davide Farah, Imad Antoine Ibrahim

Articles

No abstract provided.

Climate Chauvinism: Rethinking Loss & Damage, Nadia B. Ahmad, Victoria Beatty

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Dark Sun Network, Frédéric Gilles Sourgens

University of Colorado Law Review

Climate scientists agree that climate change will soon require the deployment of a highly dangerous geoengineering approach known as “solar radiation management.” Solar radiation management uses chemical or physical barriers to solar energy entering the atmosphere and thereby forces global temperatures downwards almost immediately by creating “artificial shade.” Problematically, the unilateral deployment of domestic solar radiation management approaches can have different and potentially devastating effects around the world, even if they help the country deploying the approach to limit the worst climate change consequences at home. So far, there is no global governance framework that can guide the development and …

Legal Mechanisms For Protecting The Earth From Climate Change: An Analysis Of Limitations, Current Trends And Emerging Alternatives, Abby Mei Frazier

Senior Projects Spring 2023

This thesis examines the obstacles that make environmental protection challenging to litigate, particularly in the context of climate change, and identifies the underlying reasons for these obstacles. I emphasize the significance of preserving nature and provide a historical overview of environmental conservation. Despite the pressing nature of climate change and environmental degradation, legal efforts to combat these issues have often yielded unsatisfying results due to a lack of transparency, accountability, and fair power dynamics. This study examines four U.S. climate litigation cases under the Freedom of Information Act, revealing a consistent pattern of inadequate transparency and accountability that creates an …

Sustainability In Public Procurement, Corporate Law And Higher Education (Introduction), Paolo Davide Farah

Book Chapters

Lela Mélon’s edited collection brings a fresh perspective to the intricate relationship between corporations and sustainability. The book focuses on the role of state actors in boosting environmental protection and the increasing importance of state awareness on environmental crises. Whether it is procurement, or education or corporate governance, we are witnessing a proactive stance of the state that is balancing economic growth with ecological concerns. The difficulties faced in forcing a particular conduct in the private sphere is reviewed in detail in the book, along with national laws and regulations that, rather than promoting environmental protection, have had the opposite …

The Intentional Community: Toward Inclusion And Climate-Cognizance, Shelby D. Green

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In adapting communities to new levels of fairness, we must resist the notion that building equitable and accessible communities is antagonistic to building climate-cognizant communities. This paper will raise some of the core points in this endeavor and will offer suggestions for finding harmony between the two ends through creating communities with intention.

In Part I, I offer some details on what climate change, if unheeded, portends most in our daily lives. In Part II, I tell tales of two cities to frame the larger discussion. In Part III, I highlight some social, political, and economic history that produced a …

24/7 Clean Energy, Todd Aagaard

University of Colorado Law Review

In the face of the rapidly escalating climate crisis, the electricity sector is moving toward renewable energy. To date, policies and strategies have focused on increasing overall renewable energy generation, with little regard for timing and location. The result has been a misalignment of supply and demand in renewable energy markets. Renewable power projects produce energy when and where it is least expensive, leaving supply scarce at other times and places. Consumers, meanwhile, continue to use power when and where they need it. This mismatch increases the electricity grid’s dependence on fossil fuel–fired electricity to meet electricity demand at times …

Climate Change And Sea Level Rise: Assessing Their Impacts On Belize, Carlos Fuller

American University International Law Review

First of all, as we all know, there are three aspects of climate change that we know occur. The first is the increase of global temperatures because of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. As a result of the warming of the oceans, sea levels rise; but even more importantly, additional fresh water is entering the oceans, which is now the predominant factor leading to increased sea-level rates. Finally, a change of the hydrological cycle—because of warmer temperatures, we are seeing more extreme weather events and shifts in precipitation patterns.

The impacts, however, are more important—for example, the impacts of …

Climate Justice In The Anthropocene And Its Relationship With Science And Technology: The Importance Of Ethics Of Responsibility, Paolo Davide Farah, Alessio Lo Giudice

Articles

Climate change is a global phenomenon. Therefore, globalization is the necessary hermeneutical horizon to develop an analysis of the metamorphosis climate change could cause at a political, social, and economic level. Within this horizon, this Article shows how the relationship between the concept of the Anthropocene epoch and the request for justice allows for framing a climate-justice and intergenerational equity–focused political interpretation of the effects of climate change. In order to avoid reducing such an interpretation to merely an ideological critique of capitalism, the conception of climate justice needs to be grounded in a rational, ethical model. This Article proposes …

Research Priorities For Climate Litigation, Jessica A. Wentz, Delta Merner, Benjamin Franta, Alessandra Lehmen, Peter C. Frumhoff

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

This article characterizes key research gaps and opportunities for scientists across disciplines to do work that informs the rapidly growing number of climate lawsuits worldwide. It focuses on research that can be used to inform legal decisions about responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions and climate damages. Relevant lawsuits include claims filed against government and corporate defendants alleging that they have violated environmental, human rights, constitutional, tort, and consumer protection laws due to their contributions to climate change and failures to control emissions. Constructive attention has recently been given to the important role of attribution science in informing some of these …

Introduction To The International Law Commission's Work On Sea Level Rise In Relation To International Law, Bogdan Aurescu, Nilufer Oral

American University International Law Review

BOGDAN AURESCU:

Thank you so much for the presentation. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to everybody—in accordance with the respective time that you are speaking. I am very honored to be invited to this conference, and I am also very honored that I am sharing this presentation together with my good colleague and friend, Nilüfer Oral. We are both co-chairs of the Study Group on Sea-Level Rise in Relation to International Law of the International Law Commission, together with the other colleagues, some of them I think are attending this session online, Patrícia Galvão-Teles and Juan José Ruda …

The "Human Face" Of Sea Level Rise: Protection Of Persons Affected, Patricia Galvao Teles

American University International Law Review

Thank you so much, Professor Grossman. I will not take time from my presentation to do a long thank you or introduction, but I really wanted to thank you warmly, Claudio, for putting together these two days of conversation so that we can connect with the Americas and also have your contributions and your experiences to our work, which you, Claudio, have committed to and are delivering on your promise to help us to navigate through what is going on in the Americas concerning sea-level rise. This is very important because, as it was mentioned, the Commission works based on …

Approaches To Sea Level Rise: A Comparative View Of Emerging Policy Responses By The African And The American Regions, Charles Chernor Jalloh

American University International Law Review

It is a great privilege to be here with all of you tonight. Thank you very much to you, Professor Grossman, the moderator of this panel, and to all the organizers for inviting me to be part of this really important event. I hope this is the first of many such events concerning this really pressing issue for the international community: the issue of sea level rise which is already affecting peoples and States in many different regions of our world.

Latin America's Contribution To The Normative Discussion Around Rising Sea Levels: Incorporating The Principles Of Uti Possidetis And Solidarity, Wagner Menezes

American University International Law Review

Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, good morning. Initially, I would like to give thanks for the kind invitation made by Professor Claudio Grossman and now members of the committee to participate in this special conference on sea level rise and International Law’s impact on the Americas, which has set up an ahead of time debate due to the effects that are being experienced by the entire international community.

Algunas Reflexiones Sobre La Condicion De Estado En Relacion Con La Elevacion Del Nivel Del Mar, Juan Jose Ruda Santolaria

American University International Law Review

Estimados amigos y amigas:

Deseo, en primer lugar, agradecer a los promotores de esta iniciativa por su amable invitación y compromiso con el tratamiento de la importante temática que nos convoca. Al mismo tiempo, quiero destacar mi satisfacción por participar en esta actividad y hacerlo además con personas muy valiosas, por quienes siento especial aprecio, así como recalcar que voy a compartir con ustedes algunas reflexiones sobre la condición de estado en relación con la elevación del nivel del mar de carácter personal, es decir, que no comprometen a la Comisión de Derecho Internacional de las Naciones Unidas y son …

The Transnational Exchange Of Law Through Climate Change Litigation, Natasha Affolder, Godwin Dzah

All Faculty Publications

Climate change litigation continues to bash holes in the view of domestic legal systems as hermetically sealed units. Domestic cases are inspired by litigation elsewhere, actively fostered by transnational advocacy communities, and the decisions themselves are indicative of transjudicial influences and sometimes even dialogue on climate change. This chapter, written in 2021 to reflect the transnationalism of early climate change litigation, takes a close look at practices of transjudicialism in climate change litigation. In so doing, it seeks to disrupt some default patterns of studying the spread of law. By problematizing the practices of ‘finding’ influential climate law cases, measuring …