Law Commons^™

Removing Methane Via Atmospheric Oxidation Enhancement: The Legal Framework, Romany M. Webb, Martin Lockman, Korey Silverman-Roati

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

To achieve the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting the increase in global average temperatures to “well below 2 degrees Celsius,” and ideally 1.5 degrees Celsius, above pre-industrial levels, global greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions must reach net zero in the second half of the century. The global community is not currently on track to achieve net zero emissions. In fact, with the exception of a slight dip during the Covid-19 pandemic, emissions have risen steadily in recent years. This, together with the increasingly visible impacts of climate change, has prompted growing interest in the possibility of removing GHGs directly from the …

Catalyzing Public And Private Investments To Scale Up Socio-Bioeconomy And Nature-Based Solutions, Lara Fornabaio, Lisa E. Sachs, Meike Siegner, Vivek Pandey, Rajat Panwar

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Socio-bioeconomy presents a promising approach to sustainable development by leveraging biological and social diversity to transition away from a fossil fuel dependent economy while simultaneously creating income and employment opportunities for millions of Indigenous and rural communities worldwide. Because the bioeconomy values the sustainable utilization of renewable biological resources, nature-based solutions (NbS), which are a facet of the socio-bioeconomy, gain increasing prominence. Socio-bioeconomy requires substantial investmentsfrom both public and private sectors to develop effective socio-biodiversity production systems. Socio-bioeconomy development will require improved institutional coordination, robust planning, and novel methodologies to measure trade-offs as well as promote synergies that can generate …

Public Health And Human Health Implications Of Climate Mobility, Julia Neusner, Ama Francis

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Climate change poses significant challenges at the intersection of human and public health, mobility, and international law. Adverse climate impacts undermine the quality of human and public health, contributing to increasing global mobility, while climate-impacted migrants and displaced people can experience severe health challenges in transit and in their receiving communities. Moreover, the nexus between climate change, human and public health, and mobility exacerbates pre-existing vulnerabilities, undermining human rights and implicating State obligations. As international and regional courts, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ), clarify states’ duty to protect people from the adverse impacts of climate change, it is …

Climate Litigation In The Global South: Mapping Report, Maria Antonia Tigre

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

In recent years, climate litigation has undergone a notable transformation globally, witnessing a surge in cases across diverse jurisdictions. While scholarly interest has predominantly focused on cases from the Global North, attention to litigation originating in the Global South has been more limited. Nonetheless, understanding the distinct legal grounds, remedies sought, and objectives of plaintiffs in the Global South is crucial. This report addresses this gap by providing a comprehensive insight into the current landscape of climate litigation in the Global South.

The report utilizes data from the Sabin Center’s Global Climate Change Litigation databases, which has seen an influx …

Environmental Damage Is A War Crime: Analyzing The Legal Implications Of The Russian Armed Invasion's Environmental Impact On Ukraine, Iryna Rekrut

JCLC Online

As a result of the armed invasion of Ukraine by the Russian

military, Ukraine has suffered extreme environmental damage that

affects both its land and its people. This article explores the

intersection of international law and environmental protection in the

context of armed conflicts, with a specific focus on the Russian armed

invasion of Ukraine. After describing the devastation faced by

Ukraine, this article examines existing frameworks in international

law such as the Rome Statute, the Geneva Conventions, customary

international humanitarian law, and domestic law. This overview

highlights guidelines in these frameworks that render environmental

damage during war impermissible. Despite …

In Conversation About The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’S New Mass Atrocity Prevention Training, Tatiana Varanko, Ann O’Rourke

Judicature International

No abstract provided.

Authoritarian Privacy, Mark Jia

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Privacy laws are traditionally associated with democracy. Yet autocracies increasingly have them. Why do governments that repress their citizens also protect their privacy? This Article answers this question through a study of China. China is a leading autocracy and the architect of a massive surveillance state. But China is also a major player in data protection, having enacted and enforced a number of laws on information privacy. To explain how this came to be, the Article first turns to several top-down objectives often said to motivate China’s privacy laws: advancing its digital economy, expanding its global influence, and protecting its …

Reforming International Investment Law To Advance Tax Justice, Madeleine Songy

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Reforming International Investment Law to Advance Tax Justice" highlights the detrimental impact of current international investment treaties on tax justice and sustainable development objectives. It argues that Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanisms often impede states' ability to implement effective tax policies by allowing foreign investors to challenge tax measures. The brief recommends a comprehensive reform of international investment law to ensure that investment treaties support rather than undermine tax justice. This can include eliminating ISDS provisions, drafting new treaties that safeguard the sovereign right of states to regulate taxation, and facilitating cooperation among states to reform tax systems at national, …

Climate Change And Human Health: A Synthesis Of Scientific Research And State Obligations Under International Law, Jessica A. Wentz

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

This report synthesizes the latest scientific research on the human health effects of climate change and discusses the legal implications of this research, specifically with regards to State obligations under international law. In doing so, the report seeks to provide insights on issues to be analyzed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its upcoming advisory opinion on the legal obligations of States with respect to climate change. It also seeks to enhance the capacity of judges, advocates, and governments to understand these issues in the context of current and future proceedings involving international law obligations related to climate …

Ensuring Climate Litigants’ Standing: Insights From National And International Climate Litigation, Florence T.B. Simon

Connecticut Law Review

In March 2023, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its Sixth Assessment Report and confirmed unequivocally that human activities are the cause of climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions over the next few years are capable of causing irreversible and catastrophic damage to our planet. Catalyst litigation plays an important role in tackling climate change by prodding governments to assume a role in implementing adaptation and mitigation measures. Despite the extreme consequences that climate change will have on humanity, jurisdictional issues—such as standing—impose considerable hurdles for climate litigants. And these hurdles ultimately keep plaintiffs from obtaining a ruling, or …

The World Health Organization Was Born As A Normative Agency: Seventy-Five Years Of Global Health Law Under Who Governance, Lawrence O. Gostin, Benjamin Mason Meier, Safura Abdool Karim, Judith Bueno De Mesquita, Gian Luca Burci, Danwood Chirwa, Alexandra Finch, Eric A. Friedman, Roojin Habibi, Sam F. Halabi, Tsung-Ling Lee, Brigit Toebes, Pedro Villarreal

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The World Health Organization (WHO) was born as a normative agency and has looked to global health law to structure collective action to realize global health with justice. Framed by its constitutional authority to act as the directing and coordinating authority on international health, WHO has long been seen as the central actor in the development and implementation of global health law. However, WHO has faced challenges in advancing law to prevent disease and promote health over the past 75 years, with global health law constrained by new health actors, shifting normative frameworks, and soft law diplomacy. These challenges were …

International Governance Of Ocean-Based Carbon Dioxide Removal: Recent Developments And Future Directions, Romany M. Webb

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

With the impacts of climate change intensifying, and progress in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause it continuing to lag, the parties to the Paris Climate Agreement have emphasized the need to accelerate efforts to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, while simultaneously curbing emissions. As the parties have recognized, the ocean is already a major carbon sink, and could play an important role in future carbon dioxide removal (“CDR”) efforts. Scientists have proposed a variety of ocean-based CDR approaches, but most require further research to fully evaluate their efficacy, benefits, and risks. In-ocean testing of the approaches, and …

Advisory Opinion On Climate Change: Summary Of Written Observations Submitted To The Inter-American Court Of Human Rights (Part 1), Maria Antonia Tigre

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

On January 9, 2023, the Foreign Ministers of Chile and Colombia requested an advisory opinion from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) on the scope of state obligations for responding to the climate emergency under the frame of international human rights law and, specifically, under the American Convention on Human Rights. Within this context, the IACtHR received a total of 255 amicus brief submissions.

This report includes summaries of the amicus briefs submitted to the Court. Due to the number of submissions received and the short timeframe prior to the hearings, the report is divided into parts. This first …

Incorporating Climate Considerations Into Investment Assessment Processes: Guidance For National And Local Governments, Esther Akwii, Grace Brennan, Leslie Hannay, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Nora Mardirossian

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Global climate change impacts pose complex, dynamic challenges to the success of land-based investments — such as agriculture, forestry, and wind and solar energy — which can further exacerbate detrimental climate change impacts if they are not sustainably implemented. Countries outline in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) their goals and plans to reduce GHG emissions and adapt to climate change impacts. To ensure their success, governments must fully integrate their NDCs into national climate strategies, plans, and policies that drive government action and decisions. Improved land-based investment decision-making through the incorporation of climate considerations in investment assessment processes (IAPs) can …

Defrosting Regulatory Chill, Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez

Faculty Scholarship

In Homer’s Odyssey, King Odysseus asked his men to tie him to the mast of his ship with the hope that he would not jump into the sea after listening to the Sirens. The Odyssey’s hero made a pact to bind himself in the future. He knew that the temptation would be impossible to resist without restraints. Similarly, the creators and advocates of international investment agreements believe that providing rights to foreign investors through international treaties will chill State policies that would harm the interests of investors in the future. The “rope” to tie the State is the threat of …

Financing Reforms To Meet A Pivotal Moment In Global Health, Kevin A. Klock, Alexandra Finch, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

2024 will be the most important moment for global health since the World Health Organization’s founding in 1948, but only if states give major reforms their full political and financial backing. Bold new commitments in disease surveillance, capacity building, and more equitable access to health products cannot be achieved without ample and sustainable funding. In this essay, we discuss major reforms found in the emerging pandemic agreement and reformed International Health Regulations and then explore the significant challenges and opportunities for financing them.

The Insidious War Powers Status Quo, Rebecca Ingber

Faculty Articles

This Essay highlights two features of modern war powers that hide from public view decisions that take the country to war: the executive branch’s exploitation of interpretive ambiguity to defend unilateral presidential authority, and its dispersal of the power to use force to the outer limbs of the bureaucracy.

A Tale Of Two Subject-To-Tax Rules, Sol Picciotto, Jeffery M. Kadet, Bob Michel

Articles

In this article, we analyze and compare two proposals for a new subject-to-tax rule (STTR) provision to be included in tax treaties, one from the U.N. Tax Committee and the other from the G20/OECD inclusive framework on base erosion and profit shifting. The U.N. proposal is broad, and would clarify that restrictions in tax treaties on taxation of income at the source where it is derived are conditional on that income being taxed at an agreed-upon minimum rate in the country where it is received. The inclusive framework version is much more limited, being confined to payments between connected entities …

Rico's Long Arm, Randy D. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

RICO has for over 50 years presented something of a parlor game for lawyers, mostly because its text leaves wide latitude in interpretation. And, as is often the case with RICO, resolution of one question begets more. The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Yegiazaryan v. Smagin proves no exception. Here, the Court brought some clarity to a question left open by RJR Nabisco: viz, what must one plead and prove to satisfy the “domestic injury” requirement necessary to invoke an extraterritorial application of RICO. The Court held that a foreign plaintiff can indeed, given the right facts and circumstances, establish …

Evolving Sovereignty Relationships Between Affiliated Jurisdictions: Lessons For Native American Jurisdictions, Vaughan Carter, Charlotte Ku, Andrew P. Morriss

Faculty Scholarship

Though sovereignty is principally associated with governance over a territory and freedom to act in the international arena, this article examines sovereignty as empowerment. The study tests the applicability to Native American jurisdictions of the experiences of fifteen case study jurisdictions presently associated with the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and France in shared sovereign relationships. The focus is on the evolution of those relationships and opportunities for development where jurisdictions do not attain full control over their affairs. The case studies examine the relationships from the perspectives of political, economic, and cultural sovereignty. The article further examines the relationships in …

It Is (Finally) Time For And Advisory Opinion On Climate Change: Challenges And Opportunities On A Trio Of Initiatives, Maria Antonia Tigre

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

In recent years, the number and diversity of climate-related lawsuits have increased, with courts in over seventy jurisdictions now handling such cases. After the expansion through domestic courts, stakeholders worldwide are turning to international courts and tribunals to help define the responsibilities of states in light of the climate crisis. Three initiatives requesting advisory opinions to international courts or tribunals have been announced within six months. These advisory opinions could have significant implications for international climate change law, defining the human rights obligations of states (and potentially corporations) in light of the climate crisis. It is expected the International Court …

In Conversation With Stephen Gageler, Chief Justice Of The High Court Of Australia, Stephen Gageler, David Collins

Judicature International

No abstract provided.

Blue Carbon, Red States, And Paris Agreement Article 6, Adam D. Orford

Scholarly Works

Coastal U.S. states, including many that have opposed proactive U.S. climate policies, are contemplating entrance into the supply side of the international carbon credit markets by, among other things, hosting revenue-generating blue carbon projects on their submerged lands. The voluntary carbon credit markets already facilitate private investment in such activities, and the emerging Paris Agreement Article 6 framework is poised to generate investment interest at the national level as well. Reviewing these trends, this Perspective questions whether this is good climate, environmental, and social policy, and advises further oversight and accountability.

Billion-Dollar Exposure: Investor-State Dispute Settlement In Mozambique’S Fossil Fuel Sector, Lea Di Salvatore, Maria Julia Gubeissi

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Alongside preparing for climate change, Africa should invest in the zero-carbon future, avoiding locking itself into the declining fossil fuel–based economy while taking advantage of the opportunities presented by decarbonization. However, investment treaties and investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) hinder, rather than catalyze, the transition to climate-friendly investment opportunities. This report shows how Mozambique’s international investment agreements and publicly available oil, gas, and coal contracts allow foreign investors to bypass the national judicial system and bring multi-billion-dollar ISDS claims against Mozambique. Such claims can result in significant costs for the country, and they also have a chilling effect on new public-interest …

Ukraine’S Supreme Court: Upholding Justice Amid War, Olena Kibenko, Cristobal Diaz

Judicature International

No abstract provided.

Digital Terror Crimes, Cody Corliss

Law Faculty Scholarship

Terror actors operating within armed conflict have weaponized social media by using these platforms to threaten and spread images of brutality in order to taunt, terrify, and intimidate civilians. These acts or threats of violence are terror, a prohibited war crime in which acts or threats of violence are made with the primary purpose of spreading terror among the civilian population. The weaponization of terror content through social media is a digital terror crime.

This article is the first to argue that the war crime of terror applies to digital terror crimes perpetrated through social media platforms. It situates digital …

Zero-Option Defendants: United States V. Mclellan And The Judiciary's Role In Protecting The Right To Compulsory Process, Wisdom U. Onwuchekwa-Banogu

JCLC Online

How does one obtain evidence located outside the United States for a criminal trial? For prosecutors, the answer is an exclusive treaty process: Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs). Defendants, on the other hand, may only use an unpredictable, ineffective, non-treaty process: letters rogatory. The result is a selective advantage for law enforcement at the expense of the defendant. Though this imbalance necessarily raises Sixth Amendment Compulsory Process Clause concerns, MLATs have remained largely undisturbed because defendants still have some form of process, albeit a lesser one. But what happens when the letters rogatory process is also closed off to the …

Legal, Policy, And Environmental Scholars Discuss Global Food Systems At Indiana Law Symposium, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

The Indiana University Maurer School of Law and its Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies are hosting scholars from around the country Friday and Saturday (Jan. 19-20) for an interdisciplinary discussion on one of the world’s most prevalent problems—food insecurity.

Data from the World Bank estimate more than 780 million people around the world suffered from chronic hunger in 2022. As climate change affects agricultural production and water accessibility, the problem could worsen in coming years.

“A Fragile Framework: How Global Food Systems Intersect with the International Legal Order, the Environment, and the World’s Populations” will bring together legal, policy, …

Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs In Brazil, And The Fight For Official Recognition, Christian Zavardino

CICLR Online

In recent years, the Indigenous peoples of Brazil have fought a host of legal obstacles to maintain sovereignty over their traditional ancestral lands, in large part owing to the policy imperatives of successive presidential administrations and Congresses that have favored agribusiness interests and commercial development of Brazil’s interior regions at the expense of the Indigenous peoples who live in these areas. The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 guarantees Brazil’s Indigenous peoples legal recognition of their ancestral lands via the “land demarcation” or “official land recognition” process, providing that the federal government shall recognize “their original rights to the lands they traditionally …

Arbitrating Corruption, Rachel Brewster

Faculty Scholarship

One of the most controversial issues in international investment law is how arbitral panels should deal with investments tainted by corruption at their inception. The current practice of investment arbitrators is to refuse to hear investors’ claims when bribery allegations are substantiated. A recent wave of scholarship has attacked this “corruption defense,” arguing that the practice unfairly harms investors and encourages governments to maintain corrupt practices. This Essay responds to that scholarship, arguing that the current approach is the best policy choice on balance. The Essay analyzes three core policy questions at the heart of the debate: Would eliminating the …