Law Commons^™

A Survey Of Federal Agency Rulemakers’ Attitudes About E-Rulemaking, Jeffrey Lubbers

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Drawing on a survey of U.S. civil servants engaged in developing regulations across a wide variety of agencies, this chapter analyzes how bureaucrats in key positions view the impact on their work of “electronic rulemaking” – that is, the creation of online opportunities for members of the public to comment on proposed administrative regulations. There is strong evidence that rulemakers appreciate the value of new technologies for public participation purposes and for internal administration and coordination functions, but less evidence that they see the utility of e-rulemaking for improving the quality of administrative rules.

The U.S. Rulemaking Process: Has It Become Too Difficult?, Jeffrey Lubbers

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The modem process for making administrative policy-the informal, notice-and-comment rulemaking process-was developed in the U.S. when the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) was enacted in 1946. The "notice-and-comment" label derives from the fact that the APA requires: publication of a notice of proposed rulemaking, opportunity for public participation in the rulemaking by submission of written comments, publication of a final rule and accompanying explanation.

This applies to the substantive rulemaking of every agency of the federal government and provides the procedural minimum for most significant rulemakings. More elaborate public procedures such as oral hearings may be used voluntarily by agencies in …

The Merits Of ‘Merits’ Review: A Comparative Look At The Australian Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Jeffrey Lubbers, Michael Asimow

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This article compares several systems of administrative adjudication. In the U.S., adjudication is typically performed by the same agency that makes and enforces the rules. However, in Australia, almost all administrative adjudication is performed by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), a non-specialized adjudicating agency, and several other specialized tribunals that are independent of the enforcing agency. These tribunals (which evolved out of concerns about separation of powers) have achieved great legitimacy. In the U.K., recent legislation (the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act) merged numerous specialized tribunals into a single first-tier tribunal with much stronger guarantees of independence than previously existed. …

Joining The Convention On Biological Diversity, William Snape

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

INTRODUCTION: Life on Earth as we know it is under siege. Significant and probably irreversible changes to the natural world are now occurring. It is an undisputed fact that we are losing wild species in nature to extinction faster than in any geologic period since the dinosaur die-off roughly sixty five million years ago. It is also undisputed that ecosystem services from land, water, and air are degraded throughout the world and threatening food supplies, economic development, scientific advancements, and global security. The rapid advent of global warming and associated climate change makes the job of saving native plants, animals, …