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Environmental Law

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Public health

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Making The Case For A Right To A Healthy Environment For The Protection Of Vulnerable Communities: A Case Of Coal-Ash Disaster In Puerto Rico, Sarah Dávila-Ruhaak Aug 2020

Making The Case For A Right To A Healthy Environment For The Protection Of Vulnerable Communities: A Case Of Coal-Ash Disaster In Puerto Rico, Sarah Dávila-Ruhaak

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

The connection between the environment and human rights is not a surprising one. The enjoyment of human rights depends on a person’s ability to live free from interference and to have his or her rights protected. The interdependence of human rights and the protection of the environment is manifested in the full and effective enjoyment of the right to a healthy environment. This article argues that in order to protect vulnerable persons and communities facing environmental harm, a human rights framework—specifically the right to a healthy environment—must be applied. A human rights approach complements environmental justice work, recognizing that individuals …


Delinking International Environmental Law & Climate Change, Cinnamon Carlarne Oct 2014

Delinking International Environmental Law & Climate Change, Cinnamon Carlarne

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

This Article challenges the existing paradigm in international law that frames global efforts to address climate change as a problem of and for international environmental law. The most recent climate reports tell us that warming is unequivocal and that we are already experiencing the impacts of climate change at the domestic level in the United States. Against this backdrop, much has been written recently in the United States about domestic efforts to address climate change. These efforts are important, but they leave open the question of how the global community can work together to address the greatest collective action problem …


Protecting Human Health And Stewarding The Environment: An Essay Exploring Values In U.S. Environmental Protection Law, Tracy Bach Apr 2014

Protecting Human Health And Stewarding The Environment: An Essay Exploring Values In U.S. Environmental Protection Law, Tracy Bach

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

The purpose of this conference is to explore “the relationship between environmental protection and public health and how it should inform our efforts to become better stewards of the environment.” No one would disagree with the assertion that during the last forty years of federal environmental protection, air and water quality have improved and led to concomitant improvements in human health. Exploring the contours of this “relationship,” Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy said in her keynote speech that “[t]he thing is, the word ‘relationship’ is too neutral. The link between the health of our planet and the health …


Keynote Remarks At The University Of Michigan Environmental Law And Public Health Conference, Gina Mccarthy Apr 2014

Keynote Remarks At The University Of Michigan Environmental Law And Public Health Conference, Gina Mccarthy

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

The following are the prepared remarks delivered at the University of Michigan Law School’s 2013 Environmental Law and Public Health Conference on September 26, 2013.


Environmental Law, Public Health, And The Values Conundrum, David M. Uhlmann Apr 2014

Environmental Law, Public Health, And The Values Conundrum, David M. Uhlmann

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

In September 1996, when I was nearing the end of my sixth year as a Justice Department environmental crimes prosecutor, one of my colleagues sent me an email that there was a “good-sounding RCRA [Resource Conservation and Recovery Act] knowing endangerment case developing in Idaho.” A twenty-year-old man named Scott Dominguez had collapsed inside a storage tank at an Idaho fertilizer manufacturing facility called Evergreen Resources. Mr. Dominguez could not be rescued for nearly an hour, because firefighters who responded to the scene did not know what was in the tank and what safety precautions they needed to take before …