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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Transatlantic Gmo Dispute Against The European Communities: Some Preliminary Thoughts, David A. Wirth
The Transatlantic Gmo Dispute Against The European Communities: Some Preliminary Thoughts, David A. Wirth
David A. Wirth
Any day now, a World Trade Organization panel is expected to rule in a dispute between the U.S. and the EU concerning market access for genetically-engineered foods and crops. This piece, written before the release of the WTO panel's report, analyzes novel systemic issues concerning the impact of WTO law on regulatory design, at both the national and international levels, that are raised by this dispute. These include (1) the application of WTO disciplines to regulatory schemes that require prior governmental approval to protect the environment and public health from newly-introduced products and substances; (2) the role of precaution as …
At War With The Environment, David A. Wirth
At War With The Environment, David A. Wirth
David A. Wirth
In this Article, Professor Wirth reviews the book National Defense and the Environment by Stephen Dycus, a recognized expert in both environmental and national security law. The emphasis of the book is on containing and remediating the environmental excesses of the American defense-industrial complex, with a domestic policy focus. While Professor Wirth considers Dycus’ work an intellectually rewarding and refreshing new entry into the ongoing environment-as-security colloquy, he does not consider the book to be accessible to a general audience given the book’s fundamentally legalistic nature.
The Disaster At Bhopal: Lessons For Corporate Law?, Kent Greenfield
The Disaster At Bhopal: Lessons For Corporate Law?, Kent Greenfield
Kent Greenfield
Prepared for a conference at New England Law School marking the upcoming twenty-fifth anniversary of the disaster at Bhopal, this essay asks whether we have anything still to learn from what occurred in the early morning hours in Bhopal on December 3, 1984, and in the hours, days, and weeks that followed. Is there reason to believe, for example, that corporations have a tendency to create the context in which such disasters are more likely? More recent corporate behavior poses the same question, whether it pertains to environmental destruction, injuries to consumers, collusion with illegal governmental activities, or financial malfeasance. …
Environmental Law And Three Economies: Navigating A Sprawling Field Of Study, Practice, And Societal Governance In Which Everything Is Connected To Everything Else, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Environmental Law And Three Economies: Navigating A Sprawling Field Of Study, Practice, And Societal Governance In Which Everything Is Connected To Everything Else, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
The vast sprawl of the environmental law field makes it a bemusing and confounding puzzle even to those who pursue it as their primary academic vocation. The amorphous breadth and intricate depths of environmental law present special challenges to anyone who tries to navigate the field. This Article addresses several of these challenges, briefly analyzing how environmental curricula are designed, and then suggests a potentially useful new way to conceptualize the realm of environmental law.
The Embattled Social Utilities Of The Endangered Species Act - A Noah Presumption And Caution Against Putting Gasmasks On The Canaries In The Coalmine, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
The Embattled Social Utilities Of The Endangered Species Act - A Noah Presumption And Caution Against Putting Gasmasks On The Canaries In The Coalmine, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is once again poised at the brink of what could become an illuminating national debate. The Act’s congressional reauthorization process is likely to provide the first major indicator of what the 105th Congress will or won’t do to environmental law generally. From the turbulent past and present of the ESA, this essay offers some reminders for the impending battles over the Act.
Keynote Essay: A Modern Political Tribalism In Natural Resources Management, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Keynote Essay: A Modern Political Tribalism In Natural Resources Management, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
The first law of ecology holds that everything is connected to everything else. This conference addresses the challenges and dilemmas of resource management policy on America’s public lands, but it seems useful both for the purposes of the conference and in broader terms to note how resource management is connected to larger questions of global integrity and human governance. This essay explores a troubling fact of modern political life: As the problems of managing the economy and ecology of this nation become ever more complex, subtly-interrelated, pressured and demanding, our processes of legal and political governance might be expected to …
The Right To Counsel Fees In Public Interest Environmental Litigation, Zygmunt J.B. Plater, Joseph H. King Jr
The Right To Counsel Fees In Public Interest Environmental Litigation, Zygmunt J.B. Plater, Joseph H. King Jr
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
No abstract provided.
Dealing With Dumb And Dumber: The Continuing Mission Of Citizen Environmentalism, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Dealing With Dumb And Dumber: The Continuing Mission Of Citizen Environmentalism, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Surveying the history of citizen environmentalism in the context of environmental law and politics over the past fifty years, this essay hypothesizes five different categories of corporate, governmental, political, and individual actions that deserve to be called “dumb,” and the societal lessons that have been or could be learned from each. If there is truth to the wistful aphorism that “we learn from our mistakes,” then our society is in position to learn a great deal about our world and how it works, which perhaps provides some ground for hope for the years to come. Environmentalism embodies fundamentally rational and …
Endangered Species Act Lessons Over 30 Years, And The Legacy Of The Snail Darter, A Small Fish In A Pork Barrel, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Endangered Species Act Lessons Over 30 Years, And The Legacy Of The Snail Darter, A Small Fish In A Pork Barrel, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Why is it – amidst the flood of environmental statutes that poured into the law books and national consciousness in the remarkable decade of the 1970s – that the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA) stands out as quite uniquely different? This Essay briefly surveys the ESA’s differentness, its special political context, the citizen suit of great notoriety that fired up the ESA’s political hotseat back in 1975, and what has changed and what has not in the years since that first eco-legal outburst.
Reflected In A River: Agency Accountability And The Tva Tellico Dam Case, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Reflected In A River: Agency Accountability And The Tva Tellico Dam Case, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Legal history is usually written from one of two time perspectives: as a narrative of events and changing conditions over a span of years or as an extended exploration of one fertile moment in time. In examining the intriguing entity known as the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), this article draws upon that chronological history to some extent. To a greater extent, however, it focuses upon revealing moments in the last six years of the long-running battles over completion of the TVA’s Tellico dam, which finally flooded the last remaining stretch of the Little Tennessee River Valley in the spring of …
Law, Media, & Environmental Policy: A Fundamental Linkage In Sustainable Democratic Governance, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Law, Media, & Environmental Policy: A Fundamental Linkage In Sustainable Democratic Governance, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
The functional linkages between law and media have long been signficant in shaping American democratic governance. Over the past thirty-five years, environmental analysis has similarly become essential to shaping international and domestic governmental policy. Environmentalism—focusing as it does on realistic interconnected accounting of the full potential negative consequences as well as benefits of proposed actions, policies, and programs, over the long term as well as the short term, with careful consideration of all realistic alternatives— provides a legal perspective important for societal sustainability. Because environmental values and norms are often in tension with established industrial interests that resist public interest …
Environmental Law In The Political Ecosystem - Coping With The Reality Of Politics, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Environmental Law In The Political Ecosystem - Coping With The Reality Of Politics, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
In this Essay, the proposition the author draws from the narrative of the endangered species litigation is derivatively Aristotelian – that we must consciously, actively, and explicitly integrate an informed consideration of human politics into what we teach and do in environmental law. The proposition is not that we should steep ourselves in party politics, although there are interesting observations aplenty that could be made on the direct consequences that the two major parties (and occassionally their wistful smaller incarnations) have on the evolution of environmental law. The proposition offered here operates at two different levels: practical politics and political …
Facing A Time Of Counter-Revolution: The Kepone Incident And A Review Of First Principles, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Facing A Time Of Counter-Revolution: The Kepone Incident And A Review Of First Principles, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
The Kepone contamination episode of 1966-75 was a milestone that focused an entire nation’s attention on environmental hazards and our need to do better in recognizing and avoiding them. We have learned a great deal from that unfortunate story. The evolution of American environmental law since the Kepone debacle has repeatedly used the incident as a touchstone in identifying environmental pollution’s causes, effects, and potential solutions. This essay offers four propositions, about two things that have changed, and two things that have not, in the years since Kepone, taking account of where we are, and seeking some points of consensus.
The Three Economies: An Essay In Honor Of Joseph Sax, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
The Three Economies: An Essay In Honor Of Joseph Sax, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
How does one evaluate the important public values and impacts of things that do not have a market price and then integrate them into the fabric of our system of social governance? That question lies within most or all of Joseph Sax's work over the years. The first part of this article represents an attempt to distill some of Joseph Sax's intellectual dimensions, beyond those already chronicled in the comments of other contributors to this symposium, with some linked themes and observations drawn from Sax beyond his writings. The second part, instigated by several of Sax's articles, presents "The Three …
Aep V. Connecticut And The Future Of The Political Question Doctrine, James R. May
Aep V. Connecticut And The Future Of The Political Question Doctrine, James R. May
James R. May
No abstract provided.
Constitutional Environmental Rights Worldwide, James May, Erin Daly
Constitutional Environmental Rights Worldwide, James May, Erin Daly
Erin Daly
No abstract provided.
Supreme Court Decides That Clean Air Act Displaces Federal Common Law Claims For Climate Change, James R. May
Supreme Court Decides That Clean Air Act Displaces Federal Common Law Claims For Climate Change, James R. May
James R. May
No abstract provided.
Constitutional Limitations On Land Use Controls, Environmental Regulations And Governmental Exactions (2011 Edition), Garrett Power
Constitutional Limitations On Land Use Controls, Environmental Regulations And Governmental Exactions (2011 Edition), Garrett Power
Garrett Power
This electronic book is published in a searchable PDF format as a part of the E-scholarship Repository of the University of Maryland School of Law. It is an “open content” casebook intended for classroom use in courses in Land Use Control, Environmental Law and Constitutional Law. It consists of cases carefully selected from the two hundred years of American constitutional history which address the clash between public sovereignty and private property. It considers both the personal right to liberty and the personal right in property. The text consists of non-copyrighted material and readers are free to use it or re-mix …
Brief Of Law Professors As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondents, American Electric Power Co. V. State Of Connecticut, No. 10-174, James R. May, Stuart Banner
Brief Of Law Professors As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondents, American Electric Power Co. V. State Of Connecticut, No. 10-174, James R. May, Stuart Banner
James R. May
No abstract provided.
New Directions In Earth Rights, Environmental Rights And Human Rights: Six Facets Of Constitutionally Embedded Environmental Rights Worldwide, James May, Erin Daly
New Directions In Earth Rights, Environmental Rights And Human Rights: Six Facets Of Constitutionally Embedded Environmental Rights Worldwide, James May, Erin Daly
Erin Daly
This essay provides an overview of the worldwide phenomenon of constitutional environmental rights. Since the Stockholm Convention, nearly 60 countries have constitutionally entrenched environmental rights, according their citizens basic rights to environmental quality in one form or another. The list is diverse politically, including countries with civil, common law, Islamic, and other traditions. Some of the more recent of these include Kenya in 2010, Ecuador in 2007, France in 2005, Afghanistan in 2004, and South Africa in 1996. As a result, domestic courts and international tribunals are enforcing constitutionally enshrined environmental rights with growing frequency, reflecting basic human rights to …
The Essential And Growing Role Of Legal Education In Achieving Sustainability, John Dernbach
The Essential And Growing Role Of Legal Education In Achieving Sustainability, John Dernbach
John C. Dernbach
This article suggests that law schools need to play a leading role in the national and global effort to achieve sustainability, including the effort to address climate change. The article first describes the various drivers for sustainability in law schools. Clients are increasingly demanding that their lawyers 'walk the talk,' as many businesses and corporations already are. The universities that provide an institutional home for most law schools are also adopting sustainability policies and practices that influence their law schools. Within the legal profession, the American Bar Association, as well as many state and local bar associations, have adopted a …
Creating The Law Of Environmentally Sustainable Economic Development, John Dernbach
Creating The Law Of Environmentally Sustainable Economic Development, John Dernbach
John C. Dernbach
This article argues that a key to sustainability is redirecting the law of economic development. From a historical perspective, sustainable development is an effort to integrate environmental protection and restoration with development. As a result, it is not possible to fully understand sustainable development unless we understand what development means. While that term is reasonably well understood at the international level, our closest analogue in the United States is not development in general but rather economic development. A great many recently enacted laws that move the United States toward sustainability can be understood as economic development laws. By understanding these …
Learning From The Global Trade Regime: A Proposal To Help Ameliorate Climate Change By Giving The International Court Of Justice Universal Advisory Jurisdiction, Andrew Strauss
Andrew L. Strauss
No abstract provided.
Book Review: Crucial Issues In Climate Change And The Kyoto Protocol: Asia And The World (Koh Kheng-Lian, Lye Lin-Heng And Jolene Lin (Eds)), David Hodas
David R. Hodas
No abstract provided.
Cleaning Up Our Rivers, Lakes, And Streams: Water Quality And Widener, Kenneth Kristl
Cleaning Up Our Rivers, Lakes, And Streams: Water Quality And Widener, Kenneth Kristl
Kenneth T Kristl
No abstract provided.
The Global Politics Of Food: Introduction To The Theoretical Perspectives Cluster, Carmen G. Gonzalez
The Global Politics Of Food: Introduction To The Theoretical Perspectives Cluster, Carmen G. Gonzalez
Carmen G. Gonzalez
The corporate-dominated, fossil-fuel dependent model of agricultural production has produced chronic undernourishment, an epidemic of obesity and diet-related diseases, and unprecedented ecological devastation. In May 2010, the Universidad Interamericana in Mexico City hosted an international conference on The Global Politics of Food: Sustainability and Subordination. Sponsored by Latina and Latino Critical Legal Theory, Inc. and by Seattle University School of Law, the conference took place under the auspices of the South-North Exchange on Theory, Culture and Law (SNX), a yearly gathering of scholars in the Americas that seeks to foster transnational, cross-disciplinary and inter-cultural dialogue on current issues in law, …
Climate Change, Food Security, And Agrobiodiversity: Toward A Just, Resilient, And Sustainable Food System, Carmen G. Gonzalez
Climate Change, Food Security, And Agrobiodiversity: Toward A Just, Resilient, And Sustainable Food System, Carmen G. Gonzalez
Carmen G. Gonzalez
The global food system is in a state of profound crisis. Decades of misguided aid, trade and production policies have resulted in an unprecedented erosion of agrobiodiversity that renders the world’s food supply vulnerable to catastrophic crop failure in the event of drought, heavy rains, and outbreaks of pests and disease. Climate change threatens to wreak additional havoc on food production by increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, depressing agricultural yields, reducing the productivity of the world’s fisheries, and placing pressure on scarce water resources. Furthermore, the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis are occurring at a …
Reconciling Justice And Efficiency: Integrating Environmental Justice Into Domestic Cap-And-Trade Programs For Controlling Greenhouse Gases, Alice Kaswan
Alice Kaswan
In the last thirty years, two opposing trends have emerged in environmental policy: environmental justice and market-based mechanisms. They present fundamental tensions. The environmental justice movement’s distributional goals conflict with market programs’ focus on cost-effectively achieving aggregate goals, without regard to distribution. And the environmental justice movement’s participatory goals conflict with market programs’ focus on industry autonomy and privatized decisionmaking. The tension between environmental justice and markets is arising in the context of cap-and-trade programs for greenhouse gases (GHGs). While GHGs do not impose localized harms, GHG trading policies nonetheless raise distributional issues because GHG gas emissions are inevitably accompanied …