Law Commons^™

Disclosure Of Environmental Liabilities Under The Securities Laws: The Potential Of Securities-Market-Based Incentives For Pollution Control , Perry E. Wallace

Perry Wallace

No abstract provided.

It Takes A Global Sustainability Movement, John C. Dernbach

John C. Dernbach

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Environmental Protection And Human Rights, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Carmen G. Gonzalez

This article reviews Environmental Protection and Human Rights (Cambridge University Press, New York 2011), a textbook co-authored authored by Donald K. Anton and Dinah L. Shelton. The book examines the growing recognition by scholars, activists, governments, and international and domestic tribunals of the linkages between environmental protection and human rights. Although intended for use as a law school textbook and accompanied by five online problem-oriented case studies, this comprehensive volume will also serve as a valuable reference for scholars and practitioners as well as an excellent survey for newcomers to the field.

Seqra’S Silver Anniversary: Reviewing The Past, Considering The Present, And Charting The Future, Patricia E. Salkin

Patricia E. Salkin

No abstract provided.

Acting As If Tomorrow Matters: Accelerating The Transition To Sustainability, John Dernbach

John C. Dernbach

No abstract provided.

Regulating Evolution For Sale: An Evolutionary Biology Model For Regulating The Unnatural Selection Of Genetically Modified Organisms, Mary Jane Angelo

Mary Jane Angelo

In recent years, there has been an explosion in the genetic manipulation of living organisms to create commercial products. This genetic manipulation has, in effect, been a directed change in the evolutionary process for the purpose of profit. This deliberate alteration of the path of evolution has brought with it a panoply of novel environmental, human health, and economic risks that could not have been foreseen when U.S. environmental and health protection laws evolved. U.S. environmental law has not evolved to keep pace with these dramatic changes in the evolution of our biological systems. Thus, completely new approaches are needed …

The Killing Fields: Reducing The Casualties In The Battle Between U.S. Species Protection Law And U.S. Pesticide Law, Mary Jane Angelo

Mary Jane Angelo

For the past 35 years, the conflicting goals, standards, focuses, and methods of United States species protection laws and United States pesticide law have produced a fierce legal battle. The unwitting casualties of this battle are the millions of birds, fish, and other wildlife that have been killed, and the hundreds of protected species put at risk of extinction. This battle has intensified in recent years, as environmental organizations have sued the United States Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") for its continued failure to comply with the Endangered Species Act ("ESA"). In response, EPA has invoked numerous legal and regulatory strategies, …

Embracing Uncertainty, Complexity, And Change: An Eco-Pragmatic Reinvention Of A First-Generation Environmental Law, Mary Jane Angelo

Mary Jane Angelo

Recent scientific reports demonstrate that despite more than thirty years of environmental regulation, bird and wildlife species as well as ecosystem services, are in unprecedented decline. Pesticides are at least in part to blame for these profound declines. U.S. pesticide law has failed to carry out its mission of environmental protection. A number of recently-filed lawsuits assert that the registration of certain pesticides violates the federal Endangered Species Act. One of the great ironies of environmental law is that the ecological consequences of pesticide use, which fueled the environmental movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely have been …

Stumbling Toward Success: A Story Of Adaptive Law And Ecological Resilience, Mary Jane Angelo

Mary Jane Angelo

For decades, scientific and legal scholars alike have promoted the concept of "adaptive management" as a necessary approach to meaningful environmental management, restoration, and regulation. Unfortunately, adaptive management success stories are few and far between. The Lake Apopka Restoration Project provides a real-world illustration of adaptive management at work. This article uses adaptive management theory to explore mechanisms to make environmental law better able to address the uncertainties and changing nature of natural systems to restore and protect ecological resilience.

Incorporating Emergy Synthesis Into Environmental Law: An Integration Of Ecology, Economics, And Law, Mary Jane Angelo, Mark T. Brown

Mary Jane Angelo

Emergy synthesis, flrst developed by Dr. Howard T. Odum in the 1970s, and further expanded and refined by other scholars over the past thirty years, has the potential to transform environmental decisionmaking by providing a methodology that can integrate ecology, economics, and law. Virtually all areas of environmental law are concerned in some way with both the ecological and the economic impacts of environmental decision making. Unfortunately, existing environmental law statutes tend to incorporate ecological and economic considerations in a simplistic, piecemeal, and awkward fashion. Emergy synthesis incorporates both ecological and economic considerations through a sophisticated scientiic methodology. Emergy synthesis …

Harnessing The Power Of Science In Environmental Law: Why We Should, Why We Don't, And How We Can, Mary Jane Angelo

Mary Jane Angelo

To illustrate how legal scholars, lawmakers, environmental agencies, and practicing lawyers have attempted to incorporate new scientific developments into environmental law, particularly in the administrative context, this Article traces the journeys of three distinct scientific developments -- risk assessment, adaptive management, and emergy synthesis -- from scientific academia to environmental administrative law. The Article concludes by making observations about what types of scientific developments are most likely to be incorporated into the law and suggesting ways for improving the likelihood that new beneficial developments will be adopted to inform the law.

Corn, Carbon, And Conservation: Rethinking U.S. Agricultural Policy In A Changing Global Environment, Mary Jane Angelo

Mary Jane Angelo

This Article explores a range of issues related to both the regulatory and incentive-based federal programs that affect the crops we grow, the manner in which they are grown, and the human and environmental impacts of such programs. The Article evaluates the 2008 Farm Bill and describes how the policies contained in it influence virtually every aspect of agriculture, from the decision to grow certain crops, the amount of crops grown, the industrial manner. This Article focuses on one particular commodity, corn, which while ubiquitous and seemingly pedestrian, is perhaps one of the major environmental offenders, and for which the …

The Ecuadorian Exemplar: The First Ever Vindications Of Constitutional Rights Of Nature, Erin Daly

Erin Daly

The 'Sala de le Corte Provincial' - a provincial court in Ecuador - became the first court ever to vindicate the recently constitutionalized rights of nature. Recognizing the indisputable importance of the rights of nature for present and future generations, the court held the provincial government liable for flooding damages caused by dumping of construction debris. This judicial victory is arguably overshadowed by challenges facing the plaintiffs in seeing the courts order enforced, however. A subsequent case bears witness to the judiciary’s vindication of rights of nature in Ecuador with ever increasing legal effect.

Protection Of Human Rights And The Environment: Links And Approaches, Abdulkadir Bolaji Abdulkadir

Abdulkadir Bolaji Abdulkadir

Environmental degradations have adverse consequences, both short-term and long-term on the efficacious enjoyment of environmental human rights. Though these consequences are the results of the errant use and abuse of the environment resources by the affluent people and rich states around the globe, and their engagement with such activities that are not environmentally friendly, the most susceptible and sufferers are less privileged and indigent population of the developing and least developed countries. The best example of it is the phenomenon of global warming and its impact on countries across the world. Global warming, which is causing adverse weather conditions as …

Issues And Challenges In Environmental Justice Delivery System In Malaysia And Nigeria: The Need For Liberalising The Strict Rules Of Locus Standi, Abdulkadir Bolaji Abdulkadir

Abdulkadir Bolaji Abdulkadir

The court remains the last hope of the commoners. Where the authority erred in law, the only avenue to make them accountable to the public is through the interference of the court. However, seeking environmental justice is a difficult task for the masses due to the stringent rules involved in environmental matters. These rules pose a great challenge to the victims of environmental degradation. These rules are the problem of locus standi, institution of class action, limitation of time, the issue of cost and burden of proof. All these rules to a great extent present a difficult task to victims …

Comparative Climate Change Torts, Robert F. Blomquist

Robert F. Blomquist

No abstract provided.

Climate Change, The Clean Air Act, And Industrial Pollution, Alice Kaswan

Alice Kaswan

EPA has braved controversy by applying the Clean Air Act (CAA) to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from stationary sources, including utilities and industry. Because GHG controls inevitably affect combustion, they will impact traditional pollutants (termed “co-pollutants”). The Article first argues, as a threshold matter, that co-pollutant consequences are relevant to climate policy choices, and that considering those consequences will lead to improved environmental, administrative, and economic outcomes. It then reviews the CAA’s stationary source provisions and EPA’s implementation of them to date, discussing both the CAA’s potential and its limitations.

Moving beyond the CAA on its own terms, the Article …

Nanotechnology And The Environment: What's Next?, Jean Eggen

Jean M. Eggen

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Protection For Environmental Rights: The Benefits Of Environmental Process, Erin Daly

Erin Daly

More and more constitutions around the world -- from Bangladesh to Bolivia, and from the Philippines to the countries of the EU -- are explicitly protecting environmental rights and the values of a clean and healthy environment. In many instances, environmental rights are recognized not as substantive entitlements (which would allow litigants to sue if the government polluted their rivers or clearcut their forests), but as procedural rights. Examples of procedural rights include imposing on governments the obligation to consult with communities before they take actions that will affect their environment or giving individuals the right to participate in governmental …

Vantage Point, David R. Hodas

David R. Hodas

No abstract provided.

Next Generation Recycling And Waste Reduction: Building On The Success Of Pennsylvania's 1988 Legislation, John C. Dernbach

John C. Dernbach

No abstract provided.

Preliminary Abstract 2, Evgenia Pavlovskaia

Evgenia Pavlovskaia

The use of sustainability criteria in a binding legal context, in order to promote environmental sustainability, has so far not been thoroughly researched. Nor have the typical difficulties and challenges of including sustainability criteria in a legal framework been specified. Effective mechanisms for implementation and control of the fulfillment of sustainability criteria have neither been worked out. The main purpose of this thesis is to develop an approach, and with its help to investigate how sustainability criteria can be used as a tool in a legal context to promote sustainable products and sustainable production. Two theoretical models have been combined …