Law Commons^™

Panel: Ethical Dilemmas: Finding Common Ground On Controversial Issues, Lesley Blackner, Richard C. Foltz, Brion Blackwelder, Lisa C. Schiavinato, Alyson C. Flournoy

UF Law Faculty Publications

This panel discussion applied ethics to the theme of the 8th Annual Public Interest Environmental Conference. Panelists examined ways ethics may help reconcile industry (such as business and development) with environmentalism.

Environmental Law Of Armed Conflict, Nada Al-Duaij

Dissertations & Theses

This thesis explains the law of the environment during armed conflicts in five parts. Part One, “General Background of Armed Conflict,” focuses on the nature of armed conflict, including international and national disputes, civil war, and the problem of applying international legal duties to internal belligerents, the impact of armed conflict on civilians, and the environmental impact of preparing for, engaging in, and recovering from armed conflict. Part Two, “Environmental Protection in International Humanitarian Law,” examines the definition of international humanitarian law (IHL), focusing particularly on the environmental protection provisions in the IHL and its current inadequacy as a tool …

Controlling Toxic Harms: The Struggle Over Dioxin Contamination In The Pulp And Paper Industry, William Boyd

Publications

This essay addresses the challenges of controlling toxic harms through an intensive case study of efforts to regulate and remedy dioxin contamination in the U.S. pulp and paper industry. By focusing on the struggle to control a specific toxic harm in a specific industrial sector, the essay explores the politicized nature of toxic harms in the United States and, in the process, highlights the considerable shortcomings of existing legal frameworks and institutions for dealing with problems of such scope and complexity. In doing so, the essay raises a host of normative issues regarding current institutional arrangements and the appropriate strategy …

Farmland Stewardship: Can Ecosystems Stand Any More Of It?, J.B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Second in my series of articles on farming and environmental policy, this article examines farmland stewardship rhetoric in light of the reality of extensive agricultural exemptions from environmental regulation.

Environmental Damages And Crimes, Jeffry S. Wade

UF Law Faculty Publications

In the effort to achieve environmental goals, policymakers have a number of tools available, including environmental and urban planning, regulatory and permitting programs, various types of incentives, purchasing programs, monitoring requirements, and the establishment of administrative, civil, and criminal sanctions. The applicability and effectiveness of these tools are of course dependent on the particular cultural, economic, and governmental context.

Though criminal enforcement of environmental laws is sometimes perceived as a reactive measure, representing the failure of other approaches, it can serve an important function in deterring environmental abuses; promoting respect for environmental policies; sanctioning persons who violate the law; and …

Federalism In Environmental Protection, Peter A. Appel

Scholarly Works

In the last seven years, the Supreme Court has decided several cases that potentially alter the balance between the states and the federal government. Although these decisions have generated much controversy, in some ways they only address some important federalism questions at the periphery. Professor Appel examines four areas of environmental law that the recent decisions either only inform or do not address at all: cleanup of hazardous waste sites; the effect of state enforcement actions on citizen enforcement brought under federal environmental laws; the effect of state enforcement actions on federal enforcement actions; and the management of federal lands …

Information Based Regulation And International Trade In Genetically Modified Agricultural Products: An Evaluation Of The Cartagena Protocol On Biosafety, Michael P. Healy

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article considers the regulation of international trade in genetically modified agricultural products. Specifically, it addresses both products released into the environment as seeds and products intended for consumption as food. The first part of the Article describes the significance of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in modem agriculture, especially agriculture in the United States. This discussion summarizes the risks and potential benefits associated with the use of agricultural GMOs, especially the risks and benefits related to biodiversity. The Article then briefly describes the approaches to the regulation of these products adopted in the

Cartagena Protocol to the Convention on Biological …

Cartography Of Governance: An Introduction, Lakshman D. Guruswamy

Publications

No abstract provided.

A Lesson For Conservation From Pollution Control Law: Cooperative Federalism For Recovery Under The Endangered Species Act, Robert L. Fischman, Jaelith Hall-Rivera

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Three Questions For Agriculture About The Environment, J.B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article is the third in my series studying agriculture and environmental law. It asks why agriculture has not evolved toward more environmentally responsible behavior and points to possible "green" solutions that will move agriculture into necessary transformations.

The Birth, Death, And Rebirth Of The World Trade Center And The Fate Of New York, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

The year in the title has finally arrived, and in Stanley Kubrick's classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the appearance of large monoliths marks important transitions in human civilization. In New York City, the construction, destruction and possible reconstruction of the twin monoliths of the World Trade Center also mark historical transitions. Among the things transformed with each event is our relationship to the physical environment.

Regulatory Traffic Jams, J.B. Ruhl, James Salzman, Kai-Sheng Song

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Notwithstanding the tremendous amount of attention environmental agencies, policy analysts, and scholars have paid to "regulatory reinvention," it has been pitched primarily as a refinement of the sanction and facilitation models, and thus intended to be channeled through the firm-specific behavioral responses predicted under the rational polluter and good-apple models. Little attention has been paid to the systems level question. The relevant question under the systems model is whether there is a component of noncompliance that does not respond to sanction and facilitation policies that are intended to illicit firm-specific behavioral responses. To answer this will require (1) identifying instances …

The Humbugs Of The Anti-Regulatory Movement, Lisa Heinzerling, Frank Ackerman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is so hard to get beyond cynicism these days. Even a symposium devoted to this goal has, as reflected in the articles by Professors Cynthia Farina, Jeffrey Rachlinski, and Mark Seidenfeld, succeeded primarily in suggesting that regulators are not so much selfish as they are obtuse, stubborn, and sometimes downright dumb. Undoubtedly this is true some of the time. But Farina, Rachlinski, and Seidenfeld want to convince us that it is true enough of the time to warrant quite large-scale solutions. In this Comment, we take issue with this pessimistic assessment of regulatory behavior by discrediting the most prominent …

Agriculture And The Environment: Three Myths, Three Themes, Three Directions, J.B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Three very powerful and widely disseminated myths, what I call the Three Myths, have obscured the reality that agriculture is a leading source of environmental harm in our nation. Until we can divorce the dialogue on agri-environmental policy from these myths, the discussion of goals and policy instruments will remain mired.

Earning Deference: Reflections On The Merger Of Environmental And Land-Use Law, Michael Allan Wolf

UF Law Faculty Publications

The bedrock notion that courts should, in the overwhelming majority of cases, defer to lawmakers is currently under attack in the nation's courts, commentary and classrooms. Leading the way are several United States Supreme Court Justices who, in cases involving the Commerce Clause, the Takings Clause and Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment, are much more willing than their immediate predecessors to second-guess the motives and tactics of elected and appointed officials at all levels of government. Given this new juris-political reality, it is more important than ever that local government officials--who are often (though, certainly, not always justifiably) viewed …