Law Commons^™

From Schweizerhalle To Baia Mare: The Continuing Failure Of International Law To Protect Europe's Rivers, Aaron Schwabach

Faculty Scholarship

Beginning on January 31, 2000, at least 100,000 cubic meters of highly polluted water escaped from a tailings dam at the Aurul gold mine in Baia Mare, Romania. The water flowed into the Somes, Tisza, and Danube Rivers, causing enormous environmental damage. Most of the damage occurred in Hungary, downstream from Baia Mare. Hungarian politicians called the spill “the first, most serious environment[al] catastrophe in the 21st century,” and “the worst ecological disaster in central Europe since Chernobyl in 1986.”

More striking than the resemblance to the Chernobyl disaster, though, was the resemblance to another 1986 environmental catastrophe: the Sandoz …

Ecocide And Genocide In Iraq: International Law, The Marsh Arabs, And Environmental Damage In Non-International Conflicts, Aaron Schwabach

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Frictions Of Federalism: The Rise And Fall Of The Federal Common Law Of Interstate Nuisance, Robert V. Percival

Faculty Scholarship

Prior to the erection in the 1970s of a comprehensive federal regulatory infrastructure to protect the environment, transboundary pollution disputes frequently were adjudicated by the U.S. Supreme Court, exercising its original jurisdiction over disputes between states. In a series of cases commencing at the dawn of the Twentieth Century, the Court served as a national arbiter of interstate pollution disputes. This paper reviews the history of the Supreme Court's use of these cases to develop a federal common law of interstate nuisance.

The paper argues that while federal common law initially performed a zoning function by encouraging polluters to relocate …

Creation, Liberation, And Property: Virtues And Values Toward A Theocentric Earth Ethic, W. Wade Berryhill

Law Faculty Publications

Religion continues to play a significant role in shaping our attitudes toward nature.2 Time-honored principles of stewardship of the land demand that we owe a duty to future generations to allow them to inherit a healthy environment. Essential to this obligation is spiritual faith, not the trendy brand of secular humanism espoused by ecodogmatists seeking environmental justice through means unmoored from centuries-old principles of creation. What secular humanism ignores-and what religious traditions the world over have recognizedis the reality that we are a "creative expression of the earth's own evolution."3 Thus, in light of our duty to posterity, mere emphasis …

No More Parking Lots: How The Tax Code Keeps Trees Out Of A Tree Museum And Paradise Unpaved, Francine J. Lipman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

What Happened To The Skeptical Environmentalist, David Schoenbrod, Christi Wilson

Articles & Chapters

This essay focuses on the critical reaction to Bjorn Lomborg's book, The Skeptical Environmentalist. After the book was glowingly reviewed in the Washington Post, the Economist, and other influential publications, it was critically reviewed in Scientific American, Nature, and Science and criticized by environmental organizations. The criticism went beyond trying to show him wrong on environmental policy to claim that he should be disqualified as a participant in debates on environmental policy. The basis for the disqualification was that he does not understand the science or was disingenuous in his treatment of it. In analyzing this effort to disqualify him, …