Law Commons^™

Climate Change And Indigenous Groups: The Rise Of Indigenous Voices In Climate Litigation, Maria Antonia Tigre

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Climate change’s pervasive human rights impacts on populations worldwide are widespread and now widely known. One avenue to address these human rights impacts is the growth of rights-based climate litigation. There are now hundreds of cases worldwide grounded on human rights claims. However, less attention has been brought to how vulnerable groups are disproportionally affected by climate change. Indigenous groups, in particular, are disproportionately affected by climate change due to their connection to their land and dependence on their ecosystems. To increase global attention and seek legal remedies to address how Indigenous communities are impacted by climate change, Indigenous groups …

A Call For The Library Community To Deploy Best Practices Toward A Database For Biocultural Knowledge Relating To Climate Change, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Abstract

Purpose – In this paper, a call to the library and information science community to support documentation and conservation of cultural and biocultural heritage has been presented.

Design/methodology/approach – Based in existing Literature, this proposal is generative and descriptive— rather than prescriptive—regarding precisely how libraries should collaborate to employ technical and ethical best practices to provide access to vital data, research and cultural narratives relating to climate.

Findings – COVID-19 and climate destruction signal urgent global challenges. Library best practices are positioned to respond to climate change. Literature indicates how libraries preserve, share and cross-link cultural and scientific knowledge. …

Vecinos Para El Bienestar De La Comunidad Costera V. Ferc, Malcolm M. Gilbert

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The D.C. Circuit Court remanded three Brownsville, TX LNG approval orders to FERC for failing to adequately explain conclusions around environmental justice and climate concerns. The Court ordered FERC to reevaluate whether the projects are in the public interest. The LNG terminals and pipeline will disproportionately impact low-income, minority communities, and substantial greenhouse gas emissions from production and export will contribute to anthropogenic climate change. This case note explores the role that environmental justice and climate change play in federal agency decision-making processes, analyzes the legal framework for the Court's decision, and discusses how the outcome of this litigation could …

Litigating For The Homeland: An Indian Treaty Framework To Climate Litigation In The Wake Of Juliana, Evan Neustater

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Climate change is an increasingly pressing issue on the world stage. The federal government, however, has largely declined to address any problems stemming from the effects of climate change, and litigation attempting to force the federal government to take action, as highlighted by Juliana v. United States, has largely failed. This Note presents the case for a class of plaintiffs more likely to succeed than youth plaintiffs in Juliana—federally recognized Indian tribes. Treaties between the United States and Indian nations are independent substantive sources of law that create enforceable obligations on the federal government. The United States maintains a …

Indigenous Rights And Climate Change: The Influence Of Climate Change On The Quantification Of Reserved Instream Water Rights For American Indian Tribes, Dylan R. Hedden-Nicely

Articles

The people indigenous to the Western portion of the lands now referred to as North America have relied on aquatic species for physical, cultural, and spiritual sustenance for millennia. Such indigenous peoples, referred to in the American legal system as Indian tribes, are entitled to water rights for fish habitat pursuant to the Winters Doctrine, which holds that the federal government impliedly reserved water rights for tribes when reservations were created. Recently, the methodology for quantifying these rights has been the Instream Flow Incremental Methodology (IFIM) and/or one of its major components, the Physical Habitat Simulation Model (PHABSIM). These models …

Improving Justice And Avoiding Colonization In Managing Climate Change Related Disasters: A Case Study Of Alaska Native Villages, Elizaveta Barrett Ristroph

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Juliana V. United States, Daniel Brister

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In 2015, a group of adolescents between the ages of eight and nineteen filed a lawsuit against the federal government for infringing upon their civil rights to a healthy, habitable future living environment. Those Plaintiffs in Juliana v. United States alleged that the industrial-scale burning of fossil fuels was causing catastrophic and destabilizing impacts to the global climate, threatening the survival and welfare of present and future generations. Seeking to reduce the United States’ contributions to atmospheric carbon dioxide, Plaintiffs demanded injunctive and declaratory relief to halt the federal government’s policies of promoting and subsidizing fossil fuels, due to the …

Environmental Justice And The Possibilities For Environmental Law, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

Climate change and extreme inequality combine to cause disproportionate harms to poor communities throughout the world. Further, unequal resource allocation is shot through with the structures of racism and other forms of discrimination. This Essay explores these phenomena in two different places in the United States, and traces law’s role in constructing environmental and economic vulnerability. The Essay then proposes that solutions, if there are any to be had, lie in expanding our notions of what kinds of laws are relevant to achieving environmental justice, and in seeing law as a possible tactic for instigating broader social change but not …

Tribal Tools & Legal Levers For Halting Fossil Fuel Transport & Exports Through The Pacific Northwest, Mary Christina Wood

American Indian Law Journal

As alarming scientific predictions crystallize into the realities of today’s climate crisis, tribal communities in the Pacific Northwest find themselves on the front lines of a global assault launched by the fossil fuel industry. Encouraged by President Trump’s declaration of intent to unleash $50 trillion of America’s domestic fossil fuels, corporations push for massive expansion of the nation’s fossil fuel infrastructure—even as the world races towards irrevocable climate thresholds. The unprecedented onslaught hinges on the Pacific Northwest as a key link in a global market scheme. The coastal region sits as a proposed industrial gateway for huge export facilities transporting …

Highway Culverts, Salmon Runs, And The Stevens Treaties: A Century Of Litigating Pacific Northwest Tribal Fishing Rights, Ryan Hickey

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Isaac Stevens, then Superintendent of Indian Affairs and Governor of Washington Territory, negotiated a series of treaties with Indian tribes in the Pacific Northwest during 1854 and 1855. A century and a half later in 2001, the United States joined 21 Indian tribes in filing a Request for Determination in the United States District Court for the District of Washington. Plaintiffs alleged the State of Washington had violated those 150-year-old treaties, which remained in effect, by building and maintaining culverts under roads that prevented salmon passage. This litigation eventually reached the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which held in favor …

Collaboration Through Nepa: Achieving A Social License To Operate On Federal Public Lands, Temple Stoellinger, L. Steven Smutko, Jessica M. Western

Public Land & Resources Law Review

As demand and consumption of natural gas increases, so will drilling operations to extract the natural gas on federal public lands. Fueled by the shale gas revolution, natural gas drilling operations are now frequently taking place, not only in the highly documented urban settings, but also on federal public lands with high conservation value. The phenomenon of increased drilling in sensitive locations, both urban and remote, has sparked increased public opposition, requiring oil and gas producers to reconsider how they engage the public. Oil and gas producers have increasingly deployed the concept of a social license to operate to gain …

Public-Private Conservation Agreements And The Greater Sage-Grouse, Justin R. Pidot

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In 2015, the Obama Administration announced its conservation plans for the greater sage-grouse, an iconic bird of the intermountain west.Political leadership at the time described those plans as the “largest landscape-level conservation effort in U.S. history,”and they served as the foundation for a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“FWS”) that a listing of the bird was not warranted under the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”). The Trump Administration appears poised to substantially amend the plans, although an array of interested parties have urged that the plans be left intact. Regardless of the outcome of this debate, conservation of …

Streamlining The Production Of Clean Energy: Proposals To Reform The Hydroelectricity Licensing Process, Travis Kavulla, Laura Farkas

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Hydroelectric power is an efficient and clean source of power. In an era when air emissions dominate public concern about the environmental effects of the energy sector, it is a paradox that among the most highly regulated energy projects are hydroelectric dams, which do not combust fuel. This is partly due to a failure of successive statutory enactments,which have transformed hydroelectric licensing from a regulatory “one-stop shop” with a single regulator, to a process chained to a bewilderingnumber of often conflicting regulatory agencies, often riven with delay. Hydroelectric licensing has also failed because its capacious standard of review encourages special-interest …

Center For Biological Diversity V. Zinke, Ryan Hickey

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The oft-cited “arbitrary and capricious” standard revived the Center for Biological Diversity’s most recent legal challenge in its decades-long quest to see arctic grayling listed under the Endangered Species Act. While this Ninth Circuit decision did not grant grayling ESA protections, it did require the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider its 2014 finding that listing grayling as threatened or endangered was unwarranted. In doing so, the court found “range,” as used in the ESA, vague while endorsing the FWS’s 2014 clarification of that term. Finally, this holding identified specific shortcomings of the challenged FWS finding, highlighting how …

Public Employees For Environmental Responsibility V. United States Epa, F. Aaron Rains

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Prior to 2016, the EPA acknowledged that human activities significantly contribute to climate change. However, on March 9, 2017, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that significant debate regarding the issue remained in the scientific community. In response to these statements, a nonprofit organization filed a FOIA request with the EPA seeking any documents or records Pruitt may have used when formulating his statements or substantiating his position. The EPA refused to comply with the request, citing undue burden and improper interrogation and this action followed. Upon review, the District Court for the District of Columbia found the plaintiff’s FOIA request …

Agenda: Coping With Water Scarcity In River Basins Worldwide: Lessons Learned From Shared Experiences, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

Coping with Water Scarcity in River Basins Worldwide: Lessons Learned from Shared Experiences (Martz Summer Conference, June 9-10)

Water scarcity is increasingly dominating headlines throughout the world. In the southwestern USA, the looming water shortages on the Colorado River system and the unprecedented drought in California are garnering the greatest attention. Similar stories of scarcity and crisis can be found across the globe, suggesting an opportunity for sharing lessons and innovations. For example, the Colorado River and Australia's Murray-Darling Basin likely can share many lessons, as both systems were over-allocated, feature multiple jurisdictions, face similar climatic risks and drought stresses, and struggle to balance human demands with environmental needs. In this conference we cast our net broadly, exploring …

Ocean Iron Fertilization And Indigenous Peoples' Right To Food: Leveraging International And Domestic Law Protections To Enhance Access To Salmon In The Pacific Northwest, Randall S. Abate

Journal Publications

Ocean iron fertilization (OIF) is a new and controversial climate change mitigation strategy that seeks to increase the carbon-absorbing capacity of ocean waters by depositing significant quantities of iron dust into the marine environment to stimulate the growth of phytoplankton blooms. The photosynthetic processes of these blooms absorb carbon from the atmosphere and sequester it to the ocean floor. OIF has been criticized on several grounds. including the foreseeable and unforeseeable adverse consequences it may cause to the marine environment, as well as the daunting challenge of reconciling several potentially overlapping sources of international and domestic environmental law, which may …

Traditional Ecological Rulemaking, Anthony Moffa

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the implications of an increased role for Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in United States agency decisionmaking. Specifically, it contemplates where TEK might substantively and procedurally fit and, most importantly, whether a final agency action based on TEK would survive judicial scrutiny. In the midst of a growing body of scholarship questioning the wisdom of deference to agency expertise9 and the legitimacy of the administrative state writ large,10 this Article argues that there remains an important space in administrative rulemaking for the consideration of ways of understanding that differ from traditional Western norms. TEK can and should fill …

Slides: Wrapping Up The Big Horn Adjudication: Lessons After 38 Years And 20,000 Claims, Ramsey L. Kropf

Innovations in Managing Western Water: New Approaches for Balancing Environmental, Social and Economic Outcomes (Martz Summer Conference, June 11-12)

Presenter: Ramsey L. Kropf, Deputy Solicitor for Water Resources, Office of the Solicitor, U.S. Department of the Interior

34 slides

Slides: The Columbia River Treaty, Barbara Cosens

Innovations in Managing Western Water: New Approaches for Balancing Environmental, Social and Economic Outcomes (Martz Summer Conference, June 11-12)

Presenter: Barbara Cosens, Professor, University of Idaho College of Law and Waters of the West Graduate Program

22 slides

Slides: Perspectives On Water Management In Arizona, Kathy Jacobs

Innovations in Managing Western Water: New Approaches for Balancing Environmental, Social and Economic Outcomes (Martz Summer Conference, June 11-12)

Presenter: Kathy Jacobs, Director, Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions (CCASS), Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science, University of Arizona

25 slides

Optimizing Reservoir Operations To Adapt To 21st Century Expectations Of Climate And Social Change In The Willamette River Basin, Oregon, Kathleen M. Moore

Publications

Reservoir systems in the western US are managed to serve two main competing purposes: to reduce flooding during the winter and spring, and to provide water supply for multiple uses during the summer. Because the storage capacity of a reservoir cannot be used for both flood damage reduction and water storage at the same time, these two uses are traded off as the reservoir fills during the transition from the wet to the dry season. Climate change, population growth, and development in the western US may exacerbate dry season water scarcity and increase winter flood risk, creating a need to …

Agenda: Seeds Of Change: Responding To Global Change In A Bottom-Up World, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment, University Of Colorado Boulder. School Of Law, Posner Center For International Development, Resolve (Firm), Newmont Mining Corporation

Seeds of Change: Responding to Global Change in a Bottom-Up World (Martz Winter Symposium, February 12-13)

Sponsors: Posner Center for International Development, RESOLVE, Inc., Newmont Mining Corporation, and Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment.

Conference moderators, panelists and speakers included University of Colorado Law School professors Phil Weiser, Sarah Krakoff, Britt Banks, and Lakshman Guruswamy.

This conference is made possible through the generous support of donors who sponsored this year’s Martz Sustainability Symposium (including Newmont Mining Corporation) and those who have invested in our Clyde O. Martz Endowed Fund for Natural Resources Management (including Brian Dolan and Davis Graham and Stubbs LLP). The Martz Natural Resources Management Fund was established in the memory …

Comment On Maxine Burkett's "Rehabilitation: A Proposal For A Climate Compensation Mechanism For Small Island States", Randall S. Abate

Journal Publications

No abstract provided.

They Had Nothing, Charles Wilkinson

Publications

No abstract provided.

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

Charting A New Course For The Colorado River: A Summary Of Guiding Principles, Colorado River Research Group

Books, Reports, and Studies

[4] p. : color illustrations ; 28 cm.

Agenda: Free, Prior And Informed Consent: Pathways For A New Millennium, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment, University Of Colorado Boulder. School Of Law. American Indian Law Program

Free, Prior and Informed Consent: Pathways for a New Millennium (November 1)

Presented by the University of Colorado's American Indian Law Program and the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy & the Environment.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), along with treaties, instruments, and decisions of international law, recognizes that indigenous peoples have the right to give "free, prior, and informed consent" to legislation and development affecting their lands, natural resources, and other interests, and to receive remedies for losses of property taken without such consent. With approximately 150 nations, including the United States, endorsing the UNDRIP, this requirement gives rise to emerging standards, obligations, and opportunities …

Commonality Among Unique Indigenous Communities: An Introduction To Climate Change And Its Impacts On Indigenous Peoples, Randall S. Abate

Journal Publications

This special Issue of the Tulane Environmental Law Journal explores how climate change affects the rights of indigenous peoples. Climate change is a global environmental problem caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Indigenous peoples generally contribute very limited quantities of greenhouse gases to the global atmosphere. Although the causes of climate change are global, the adverse impacts of this problem are disproportionately burdening indigenous peoples.

In recognition of the growing global problem of climate change, legal strategies to address climate change through mitigation and adaptation have been undertaken. This Issue recognizes that indigenous peoples are particularly vulnerable to climate change, both …

Climate Change And Its Effect On Indigenous Peoples Of The Southwest, Josh Merrill

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.