Law Commons^™

(Carbon) Farming Our Way Out Of Climate Change, Alexia Brunet Marks

Publications

Numerous climate-related emergencies highlight the challenges and urgency posed by climate change: the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report, the Global Climate Action Summit in California and international student walkouts, to name a few. While the IPCC Report sent an urgent cry to reduce total emissions and to achieve specific results—45% reduction by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050—reductions need to be combined with capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Scientific studies have shown that an annual increase of 0.4% of carbon stored in soils would make it possible to stop the present increase in atmospheric CO2.

This …

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 …

They Had Nothing, Charles Wilkinson

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Curious Case Of Greening In Carbon Markets, William Boyd, James Salzman

Publications

Over the last several years, so-called carbon markets have emerged around the world to facilitate trading in greenhouse gas credits. This Article takes a close look at an unexpected and unprecedented development in some of these markets--premium "green" currencies have emerged and, in some cases, displaced standard compliance currencies. Past experiences with other environmental compliance markets, such as the sulfur dioxide and wetlands mitigation markets, suggest the exact opposite should be occurring. Indeed, buyers in such markets should only be interested in buying compliance, not in the underlying environmental integrity of the compliance unit. In some of the compliance carbon …

Beyond Adjudication: Resolving International Resource Disputes In An Era Of Climate Change, Anna Spain

Publications

This Article examines the role of international adjudication as a mechanism for resolving international disputes and promoting global peace and security in an era of climate change. The central claim is that adjudication has limitations that make it ineffective as a tool for resolving international resource disputes. The Article argues that adjudication is limited due to source and process challenges and it illustrates this claim by reviewing cases adjudicated by the International Court of Justice, the Permanent Court of Arbitration and other international courts and tribunals. Four categories of adjudication limitation emerge: a) cases where the parties refused to submit …

Climate Change, Fragmentation, And The Challenges Of Global Environmental Law: Elements Of A Post-Copenhagen Assemblage, William Boyd

Publications

The 2009 United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen has been widely viewed as a failure -a referendum in the eyes of many on the top-down, comprehensive approach to climate governance embodied in the Kyoto Protocol and carried forward in efforts to negotiate a successor regime. Despite a modest agreement on future work toward a new agreement, the most recent climate meeting in Cancún, Mexico reinforces this view, underscoring the conclusion that Copenhagen represents an important inflection point for international climate policy. Although much of the post-Copenhagen commentary has correctly identified various problems, even fatal flaws, with the process, very little …

Energy Justice And Sustainable Development, Lakshman Guruswamy

Publications

Sustainable Development ("SD")--an expression of distributive justice--is the foundational premise of international energy and environmental law. It posits that international answers to environmental and energy problems cannot be pursued as independent and autonomous objectives but must be addressed within the framework of economic and social development. SD has been politically institutionalized in the Millennium Development Goals and a plethora of significant international instruments. Perhaps more importantly from a legal standpoint, SD is unequivocally codified, in the most widely accepted international energy and environmental treaties. This Article affirms the importance and continuing applicability of SD to the "other" third of the …

Ways Of Seeing In Environmental Law: How Deforestation Became An Object Of Climate Governance, William Boyd

Publications

Few areas of law are as deeply implicated with science and technology as environmental law, yet we have only a cursory understanding of how science and technology shape the field. Environmental law, it seems, has lost sight of the constitutive role that science and technology play in fashioning the problems that it targets for regulation. Too often, the study and practice of environmental law and governance take the object of governance--be it climate change, water pollution, biodiversity, or deforestation--as self-evident, natural, and fully-formed without recognizing the significant scientific and technological investments that go into making such objects and the manner …

Climate Change: The Next Dimension, Lakshman Guruswamy

Publications

No abstract provided.

Global Warming: A Comprehensive Approach, Lakshman Guruswamy

Publications

No abstract provided.

A True Comprehensive Approach, Lakshman Guruswamy

Publications

No abstract provided.

Integrated Environmental Control: The Expanding Matrix, Lakshman Guruswamy

Publications

Professor Guruswamy addresses the configuration of forces creating global warming, and canvasses the action necessary to deal with this challenge. He identifies key reasons accounting for the failure of the United States to take adequate measures to control emissions of carbon dioxide at the national level, and for resisting international attempts to do so. Guruswamy argues that the problem of global warming should be dealt with within the framework of Integrated Environmental Control (IEC)--a radical approach to pollution prevention and modification of product demand. He reasons that by encompassing energy policy within the matrix of pollution control, IEC will promote …

Energy And The Environment: Confronting Common Threats To Security, Lakshman Guruswamy

Publications

No abstract provided.

Global Warming: Integrating United States And International Law, Lakshman D. Guruswamy

Publications

No abstract provided.