Law Commons^™

The Limits Of Portfolio Primacy, Roberto Tallarita, Associate Director Of The Program On Corporate Governance

Vanderbilt Law Review

According to the “portfolio primacy” theory, large asset managers, and in particular large index funds, can and will undertake the role of “climate stewards” and will push corporations to reduce their carbon footprint. This theory is based on the view that index fund portfolios mirror the entire market and therefore have strong financial incentives to reduce market-wide threats, such as climate change.

But how much can we rely on portfolio primacy to mitigate the effects of climate change? In this Article, I provide a conceptual and empirical assessment of the potential impact of portfolio primacy on climate change mitigation by …

Wicked Problems, Foolish Decisions: Promoting Sustainability Through Urban Governance In A Complex World Symposium: Governing Wicked Problems, Scott D. Campbell, Moira Zellner

Vanderbilt Law Review

Why do wicked problems often give birth to bad policy choices? Put another way, why do people—in the face of complex social challenges—make misdiagnoses, ineffective decisions, or no decisions at all? Typical answers point to a plethora of suspects: impatience, myopia, political stalemate, narrow-mindedness, fear and risk aversion, hubris, greed, rational self-interest, ignorance, reliance on emotionally appealing but misleading anecdotal stories, misuse of evidence, and misunderstanding of uncertainty.

Amid these divergent explanations, two classes emerge: one lies in the shortcomings and mistakes of the problem solvers, and the other lies in the nature of the problem itself. One stance is …

Ecosystem Services And Federal Public Lands: A Quiet Revolution In Natural Resources Management, J.B. Ruhl, James Salzman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The major federal public land management agencies (the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Park Service, Fish & Wildlife Service, and Department of Defense) have increasingly adopted a language that did not exist twenty- five years ago-the language of ecosystem services. Ecosystem services are the range of benefits that ecological re- sources provide to humans, from water purification and pollination to carbon sequestration and wildlife habitat. The scientific discipline advancing the ecosystem services frame- work arose in the mid-1990s and quickly became a central strategy for fusing ecology and economics research. Despite its ascendance in research communities, the recognition and …

Applying New International Principles Of Transboundary Water Allocation To Florida V. Georgia's Doctrine Of Equitable Apportionment, Elizabeth Holden

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Human conflicts over access to water often focalize around transboundary waterbodies. For example, in the United States, the "tri-state water wars" between Georgia, Alabama, and Florida are fights over the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin. These tri-state water wars demonstrate water's economic and ecological value. Moreover, these conflicts are likely to escalate as the impacts of climate change decrease freshwater supplies globally.

Both in the United States and internationally, states traditionally address these conflicts through common law principles, such as the doctrine of equitable apportionment. The Supreme Court applied the doctrine most recently in Florida v. Georgia, reiterating the doctrine's flexibility without …

The Role Of International Law In Intrastate Natural Resource Allocation, Lillian A. Miranda

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

State natural resource development projects have become sites of intense political, social, and cultural contestation among a diversity of actors. In particular, such projects often lead to detrimental consequences for the empowerment, livelihood, and cultural and economic development of historically marginalized communities. This Article fills a gap in the existing literature by identifying and analyzing emerging international law approaches that impact the intrastate allocation of land and natural resources to historically marginalized communities, and thereby, carve away at states' top-down decision-making authority over development. It argues that while international law may have only been originally concerned with the allocation of …

Adaptive Management In The Courts, J.B. Ruhl, Robert Fischman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Adaptive management has become the tonic of natural resources policy. With its core idea of "learning while doing," adaptive management has infused the natural resources policy world to the point of ubiquity, surfacing in everything from mundane agency permits to grand presidential proclamations. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to suggest that these days adaptive management is natural resources policy. But is it working? Does appending "adaptive" in front of "management" somehow make natural resources policy, which has always been about balancing competing claims to nature’s bounty, something more and better? Many legal and policy scholars have asked that question, with …

Coining A New Jurisdiction: The Security Council As Economic Peacekeeper, Kristen E. Boon

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Economic conditions are linked to international peace and security. Financial crises, mismanagement of natural resources, food shortages, and climate change can create transnational effects, including conflict. The Security Council is the executive organ of the United Nations, with primary jurisdiction over the maintenance of international peace and security. This Article explores the extent to which the Security Council can and should assert jurisdiction over economic and financial issues.

In the past decade, the economic dimensions of conflict, including the economic causes of war, economic agendas of state and nonstate actors, and economic measures for reconstruction have become central to the …

Proposal For A Model State Watershed Management Act, J.B. Ruhl, C.L. Lant, Steven E. Kraft, Leslie A. Duram, Tim Loftus

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

During the Montana Constitutional Convention of 1889, John Wesley Powell, envisioning a landscape of watershed commonwealths, proposed that Montana adopt watersheds as the boundaries of its counties. The idea did not catch on. Over time, the power of local governments to regulate land use has grown immensely, but the misfit between their political boundaries and environmental policy problem sheds has persisted. As our understanding of ecosystem dynamics improves, however, natural resources management policy is gravitating, once again, to the watershed as an appropriate unit of governance. Many federal and state natural resource management initiatives have come on line in the …

End The Moratorium: The Timor Gap Treaty As A Model For The Complete Resolution Of The Western Gap In The Gulf Of Mexico, John Holmes

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The United States and Mexico recently entered into a treaty to delimit the continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico, allowing both countries access to explore and exploit valuable natural resources in the Western Gulf. Included in the treaty is a ten-year moratorium on oil production within a buffer zone that encompasses transboundary reserves.

This Note explores the issues surrounding the buffer zone and suggests a model to resolve the dispute over access to transboundary reserves that will benefit both the United States and Mexico. Part 11 describes the relevant international law governing the Gulf of Mexico. Part III outlines …

The Roman Public Trust Doctrine--What Was It, And Does It Support An Atmospheric Trust?, J. B. Ruhl, Thomas A.J. Mcginn

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Through building waves of legal scholarship and litigation, a group of legal academics and practitioners is advancing a theory of the public trust doctrine styled as the "atmospheric trust." The atmospheric trust would require the federal and state governments to regulate public and private actors to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to abate climate change. The traditional common law version of the American public trust doctrine requires that states owning title to lands submerged under navigable waters manage them in trust for the public to use for navigation, fishing, and commerce and that the states not alienate such resources to the …

The Foreign Commerce Clause And The Market Participant Exemption, David E. Dreifke

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In this Note, the author argues that, despite the strictures of the Foreign Commerce Clause, under an expansive conception of the market participant exemption, states should be able to place restrictions on the export of state-owned or state-nurtured natural resources. In light of the current trade imbalance between Japan and the United States and by way of example, the author discusses Japan's importation of United States natural resources and the competing interests that argue for and against its continuance. Japan's economic growth, appetite for natural resources, and lack of adequate regard for environmental consequences is well documented. Economists and political …

Death Of A Treaty: The Decline And Fall Of The Antarctic Minerals Convention, Deborah C. Waller

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

On June 2, 1988, in Wellington, New Zealand, thirty-three states signed the Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resources. This agreement, the product of six years of negotiation, fills a significant gap in the Antarctic Treaty System: it provides rules governing the prospecting, exploration, and development of minerals in Antarctica. Recently, however, two Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties--France and Australia--have refused to ratify the Minerals Convention, instead advocating a permanent ban on mineral activities in Antarctica. Their opposition thwarts plans for the ratification of the Minerals Convention. This Note provides an overview of the present Antarctic Treaty System, sets forth …

The Evolution Of Concession Agreements In Underdeveloped Countries And The United States National Interest, Theodore H. Moran

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Large natural resource projects in underdeveloped countries provide great benefits to United States investors, to host countries and to the United States itself. Yet concession agreements to exploit natural resources are notoriously controversial and notoriously unstable. This article will examine the United States national interest in guaranteeing equity investments in foreign natural resource development and will argue that concession agreements in large natural resource projects in the developing world go through a highly predictable evolution, reflecting changes in the relative bargaining positions of the foreign investors and the host governments. Initial agreements reflect the foreign company's quasi-monopolistic control over the …

Maritime Jurisdiction Over Fishery Resources, Gilbert T. Davis

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Economic necessity and recent developments in marine technology have caused man to begin his move into the sea on a grand scale, occupying and exploiting it for recreation, minerals, food, waste disposal, and possible living space. These new technological advances and the increased need for the traditional fishery resources have precipitated the interests of nations in expanding their exclusive jurisdictions further into an ocean space where it had been traditionally free for all to use. Though this move for exclusive jurisdiction is motivated by the uniform desire of all nations to more efficiently utilize and conserve the resources and to …

Coastal Zoning, James H. Ewalt, Robert H. Deaderick

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In today's atmosphere of environmental awareness, protection of the coastal wetlands seems appropriate for many reasons. The wetlands include much of the most aesthetically pleasing areas in the United States, while also being a source of recreation and enjoyment. Man has long had an economic interest in the valuable natural resources, minerals and fish which the wetlands yield. The result is a conglomerate of conflicting demands upon the wetlands. The situation begs for definition and control of these interests so that the full potential of the coast can be realized.

Zoning has often been suggested as a means to protect …

The Multinational Corporation As A Challenge To The Nation-State: A Need To Coordinate National Competition Policies, G. Philip Nowak

Vanderbilt Law Review

The recent growth and development of the multinational corporation presents the international community with a unique challenge. For the first time man has an instrument which enables him to use the world's resources with maximum efficiency. He is no longer restricted by national boundaries, but is able to allocate resources on a world wide basis. In addition, the multinational enterprise provides a means for linking the developing countries to an international productive scheme. These countries are now able to undertake production of goods in which they have a comparative advantage and more rapidly increase their rate of economic development.Since the …

Federal And State Control Of Natural Resources, Corwin W. Johnson

Vanderbilt Law Review

Federalism, a complicating factor in many areas of governmental concern, poses unique problems in efforts of the states and the Federal Government to maximize the satisfaction of human wants from natural resources. These problems take on added significance in view of indications of growing governmental activity in response to the pressures upon our natural resource base of an expanding economy, a rising population trend, and increasing preparations for national defense during what may be a very long period of international tension and war. Decisions must be made determining the manner in which new responsibilities will be shared by our levels …