Law Commons^™

The Road To Doha Through Seoul: The Diplomatic And Legal Implications Of The Pre-Cop 18 Ministerial Meeting, Jae-Hyup Lee, John Leitner, Minjung Chung

Jae-Hyup Lee

International climate change negotiations reached a critical crossroads in 2012. Facing the conclusion of the Kyoto Protocol and with no successor regime yet negotiated, nations have been compelled to re-engage in substantive and far-ranging discussions. The nation of Korea has distinguished itself in this process, in particular by hosting the final ministerial meeting prior to this year’s Conference of the Parties in Doha, Qatar. The Korean government’s willingness to lead has also been evidenced by Korea’s founding of the Global Green Growth Institute, a leading international organization in the area of environmentally responsible economic development, and its successful bid to …

Localizing Climate Change Action, Marianne Dellinger

Myanna Dellinger

Localizing Climate Change Action - abstract

Myanna Dellinger

Waiting for national- or supranational-level actors to take substantively effective action against climate change is like waiting for Godot: unlikely to happen, at least at a substantively early enough point in time. The December 2012 negotiations under the UNFCCC umbrella yet again demonstrated the failure of action at the international level. This article adds new value to existing scholarship by conducting original research into select climate initiatives at the subnational, substate level in order to find out whether it is worth pursuing climate change action at this level instead. The article posits …

Localizing Climate Change Action, Marianne Dellinger

Myanna Dellinger

Localizing Climate Change Action - abstract

Myanna Dellinger

Waiting for national- or supranational-level actors to take substantively effective action against climate change is like waiting for Godot: unlikely to happen, at least at a substantively early enough point in time. The December 2012 negotiations under the UNFCCC umbrella yet again demonstrated the failure of action at the international level. This article adds new value to existing scholarship by conducting original research into select climate initiatives at the subnational, substate level in order to find out whether it is worth pursuing climate change action at this level instead. The article posits …

Localizing Climate Change Action, Marianne Dellinger

Myanna Dellinger

Localizing Climate Change Action - abstract

Myanna Dellinger

Waiting for national- or supranational-level actors to take substantively effective action against climate change is like waiting for Godot: unlikely to happen, at least at a substantively early enough point in time. The December 2012 negotiations under the UNFCCC umbrella yet again demonstrated the failure of action at the international level. This article adds new value to existing scholarship by conducting original research into select climate initiatives at the subnational, substate level in order to find out whether it is worth pursuing climate change action at this level instead. The article posits …

Localizing Climate Change Action, Marianne Dellinger

Myanna Dellinger

Localizing Climate Change Action - abstract

Myanna Dellinger

Waiting for national- or supranational-level actors to take substantively effective action against climate change is like waiting for Godot: unlikely to happen, at least at a substantively early enough point in time. The December 2012 negotiations under the UNFCCC umbrella yet again demonstrated the failure of action at the international level. This article adds new value to existing scholarship by conducting original research into select climate initiatives at the subnational, substate level in order to find out whether it is worth pursuing climate change action at this level instead. The article posits …

Localizing Climate Change Action, Marianne Dellinger

Myanna Dellinger

Localizing Climate Change Action - abstract

Myanna Dellinger

Waiting for national- or supranational-level actors to take substantively effective action against climate change is like waiting for Godot: unlikely to happen, at least at a substantively early enough point in time. The December 2012 negotiations under the UNFCCC umbrella yet again demonstrated the failure of action at the international level. This article adds new value to existing scholarship by conducting original research into select climate initiatives at the subnational, substate level in order to find out whether it is worth pursuing climate change action at this level instead. The article posits …

Climate Change Regulation And Litigation: A "Lost Decade" Of Controversy And Confrontation, Richard Faulk

Richard Faulk

Years ago, we published our first article regarding climate change. In it, we foresaw “stormy weather ahead,” but we attempted to begin a “constructive dialogue” about the issues raised by global climate change. Today, we can look back over a decade of controversy and confrontation regarding climate change in virtually all legal forums and institutions – and say, without hesitation, that the issue of global climate change has truly experienced a “lost decade.”

Migration And Disaster-Induced Displacement: European Policy, Practice, And Perspective, Michael D. Cooper

Michael D. Cooper, Esq.

Over the last decade, a series of devastating natural disasters have killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced millions, and decimated the built environment across wide regions, shocking the public imagination and garnering unprecedented financial support for humanitarian relief efforts. Some suggest that disaster migration must be supported by the international community, first as an adaption strategy in response to climate-change, and second, as a matter of international protection. This study surveys the current state of law as it relates to persons displaced by natural disaster, with a specific focus on the 27 member states of the European Union plus …

Raising Cane: Sugar Sugarcane Ethanol’S Economic And Environmental Effects On The United States, Jonathan M. Specht

Jonathan M Specht

In the coming decades the United States will need to change its energy policy to face two enormous challenges: adjusting to peak oil (declining petroleum production output), and halting the advance of climate change. Liquid biofuels — made from renewable, biologically-based sources of energy, rather than finite and climate change-inducing fossil fuels — will be an important component of any strategy to deal with the twin challenges of peak oil and climate change. While the United States has encouraged the production of biofuels in recent decades, the domestic ethanol industry, which is almost entirely corn-based, has a number of major …

Raising Cane: Sugar Sugarcane Ethanol’S Economic And Environmental Effects On The United States, Jonathan M. Specht

Jonathan M Specht

In the coming decades the United States will need to change its energy policy to face two enormous challenges: adjusting to peak oil (declining petroleum production output), and halting the advance of climate change. Liquid biofuels — made from renewable, biologically-based sources of energy, rather than finite and climate change-inducing fossil fuels — will be an important component of any strategy to deal with the twin challenges of peak oil and climate change. While the United States has encouraged the production of biofuels in recent decades, the domestic ethanol industry, which is almost entirely corn-based, has a number of major …

Raising Cane: Cuban Sugarcane Ethanol’S Economic And Environmental Effects On The United States, Jonathan M. Specht

Jonathan M Specht

In the coming decades the United States will need to change its energy policy to face two enormous challenges: adjusting to peak oil (declining petroleum production output), and halting the advance of climate change. Liquid biofuels — made from renewable, biologically-based sources of energy, rather than finite and climate change-inducing fossil fuels — will be an important component of any strategy to deal with the twin challenges of peak oil and climate change. While the United States has encouraged the production of biofuels in recent decades, the domestic ethanol industry, which is almost entirely corn-based, has a number of major …

Using Building Codes To Rewrite The Tailoring Rule And Mitigate Climate Change, Albert Monroe

Albert Monroe

In 2007, Mass. v. EPA effectively forced the EPA to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The plain language of the Clean Air Act gave the EPA an impossible mandate of regulating millions of buildings on a case-by-case basis. The EPA, through the Tailoring Rule, decided to regulate fewer sources. This paper shows that the EPA’s approach is legally suspect. Instead, the EPA should regulate more sources using general permits that avoid the impossibility of case-by-case regulation of millions of sources. The EPA can regulate buildings under the Clean Air Act by mandating stricter building codes for …

Blue Jeans, Chewing Gum, And Climate Change Litigation: American Exports To Europe, Daniel Hare

Daniel Hare

This paper analyzes how American-style climate change litigation might be adopted by the European Union (EU) and projects potential methods by which the EU might employ the U.S. model, if it indeed chooses to take the climate change battle to the courts. By synthesizing existing U.S. case law in the environment and climate change fields, the paper roughly defines the “American model” of climate change litigation as parens patriae actions, oftentimes based in the tort of public nuisance, brought by states and other sovereign entities against polluter-defendants. The structural differences between the common law United States and predominantly civil law …

"Roads? Where We're Going We Don't Need Roads:" The Transformation Of The Roadless Rule Into An American Carbon Sink, Sam W. Gieryn

Sam W. Gieryn

Abstract “Roads? Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Roads:” The Transformation of the Roadless Rule into an American Carbon Sink. By: Sam Gieryn Climate change continues to become a global problem, but for the United States, part of the solution is closer than we think. In the search for an effective means to halt the adverse effects of global warming, scientists discovered the benefits of carbon sequestration from forests. The United States contains nearly 750 million acres of forest, which this paper proposes the nation uses to combat climate change. In 2001, the Clinton Administration took notice of the importance …

Blue Jeans, Chewing Gum, And Climate Change Litigation: American Exports To Europe, Daniel Hare

Daniel Hare

This paper analyzes how American-style climate change litigation might be adopted by the European Union (EU) and projects potential methods by which the EU might employ the U.S. model, if it indeed chooses to take the climate change battle to the courts. By synthesizing existing U.S. case law in the environment and climate change fields, the paper roughly defines the “American model” of climate change litigation as parens patriae actions, oftentimes based in the tort of public nuisance, brought by states and other sovereign entities against polluter-defendants. The structural differences between the common law United States and predominantly civil law …

When One Treaty Is Not Enough: Death, Dying, And Institutional Re-Birth For The United Nations Framework Convention On Climate Change, Cinnamon P. Carlarne

Cinnamon P Carlarne

On the twentieth anniversary of the negotiation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the fifteenth anniversary of the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC, it is time for the global community to reflect on the future of our system of global climate governance.

This article argues that the valiant efforts of the global community to negotiate a post-Kyoto treaty system have arrived at a crossroads and that instead of focusing on finding the single “right” pathway forward, there is a need to pursue multiple pathways. The conventional wisdom that we need one, consensus-based, …

The Emotion Of Disgust, Demand Augmentation, And Wasteful Consumption, Nathan H. Ostrander

Nathan H. Ostrander

Conventional economic theory assumes that producers supply goods and services in a responsive, reactive way to innate, genuine, and unmanipulated consumer demand. Evidence increasingly suggests, however, that demand is constructed based on the elements present in any given situation, and that the situation is subject to corporate influence. One method by which corporations construct demand is by using the emotion of disgust to create an apparent problem in an advertisement. Corporations reference the emotion of disgust not only because it is incredibly powerful, but also because advertisements are able to quickly alleviate the disgusting problem and thereby increase consumer receptivity …

The Emotion Of Disgust, Demand Augmentation, And Wasteful Consumption, Nathan H. Ostrander

Nathan H. Ostrander

Conventional economic theory assumes that producers supply goods and services in a responsive, reactive way to innate, genuine, unmanipulated consumer demand. Evidence increasingly suggests, however, that demand is constructed based on the elements present in any given situation, and that the situation is subject to corporate influence. One method by which corporations construct demand is by using the emotion of disgust to create an apparent problem in an advertisement. Corporations reference the emotion of disgust not only because it is incredibly powerful, but also because advertisements are able to quickly alleviate the disgusting problem and thereby increase consumer receptivity to …

Climate Change Litigation: Potential Reasons Canada Lags Behind The United States, Morgan Mcdonald

Morgan McDonald

Despite the overwhelming evidence that climate change threatens our environmental security, governments have neglected to enact comprehensive legislation regulating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Since the political realm has failed to act, climate litigants have turned to the judicial branch to force GHG reform. Although the US and Canada support similar GHG emitting corporations and have similar legal systems, their experience in climate litigation is strikingly different. While US courts have seen approximately five hundred climate change actions, Canada has seen only two cases. The remarkable absence of climate litigation in Canada is concerning because these actions play an essential role …

The Emotion Of Disgust, Demand Augmentation, And Wasteful Consumption, Nathan H. Ostrander

Nathan H. Ostrander

Conventional economic theory assumes that producers supply goods and services in a responsive, reactive way to innate, genuine, unmanipulated consumer demand. Evidence increasingly suggests, however, that demand is constructed based on the elements present in any given situation, and that the situation is subject to corporate influence. One method by which corporations construct demand is by using the emotion of disgust to create an apparent problem in an advertisement. Corporations reference the emotion of disgust not only because it is incredibly powerful, but also because advertisements are able to quickly alleviate the disgusting problem and thereby increase consumer receptivity to …

The Future Of U.S. Geothermal Development: Alternative Energy Or Green Pipe Dream?, Jeremiah Williamson

Jeremiah Williamson

As a result of increasing evidence of anthropogenic causes of climate change, federal and state governments enacted policies supporting the development of alternative, lower emission energy sources. These policies led to considerable growth in renewable energy development. Wind and solar energy in particular have led the growth, but neither is able to provide reliable baseload electric power due to their intermittent nature. In this regard, geothermal presents an important component in the creation of a renewable U.S. energy portfolio. Geothermal, like solar and wind, has grown rapidly in recent years, but it remains uncertain whether the recent renaissance in geothermal …

Federalism And The Tug Of War Within, Erin Ryan

Erin Ryan

This book explores how constitutional interpreters struggle to reconcile the competing values that undergird American federalism, with real consequences for governance that requires local and national collaboration. Drawing examples from the response to Hurricane Katrina, climate governance, health reform, nuclear waste, and other problems that implicate both state and federal authority, it shows how federalism theory can inhibit effective multijurisdictional governance by failing to navigate the tensions within federalism itself. The book argues that American federalism is best understood through the “tug of war” between the good-governance principles that dual sovereignty fosters—including checks and balances, accountable governance, local autonomy, and …

Arctic Justice: Addressing Persistent Organic Pollutants, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

This article recommends enhanced governance of persistent organic pollutants through incentives to develop environmentally sound, climate friendly technologies as well as caution in developing the Arctic. It highlights the toxicity challenges presented by POPs to Arctic people and ecosystems.