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Articles 1 - 30 of 39
Full-Text Articles in Law
Natural Resources And Natural Law Part Ii: The Public Trust Doctrine, Robert W. Adler
Natural Resources And Natural Law Part Ii: The Public Trust Doctrine, Robert W. Adler
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
Natural Resources and Natural Law Part I: Prior Appropriation analyzed claims by some western ranchers, grounded in natural law, that they have property rights in grazing resources on federal public lands through prior appropriation. Those individuals advocated their position in part through civil disobedience and armed standoffs with federal officials. They also asserted that their duty to obey theistic natural law overrode any duty to obey the Nation’s positive law. Similar claims that individual religious beliefs override positive law have been made recently regarding a range of other controversial issues, such as same-sex marriage, public insurance for birth control, and …
Unmuddying The Waters: Evaluating The Legal Basis Of The Human Right To Water Under Treaty Law, Customary International Law, And The General Principles Of Law, Ndjodi Ndeunyema
Unmuddying The Waters: Evaluating The Legal Basis Of The Human Right To Water Under Treaty Law, Customary International Law, And The General Principles Of Law, Ndjodi Ndeunyema
Michigan Journal of International Law
This article evaluates the existence of a freestanding, general human right to water under each of the three principal sources of international law: treaty, customary international law, and the general principles of law. To date, the right to water has been derived from treaty law, most prominently as part of the right to an adequate standard of living in article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (as implied by General Comment 15 to the ICESCR). The potential importance of a non-treaty based right to water––as a matter of customary international law or a general principle …
Property, Unbundled Water Entitlements, And Anticommons Tragedies: A Cautionary Tale From Australia, Paul Babie, Paul Leadbeter, Kyriaco Nikias
Property, Unbundled Water Entitlements, And Anticommons Tragedies: A Cautionary Tale From Australia, Paul Babie, Paul Leadbeter, Kyriaco Nikias
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
As water becomes an increasingly scarce resource, a lack of clarity in relation to its use can produce both conflict among and inefficient use by users. In order to encourage markets in water and to ensure the viability and functionality of those markets, governments in many jurisdictions have moved away from commons property as a means of water allocation, and towards systems of private property in water. In doing so, one policy and legal option is “unbundling”, which seeks carefully to define both the entitlement to water and its separation into constituent parts. Advocates claim that unbundling makes water rights …
Evolution Of Water Institutions In The Indus River Basin: Reflections From The Law Of The Colorado River, Erum Sattar, Jason Robison, Daniel Mccool
Evolution Of Water Institutions In The Indus River Basin: Reflections From The Law Of The Colorado River, Erum Sattar, Jason Robison, Daniel Mccool
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Transboundary water institutions in the Indus River Basin can be fairly characterized as broken in key respects. International relations between India and Pakistan over the Indus Waters Treaty, as well as interprovincial relations within Pakistan over the 1991 Water Accord, speak to this sentiment. Stemming from research undertaken by the authors for the Harvard Water Federalism Project and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), this Article seeks to spur the evolution of the Indus River Basin’s water institutions by offering a comparative perspective from North America’s most “institutionally encompassed” basin, the Colorado River Basin. Mindful of the importance …
Energy-Water Nexus, The Clean Power Plan, And Integration Of Water Resource Concerns Into Energy Decision-Making, Sarah Ladin
Energy-Water Nexus, The Clean Power Plan, And Integration Of Water Resource Concerns Into Energy Decision-Making, Sarah Ladin
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
Energy regulation in the United States is now at a crossroads. The EPA has begun the process to officially repeal the Clean Power Plan and currently has no plan to replace it with new rulemaking to regulate carbon emissions from the U.S. energy sector. Even though the Clean Power Plan is more or less at its end, its regulatory structure stands as a model of the way decision-makers in the United States regulate the energy sector and the environment. Since the beginning of the modern environmental legal system, decision-makers have chosen to silo the system. Statutes and agencies focus on …
The Water-Energy-Climate Nexus Under International Law: A Central Asian Perspective, Anatole Boute
The Water-Energy-Climate Nexus Under International Law: A Central Asian Perspective, Anatole Boute
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
Water, energy, and climate change are intrinsically related to each other but are nonetheless subject to different international legal regimes. The fragmented nature of water, energy, and climate governance represents a challenge for the sustainable management of resources in the energy and water landscape of the 21st century. Regulatory choices in one field can potentially undermine the policy objectives pursued in the other fields. Promoting conventional and unconventional energy production for energy security purposes increases pressure on the availability of fresh water resources and contributes to climate change. Climate change exacerbates the scarcity of water resources, which leads to increasing …
Public Trust Doctrine Implications Of Electricity Production, Lance Noel, Jeremy Firestone
Public Trust Doctrine Implications Of Electricity Production, Lance Noel, Jeremy Firestone
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
The public trust doctrine is a powerful legal tool in property law that requires the sovereign, as a trustee, to protect and manage natural resources. Historically, the public trust doctrine has been used in relationship to navigable waterways and wildlife management. Despite electricity production’s impact on those two areas and the comparatively smaller impacts of renewable energy, electricity production has garnered very little public trust doctrine attention. This Article examines how electricity production implicates the public trust doctrine, primarily through the lens of four states—California, Wisconsin, Hawaii, and New Jersey—and how it would potentially apply to each state’s electricity planning …
Avoiding Jeopardy, Without The Questions: Recovery Implementation Programs For Endangered Species In Western River Basins, Reed D. Benson
Avoiding Jeopardy, Without The Questions: Recovery Implementation Programs For Endangered Species In Western River Basins, Reed D. Benson
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
The application of the Endangered Species Act to water resources has generated much controversy in the American West. In several western river basins, however, Recovery Implementation Programs (RIPs) provide an alternative, collaborative approach to ESA compliance. These programs offer an enhanced role for states and stakeholders in ESA decisionmaking, and increased certainty that ESA requirements will not disrupt ongoing water project operations and established uses. This Article examines the origins, purposes, and elements of various RIPs, with particular emphasis on these programs’ approach to compliance with the requirements of ESA section 7 for federal agency actions. The Article also considers …
Closing The Regulatory Gap In Michigan's Public Trust Doctrine: Saving Michigan Millions With Statutory Reform, Kelsey Breck
Closing The Regulatory Gap In Michigan's Public Trust Doctrine: Saving Michigan Millions With Statutory Reform, Kelsey Breck
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The Great Lakes are some of Michigan's most valuable and important environmental resources. The public trust doctrine requires Michigan to protect and preserve the lands along the shores of the Great Lakes for the use of future generations. Unfortunately, the public trust doctrine in Michigan is in disarray and as a result, public and private rights to the lands along the Great Lakes are poorly delineated. This Note presents an economic argument for why the public trust doctrine should be reformed to better define public and private rights to the land along Michigan's Great Lakes. It also suggests a statutory …
Investigating 40 C.F.R. Sec. 124.55(B): State-Court Review Of Npdes Permit Certifications, Tad Macfarlan
Investigating 40 C.F.R. Sec. 124.55(B): State-Court Review Of Npdes Permit Certifications, Tad Macfarlan
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Note investigates the wisdom and validity of 40 CER. § 124.55(b), a Clean Water Act regulation promulgated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting program. The Clean Water Act provides affected states with an opportunity to certify federally administered NDES permits before issuance by EPA. State certification is a meaningful moment in water quality regulation, and judicial review of these critical decisions takes place in state courts. Unfortunately, 40 C.ER. § 124.55(b), designed to bring certainty and finality to permit-holders, effectively removes state courts from the process of …
Antiques Roadshow: The Common Law And The Coming Age Of Groundwater Marketing, Dean Baxtresser
Antiques Roadshow: The Common Law And The Coming Age Of Groundwater Marketing, Dean Baxtresser
Michigan Law Review
Groundwater law in the United States is ill suited to deal with the issue of groundwater marketing. As freshwater shortages become more common with increasing population and a warming climate, scholars and business people are touting water markets as the solution to conservation and distribution, as well as a source of hefty profits. T Boone Pickens-the famous oil tycoon of Texas-has turned this concept into reality with his attempt to exploit the groundwater of the Ogallala Aquifer in the Texas Panhandle for thirsty Texas cities. Despite the looming water shortages, however, states have not adapted their laws to deal with …
International Law's Lessons For The Law Of The Lakes, Joseph W. Dellapenna
International Law's Lessons For The Law Of The Lakes, Joseph W. Dellapenna
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The eight Governors of the Great Lakes States signed a proposed new compact for the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence basin on December 13, 2005, and they joined with the Premiers of Ontario and Québec in a parallel agreement on the same topic on the same day. Neither document is legally binding-the proposed new compact because it has not yet been ratified by any State nor consented to by Congress; the parallel agreement because it is not intended to be legally binding. Both documents are designed to preclude the export of water from the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence basin apart from …
From "Navigable Waters" To "Constitutional Waters": The Future Of Federal Wetlands Regulation, Mark Squillace
From "Navigable Waters" To "Constitutional Waters": The Future Of Federal Wetlands Regulation, Mark Squillace
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Wetlands regulation in the United States has a tumultuous history. The early European settlers viewed wetlands as obstacles to development, and they drained and filled wetlands and swamps at an astounding rate, often with government support, straight through the middle of the twentieth century. As evidence of the ecological significance of wetlands emerged over the last several decades, programs to protect and restore wetlands became prominent. Most notable among these is the permitting program under section 404 of the Clean Water Act. That provision prohibits dredging or filling of "navigable waters, " defined by law to mean "waters of the …
The Great Lakes As An Environmental Heritage Of Humankind: An International Law Perspective, A. Dan Tarlock
The Great Lakes As An Environmental Heritage Of Humankind: An International Law Perspective, A. Dan Tarlock
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Since 1985, the eight Great Lakes states and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec have cooperated to prevent almost all diversions of water from the Great Lakes basin. In 2005, the eight states signed an Agreement to create a tiered system of reviews for diversions and a draft interstate Compact, which creates a binding process to regulate diversions. This cooperation is primarily a state initiative, supported by the federal governments in both countries, which has paid little attention to the international character of the lakes. This Essay argues that there are three major benefits to the region from the …
Transferring Water In The American West: 1987-2005, Jedidiah Brewer, Robert Glennon, Alan Ker, Gary Libecap
Transferring Water In The American West: 1987-2005, Jedidiah Brewer, Robert Glennon, Alan Ker, Gary Libecap
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Rising urban and environmental demand for water has created growing pressure to re-allocate water from traditional agricultural uses. Water markets are powerful institutions for facilitating this re-allocation, yet the evolution of water markets has been more complicated than those for other resources. In this paper, we set the context for water marketing with an overview of western water law that highlights unique aspects of water law that affect how or whether a water market can develop. Second, we present new, comprehensive data on the extent, nature, and timing of water transfers across 12 western states from 1987-2005. We describe the …
Privatization And The Human Right To Water: Challenges For The New Century, Melina Williams
Privatization And The Human Right To Water: Challenges For The New Century, Melina Williams
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Note considers implications for the human fight to water in the context of the trend toward privatization of water supplies. Part II examines the legal bases of the right to water, and Part III discusses the potential obligations that arise from it. Part IV then looks at the interaction between the fight to water and arrangements to privatize water supplies. This Note posits that human rights law does not simply support or oppose privatization of water supplies and services. Rather, bringing a human rights perspective to the problem of providing water to the world's population both clarifies the minimum …
Abandoning The Pia Standard: A Comment On Gila V, Galen Lemei
Abandoning The Pia Standard: A Comment On Gila V, Galen Lemei
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Part I of this Note examines the development of Indian reserved water rights, and the practicably irrigable acreage method of quantifying those rights, as defined by the Court. Part II describes the arguments of state and private interests that oppose broad Indian water rights. Part III discusses Gila V, including the Arizona Supreme Court's rationale for abandoning the standard set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court and the standard for quantifying Indian reserved rights that the court applied in its place. Part IV analyzes the Arizona Supreme Court's justifications for abandoning the standard, and considers alternate grounds for the …
Preparing For Climatic Change: The Water, Salmon, And Forests Of The Pacific Northwest, Philip W. Mote, Edward A. Parson, Alan F. Hamlet, William S. Keeton, Dennis Lettenmaier, Nathan Mantua, Edward L. Miles, David W. Peterson, David L. Peterson, Richard Slaughter, Amy K. Snover
Preparing For Climatic Change: The Water, Salmon, And Forests Of The Pacific Northwest, Philip W. Mote, Edward A. Parson, Alan F. Hamlet, William S. Keeton, Dennis Lettenmaier, Nathan Mantua, Edward L. Miles, David W. Peterson, David L. Peterson, Richard Slaughter, Amy K. Snover
Articles
The impacts of year-to-year and decade-to-decade climatic variations on some of the Pacific Northwest’s key natural resources can be quantified to estimate sensitivity to regional climatic changes expected as part of anthropogenic global climatic change. Warmer, drier years, often associated with El Niño events and/or the warm phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, tend to be associated with below-average snowpack, streamflow, and flood risk, below-average salmon survival, below-average forest growth, and above-average risk of forest fire. During the 20th century, the region experienced a warming of 0.8 ◦C. Using output from eight climate models, we project a further warming of …
A Right To Ice?: The Application Of International And National Water Laws To The Acquisition Of Iceberg Rights, Bryan S. Geon
A Right To Ice?: The Application Of International And National Water Laws To The Acquisition Of Iceberg Rights, Bryan S. Geon
Michigan Journal of International Law
This note first reviews in Part I the history and potential of the idea of iceberg utilization. Part II then briefly examines the relevant sources of international law relating to iceberg acquisition. Finding that the standard sources of international law, such as conventions and international custom, currently provide inadequate guidance in this area. The note in Part III then searches for general principles embodied in the three major regimes of national water law: riparian rights, prior appropriation, and administrative allocation. Finally, it outlines in Part IV what an iceberg appropriation regime might look like under each regime.
Capture And Counteraction: Self- Help By Environmental Zealots (Allen Chair Symposium 1996: The Future Of Environmental And Land-Use Regulation), James E. Krier
Capture And Counteraction: Self- Help By Environmental Zealots (Allen Chair Symposium 1996: The Future Of Environmental And Land-Use Regulation), James E. Krier
Articles
Self-help is a largely neglected topic in American legal studies.1 With the exception of a survey by a group of law students published a dozen years ago,2 there appears to be little, if anything, in our legal literature that confronts the subject in a systematic way.3 This is so, at least, if one defines self-help as I do. To me, the term refers to any act of bypassing the formal legal system in order to get what one wants.
Hydraulic Empire, Joseph L. Sax
Hydraulic Empire, Joseph L. Sax
Michigan Law Review
A Review of The Great Thirst: Californians and Water, 1170s-1990s by Norris Hundley, Jr.
Cause For Cautious Celebration: Hungarian Post-Communist Environmental Reform, Karen S. Libertiny
Cause For Cautious Celebration: Hungarian Post-Communist Environmental Reform, Karen S. Libertiny
Michigan Journal of International Law
In October 1989, the Hungarian Communist regime collapsed and was replaced by a democratic government. This new government was confronted with a visible and grave concern: environmental degradation. In just three years, the new Hungarian government, sometimes of its own impetus, sometimes at the prodding of environmentalists and foreign governments, has taken tremendous steps toward establishing palpable environmental legislation. More importantly, it has created an administrative and information-gathering infrastructure capable of sustaining a cohesive system of environmental protection initiatives. Although the path to further progress is littered with obstacles, this East European country has proven itself a worthy warrior in …
Environmental Reforms In Post-Communist Central Europe: From High Hopes To Hard Reality, Margaret Bowman, David Hunter
Environmental Reforms In Post-Communist Central Europe: From High Hopes To Hard Reality, Margaret Bowman, David Hunter
Michigan Journal of International Law
This article surveys the environmental law reforms taking place throughout the region and some of the important issues surrounding these reforms. Two caveats to this approach should be highlighted at the outset. First, information from the region is still somewhat incomplete. Precise translations of laws, in particular, are not always available. This article can provide only a general guide to legislative and regulatory trends in the region and should not form the basis for specific action or decisions. Second, every country in the region is different, with its own complexities. Despite our failure to resist the temptation to generalize about …
The West Bank Aquifer And Conventions Regarding Laws Of Belligerent Occupation, Jamal L. El-Hindi
The West Bank Aquifer And Conventions Regarding Laws Of Belligerent Occupation, Jamal L. El-Hindi
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Note will provide an introductory analysis of the conventions on belligerent occupation as they apply to the West Bank aquifer. Part I provides a brief analysis of the current situation in the region. Part II provides an overview of the relevant conventions on belligerent occupation and then focuses on how these laws apply to underground water resources in the West Bank. Finally, Part III outlines potential developments for the maintenance of complicity with the developing law of belligerent occupation, taking into account developments in international water law.
State Control Over The Reclamation Waterhole: Reality Or Mirage, Michigan Law Review
State Control Over The Reclamation Waterhole: Reality Or Mirage, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
This Note assesses how much state law section 8 saves from preemption. Section I reviews the interplay of state and federal water law in the West. It begins with a brief description of appropriation, the system of water rights found in the Western states, outlines the Reclamation Act of 1902, and then traces the Supreme Court's evolving construction of the Act. It culminates in a discussion of California v. United States, the Court's latest gloss on section 8. Section II expands the analysis of the California decision, integrating it with traditional preemption doctrine. It shows that section 8 respects …
Sax: Water Law, Planning And Policy: Cases And Materials, Lynton K. Caldwell
Sax: Water Law, Planning And Policy: Cases And Materials, Lynton K. Caldwell
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Water Law, Planning and Policy: Cases and Materials by Joseph L. Sax
Real Property - Easements - Right To Take Water From A Pond As Absolute, Exclusive Profit In Gross, Stephen J. Martin S.Ed.
Real Property - Easements - Right To Take Water From A Pond As Absolute, Exclusive Profit In Gross, Stephen J. Martin S.Ed.
Michigan Law Review
One Divine owned a small natural lake and a mill nearby. He dammed the lake, and ran a pipe from it to his mill. At times he sold water after it left the mill to defendant's assignor, who owned a hotel near the mill. In 1919 Divine sold the lake to plaintiff's assignor, reserving to himself the right to dam the lake and draw off water from it, so long as the level stayed between high and low water marks. Then Divine sold the mill lot to defendant's assignor, who closed it down, but continued to take water through the …
Waters And Water Courses - No Riparian Right In Montana, Evans Holbrook
Waters And Water Courses - No Riparian Right In Montana, Evans Holbrook
Articles
Plaintiff owned lands through which a stream flowed; defendant, by virtue of an appropriation duly made, diverted all the water in the stream and used it for irrigation purposes. Plaintiff, claiming only as a riparian owner, sued to enjoin defendant's diversion of the stream on the ground that it was an invasion of riparian rights. Held, that the common law doctrine of riparian rights does not prevail in Montana, and that plaintiff's complaint does not state a cause of action.
Waters And Water Courses - The Effect Of The Desert Land Act Of 1877, Evans Holbrook
Waters And Water Courses - The Effect Of The Desert Land Act Of 1877, Evans Holbrook
Articles
The Act of March 3, 1877, generally known as the Desert Land Act, provides for the sale of desert lands to persons who agree to irrigate and cultivate such lands. The act defines desert lands as lands which will not, without some irrigation, produce crops, and provides that the Commissioner of the General Land Office shall determine what may be considered as such lands; it provides also that the right to the use of water on such lands shall depend upon appropriation, and continues as follows: "and all surplus water over and above such actual appropriation and use, together with …
Rights In Percolating Waters, Ralph W. Aigler
Rights In Percolating Waters, Ralph W. Aigler
Articles
Almost without exception the courts approve of Acton v. Blundell, 12 M. & W. 324, to the extent of its actual decision,-that where as a result of improvement or enjoyment of one's own land one conducts operations which draw off percolating waters from a neighbor's land, even to the extent of drying up a well or spring, such inconvenience is to be deemed damnum absque injuria. The doctrine of the court "that the person who owns the surface may dig therein, and apply all that is there found to his own purposes at his free will and pleasure," if intended …