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Full-Text Articles in Law
Mission Revival Jurisprudence: State Courts And Hispanic Water Law Since 1850, Peter L. Reich
Mission Revival Jurisprudence: State Courts And Hispanic Water Law Since 1850, Peter L. Reich
Washington Law Review
In this Article, the author argues that after the United States' annexation of the Southwest, state judges in California, New Mexico, and Texas knowingly distorted the communal nature of applicable Spanish and Mexican water law. While previous scholars have acknowledged that courts misinterpreted municipal and riparian water rights originating in the Southwest's Hispanic period, most historians have attributed the distortion to ignorance rather than design. Using archival sources, the author demonstrates that American judges created an historical fiction of "Spanish" absolute water control, and intentionally disregarded actual law and custom dictating water apportionment. The resulting doctrines of pueblo water rights …
Protection Of Biodiversity Under The Public Trust Doctrine, Ralph W. Johnson, William C. Galloway
Protection Of Biodiversity Under The Public Trust Doctrine, Ralph W. Johnson, William C. Galloway
Articles
The public trust doctrine is an ancient Roman legal doctrine that has been applied in both England and the United States. The doctrine traditionally addressed questions of public access to and use of commercially navigable waters for navigation, fisheries and various other uses of the underlying seabeds, lake bottoms, and riverbeds. In recent years, the public trust doctrine has been invoked to protect birds and other wildlife, water quality, ecological and environmental values, and different types of recreation. Although no public trust case has applied the doctrine to protect biodiversity per se, it seems clear by analogy to existing case …