Law Commons^™

Environmental Law Outside The Canon, Todd S. Aagaard

Working Paper Series

It is time to rethink the domination of environmental law by a canon of major federal environmental statutes enacted in the 1970s. Environmental law is in a malaise. Despite widespread agreement that existing laws are inadequate to address current environmental problems, Congress has not passed a major environmental statute in more than twenty years. If it is to succeed, the environmental law of this new century may need to evolve into something that looks quite different than the extant environmental law canon. The next generation of environmental laws must be viable for creation and implementation even in an antagonistic political …

"Introduction" (Chapter 1) Of Stories About Science In Law: Literary And Historical Images Of Acquired Expertise (Ashgate 2011), David S. Caudill

Working Paper Series

This is the introductory chapter of Stories About Science in Law: Literary and Historical Images of Acquired Expertise (Ashgate, 2011), explaining that the book presents examples of how literary accounts can provide a supplement to our understanding of science in law. Challenging the view that law and science are completely different, I focus on stories that explore the relationship between law and science, and identify cultural images of science that prevail in legal contexts. In contrast to other studies on the transfer and construction of expertise in legal settings, the book considers the intersection of three interdisciplinary projects-- law and …

The Global Politics Of Food: A Critical Overview, Beth Lyon, Nancy Ehrenreich

Working Paper Series

In May 2010, the Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad México hosted an international conference on The Global Politics of Food: Sustainability and Subordination, bringing together 33 academics and activists from seven countries to exchange ideas and information on The Global Politics of Food: Sustainability and Subordination. Published in the University of Miami Inter-American Law Review, the Symposium papers examine the complex ways in which the global food system reinforces hierarchies of power and privilege. “The Global Politics of Food: A Critical Overview” provides a substantive introduction to the Symposium, identifying the disparate strands of the vast field of food politics and suggesting …

Stopping Nuclear Power Plants: A Memoir, Louis J. Sirico Jr.

Working Paper Series

A memoir of the author's involvement in the anti-nuclear power movement.

Environmental Law As A Legal Field: An Inquiry In Legal Taxonomy, Todd S. Aagaard

Working Paper Series

This Article examines the classification of the law into legal fields, first generally and then by specific examination of the field of environmental law. We classify the law into fields to find and to create patterns, which render the law coherent and understandable. A legal field is a group of situations unified by a pattern or set of patterns that is both common and distinctive to the field. We can conceptualize a legal field as the interaction of four underlying constitutive dimensions of the field: (1) a factual context that gives rise to (2) certain policy tradeoffs, which are in …

Strategic Idealizations Of Science To Oppose Environmenal Regulation: A Case Study Of Five Tmdl Controversies, David S. Caudill, Donald E. Curley

Working Paper Series

Proponents of environmental regulation have catalogued various strategies used by takeholders to delay or weaken regulatory efforts, including (1) manufacturing or magnifying uncertainty; (2) demanding “sound science” (and thereby imposing unreasonable standards of evidence); and (3) data quality initiatives that permit deconstruction of credible studies by highlighting inevitable assumptions, funding sources, and areas for further research. Such strategies can be termed “idealizations” of science insofar as they rely on an unrealistic image of good science as somehow capable of avoiding tentative conclusions, institutional interests, consensual assumptions, and the need for further research.

The question remains, however, when does an argument …

International Law's Lessons For The Law Of The Lakes, Joseph W. Dellapenna

Working Paper Series

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 …