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Building Theories Of Judicial Review In Natural Resources Law, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

Articles

In the specialty of natural resources law, there is no reason to expect our tasks of description and prescription to be any easier. We deal, after all, with the allocation of scarce resources where there are winners and losers. This leads us quickly into substantive justice theories based on entitlements, needs, and deserts and process justice theories extending to each loser his due.

Justice theory is implemented through judicial review, and what courts do depends importantly upon behavioral assumptions about people, agencies of government, and empirical proof. The sources of these assumptions and evidence are often the sciences, and I …

Bringing People Back: Toward A Comprehensive Theory Of Taking In Natural Resources Law, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

Articles

This Article attempts to bring people back into legal analysis by drawing upon behavioral preferences of human beings suggested by the laws of biology. Biological theory offers no all-encompassing explanations of legal outcomes, although it offers important, and much neglected, partial explanations.

That the law can be explained in this light suggests that courts have a view of human nature departing from the caricatures of much contemporary legal theory. We take as our setting an issue faced by each society in every era-property rights in natural resources.

Part I takes up the task of theory development by recanvassing property theory …