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Full-Text Articles in Law
Uncommon Approaches To Commons Problems: Nested Governance Commons And Climate Change, Blake Hudson, Jonathan Rosenbloom
Uncommon Approaches To Commons Problems: Nested Governance Commons And Climate Change, Blake Hudson, Jonathan Rosenbloom
Journal Articles
Natural capital resources crucial to combatting climate change are potentially subject to tragic overconsumption absent a requisite degree of vertical government regulation of resource appropriators and/or horizontal collective action among resource appropriators. In federal systems, these vertical and horizontal approaches may (or may not) take place in any one of four scales — local, state, national, and global — “nested” one within another. Prior research has described how natural capital in federal systems of government, though privatized and/or subject to government regulation, may nonetheless remain in a tragic plight due to the allocation of governance authority in federal systems — …
Federal Constitutions: The Keystone Of Nested Commons Governance, Blake Hudson
Federal Constitutions: The Keystone Of Nested Commons Governance, Blake Hudson
Journal Articles
The constitutional structure of a federal system of government can undermine effective natural capital management across scales, from local to global. Federal constitutions that grant subnational governments virtually exclusive regulatory authority over certain types of natural capital appropriation — such as resources appropriated by private forest management or other land-use-related economic development activities — entrench a legally defensible natural capital commons in those jurisdictions. For example, the same constitution that may legally facilitate poor forest-management practices by private landowners in the southeastern United States may complicate international negotiations related to forest management and climate change. Both the local and international …
Fail-Safe Federalism And Climate Change: The Case Of U.S. And Canadian Forest Policy, Blake Hudson
Fail-Safe Federalism And Climate Change: The Case Of U.S. And Canadian Forest Policy, Blake Hudson
Journal Articles
Recent research demonstrates the difficulties that federal systems of government may present for international treaty formation, a prime example being legally binding treaties aimed at harnessing global forests to regulate climate change. Some federal constitutions, such as the U.S. and Canadian constitutions, grant subnational governments virtually exclusive direct forest management regulatory authority for non-federally owned forests. With subnational governments controlling sixty-five percent of forests in the United States and eighty-four percent in Canada, the U.S. and Canadian federal governments may be constrained during international negotiations and unable to legally bind subnational governments to any agreement prescribing methods of utilizing these …
Climate Change, Forests And Federalism: Seeing The Treaty For The Trees, Blake Hudson
Climate Change, Forests And Federalism: Seeing The Treaty For The Trees, Blake Hudson
Journal Articles
Despite numerous attempts over the past two decades—including, most recently, the Copenhagen climate discussions in late 2009—international forest and climate negotiations have failed to produce a legally binding treaty addressing global forest management activities. This failure is due in large part to a lack of U.S. leadership. Though U.S. participation in ongoing forest and climate negotiations is essential, scholars have not fully explored the potential limiting effects of federalism on the United States’ treaty power in the area of forest management. Such an exploration is necessary given the debate among constitutional law scholars regarding the scope of the treaty power, …
Commerce In The Commons: A Unified Theory Of Natural Capital Regulation Under The Commerce Clause, Blake Hudson
Commerce In The Commons: A Unified Theory Of Natural Capital Regulation Under The Commerce Clause, Blake Hudson
Journal Articles
Scholars continue to debate the scope of Congress’s Commerce Clause authority and whether fluctuations in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Commerce Clause jurisprudence place federal environmental regulatory authority at risk. Yet when one analyzes major Commerce Clause cases involving resource regulation since the beginning of the modern regulatory state, a consistent theme emerges: both the Supreme Court and Circuit Courts of Appeal have consistently upheld federal authority to regulate depletable natural resources, the appropriation of which is non-excludable - key characteristics of a commons. Commerce Clause jurisprudence can be interpreted as treating appropriation of this natural capital, here described as “privatized …
'Rogue States' Within American Borders: Remedying State Noncompliance With The International Covenant On Civil And Political Rights, Margaret S. Thomas
'Rogue States' Within American Borders: Remedying State Noncompliance With The International Covenant On Civil And Political Rights, Margaret S. Thomas
Journal Articles
Nearly a decade after the United States ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the treaty's implementation is incomplete. A complex maze of reservations, understandings, and declarations has hindered domestic implementation, as has Congress 's failure to pass national implementing legislation. Almost every state in the Union has laws that violate the Covenant. For example, the treaty requires that in criminal matters, juveniles must be tried in a manner that takes account of their age. Nevertheless, California and many other states frequently treat minors as adults in such matters. Because the Senate declared the treaty to be non-self-executing, …