Law Commons^™

A Historical Reassessment Of Congress's "Power To Dispose Of" The Public Lands, Jeffrey M. Schmitt

School of Law Faculty Publications

The Property Clause of the Constitution grants Congress the “Power to Dispose” of federal land. Congress uses this Clause to justify permanent federal land ownership of approximately one-third of the land within the United States. Legal scholars, however, are divided as to whether the original understanding of the Clause supports this practice. While many scholars argue that the text and intent of the framers show that Congress has the power to permanently own land within the states, others contend that these sources demonstrate that Congress has a duty to dispose of all federal land not held pursuant to another enumerated …

Access To Trade Secret Environmental Information: Are Trips And Trips Plus Obligations A Hidden Landmine?, Dalindyebo Shabalala

School of Law Faculty Publications

Freedom of Information Acts (FOIAs) have been fundamental to enabling access to environmental information. The effectiveness of domestic and international environmental regulatory standards has been dependent on ensuring strong information access regimes, especially for information submitted to governments by firms. However, there has been an ongoing tension between providing and accessing complete regulatory information on the one hand, and the interest in maintaining the economic value of trade secrets. Such tensions have historically been managed at the domestic level within constitutional structures balancing access to information, privacy interests, and economic interests. However, the almost simultaneous advent of international norms and …

Intellectual Property, Climate Change And Development, Dalindyebo Shabalala

School of Law Faculty Publications

Since the wave of independence that swept former European colonies in the middle to late twentieth century, access to technology and knowledge has been at the core of demands for restitution and aid by developing countries. The demands found their strongest expression in the Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order (NIEO) 1974 which sought, among other things:

“Giving to the developing countries access to the achievements of modern science and technology, and promoting the transfer of technology and the creation of indigenous technology for the benefit of the developing countries in forms and in accordance with …

Is Fracking An Inflammatory Word?, Blake Watson

School of Law Faculty Publications

Hydraulic fracturing is a method of oil and gas extraction. It involves the pumping of a mixture of proppants, chemicals, and large amounts of water into wells to exert pressure and fracture rock formations, thereby allowing otherwise “trapped” gas and oil to flow more freely. See Railroad Commission of Texas v. Citizens for a Safe Future and Clean Water, 336 S.W.3d 619, 621 (Tex. 2011) (describing the “fracing” process). With the development of horizontal drilling and more effective lubricants, it is now possible to remove “unconventional” sources of oil and gas located in shale and other dense substrata. Positive …

Making Sense Of Extraterritoriality: Why California’S Progressive Global Warming And Animal Welfare Legislation Does Not Violate The Dormant Commerce Clause, Jeffrey M. Schmitt

School of Law Faculty Publications

The dormant Commerce Clause’s extraterritoriality doctrine has long baffled courts and legal scholars. Rather than attempt to make sense of the doctrine, most scholars have instead argued that it should be abandoned as unnecessary and unworkable. Such scholarship, however, is of little use to the lower courts struggling with extraterritoriality issues. The federal courts in California, for example, have recently been forced to rule on challenges to California’s landmark carbon emissions and animal welfare legislation. Plaintiffs in these cases argue that California is regulating extraterritorially by telling ethanol producers and farmers in other states how to run their businesses. In …

Climate Change, Technology Transfer And Intellectual Property: Options For Action At The Unfccc, Dalindyebo Shabalala

School of Law Faculty Publications

In his dissertation, the author examines the issue of whether intellectual property poses a barrier to technology transfer to address climate change and if so, what policymakers should do at the multilateral level. The book refocuses the question away from empirical approaches toward the key question of the legal capacity of developing countries to prospectively restructure their economies to access technologies and move up the technology value chain. It concludes with a set of recommendations for action at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The author defended his dissertation Oct. 15, 2014, at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. …

Climate Change Geoengineering: Philosophical Perspectives, Legal Issues, And Governance Frameworks, William C. G. Burns, Andrew L. Strauss

School of Law Faculty Publications

The international community is not taking the action necessary to avert dangerous increases in greenhouse gases. Facing a potentially bleak future, the question that confronts humanity is whether the best of bad alternatives may be to counter global warming through human-engineered climate interventions. In this book, eleven prominent authorities on climate change consider the legal, policy, and philosophical issues presented by geoengineering. The book asks: When, if ever, are decisions to embark on potentially risky climate modification projects justified? If such decisions can be justified, in a world without a central governing authority, who should authorize such projects and by …

Ohio Oil And Gas Litigation In The New Fracking Era, Blake Watson

School of Law Faculty Publications

There is a new era of oil and gas exploration in Ohio: the horizontal “fracking” era. Although the hydraulic fracturing process has been utilized for decades, the recent development of horizontal drilling methods has enabled companies to extract oil and gas from the Marcellus and Utica deep shale formations. Horizontal hydraulic fracturing has substantially changed oil and gas drilling in eastern Ohio, as evident by the following statements taken from a complaint filed by landowners in Columbiana County:

From 2008 through 2010, few Columbiana County landowners understood the significance of the Utica shale play. ... [M]any landowners enter[ed] into oil …

Climate Change Litigation: Opening The Door To The International Court Of Justice, Andrew L. Strauss

School of Law Faculty Publications

In March 2003, I wrote an article for the Environmental Law Reporter surveying potential international judicial forums where victims of global warming could bring lawsuits. In the ensuing six years, numerous lawsuits have been brought in the United States and in other countries, and environmentalists can now celebrate their first significant victory. In April 2007, based upon its finding that greenhouse gases are pollutants under Section 202(a)(1) of the U.S. Clean Air Act, the Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA held that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases.

Though we are still in …

The Legal Option: Suing The United States In International Forums For Global Warming Emissions, Andrew L. Strauss

School of Law Faculty Publications

The George W. Bush administration's refusal to deal seriously with the problem of global warming, perhaps the greatest environmental problem of our time, requires that the international community think seriously about alternative ways of inducing or even compelling the United States to meet its global responsibilities. One strategy being considered is litigation. There are a variety of forms that global warming litigation could take. Plaintiffs harmed by global warming could bring actions in U.S. federal courts against the American government. Alternatively, such plaintiffs could sue key American corporations whose conduct has a disproportionate impact on global warming inside U.S. or …

Liberal Construction Of Cercla Under The Remedial Purpose Canon: Have The Lower Courts Taken A Good Thing Too Far?, Blake Watson

School of Law Faculty Publications

This article examines the use of the remedial purpose canon of statutory construction in connection with the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), otherwise known as the Superfund Act. The article also assesses scholarly criticisms of the remedial purpose canon.