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Full-Text Articles in Law

Held V. State, Alec D. Skuntz Oct 2021

Held V. State, Alec D. Skuntz

Public Land & Resources Law Review

On March 13, 2020, a group of 16 Montana children and teenagers filed a complaint in the First Judicial District, Lewis and Clark County against the State of Montana and several state agencies. These young Plaintiffs sought injunctive and declaratory relief against Defendants for their complicity in continuing to extract and release harmful amounts of greenhouse gases which contribute to climate change. Plaintiffs premised their argument on the Montana Constitution’s robust environmental rights and protections. The Defendants filed a motion to dismiss which the District Court granted in-part and denied in-part. Held provides a roadmap for future litigation by elucidating …


Offshore Wind Development In The Great Lakes: Accessing Untapped Energy Potential Through International And Interstate Agreement To Overcome Public Trust Concerns, Jordan Farrell Oct 2021

Offshore Wind Development In The Great Lakes: Accessing Untapped Energy Potential Through International And Interstate Agreement To Overcome Public Trust Concerns, Jordan Farrell

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Offshore wind energy development in the Great Lakes presents an immense opportunity for distributed generation of renewable energy; however, this potential has thus far remained untapped. One significant barrier to why there has not yet been such wind energy development in the Great Lakes is the public trust doctrine. This doctrine generally stands for the principle that a state cannot convey its submerged lands to a private party. However, there remains much legal uncertainty with regards to the doctrine. Courts and scholars have struggled to determine with any certainty the origins and grounding of the doctrine and the limits it …


The Public Trust Doctrine And The Climate Crisis: Panacea Or Platitude?, Joseph Regalia Sep 2021

The Public Trust Doctrine And The Climate Crisis: Panacea Or Platitude?, Joseph Regalia

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Over a year of shutting down the global economy during the COVID pandemic achieved about .01 degrees of improvement in global warming. Not even a drop in the bucket. We continue to face a monumental climate crisis. And of the many ways that crisis threatens our environment, winnowing water resources is one of the scariest. One solution that many scholars have turned to is the public trust doctrine. At first blush, this doctrine sounds like a panacea for water management problems: When our water resources are threatened enough that current and future citizen’s access to it is in peril, the …


Monopolizers Of The Soil: The Commons As A Source Of Public Trust Responsibilities, Connor B. Mcdermott Jan 2021

Monopolizers Of The Soil: The Commons As A Source Of Public Trust Responsibilities, Connor B. Mcdermott

Natural Resources Journal

In the seventeenth century, public resources were essential to the survival of the English poor. The common law, stretching back to Magna Carta and the Forest Charter, provided them with usufructuary rights to the commons. Those rights were violated by the enclosure movement, which received royal assent beginning with Charles I’s absolutist reign in 1625. As a result, the common people joined with Parliament to overthrow Charles I. After the Interregnum, Matthew Hale wrote De Jure Maris, a treatise foundational to the public trust doctrine in America and the doctrine’s expansion abroad. Hale lived through the Civil War which resulted …