Law Commons^™

Cjeu, Can You Hear Me? Access To Justice In Environmental Matters, Sanja Bogojevic

Sanja Bogojević

Over the years, much ink has been spilled in the debate on standing of NGOs before the EU courts. This issue has been the object of particular consideration following the ruling in the Greenpeace case where the General Court denied the NGO in question standing on the basis that it did not ‘adduce any special circumstances to demonstrate the individual interest of their members’. Considering that environmental NGOs tend to represent the interests of society as a whole, or that of the environment in particular, imposing this kind of conditioning seems unreasonable. Indeed, this judgment, coupled with the more general …

What We Can Predict And Affect, Jill Fraley

Jill M. Fraley

No abstract provided.

Transition Policy In Environmental Law, Bruce R. Huber

Bruce R Huber

Embedded within the structure of much American environmental regulation is a distinction between the new and the existing. This distinction reflects a recurrent political challenge for environmental policymakers: whether and how to mitigate regulatory burdens when policy change upsets settled expectations and investment commitments. Environmental law often grandfathers existing products and pollution sources or provides them with other kinds of transition relief. This paper presents a survey of transition policies in environmental regulation, which is followed by a pair of short case studies drawn from the trucking and pesticide industries. These examples demonstrate that the form and extent of transition …

Cercla, Causation, And Responsibility, John C. Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

No abstract provided.

The Missing Chinese Environmental Law Statutory Interpretation Cases, John C. Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

No abstract provided.

An Economic Approach To Collective Rights And Their Means Of Supply: The Case Of Right To "The Enjoyment Of A Healthy Environment" And The Right To "Rational Management And Use Of Natural Resources" [En Español], Daniel A. Monroy

Daniel A Monroy C

This paper has two main objectives (i) Demonstrate that the defining characteristic of collective rights related to non-excludable of the benefits derived from the "means" of supply and the material "objects" of rights, is consistent with the microeconomic defining characteristic of so-called "public goods" and "commons " (together we call these as non-excludable resources). On the other hand, (ii) Demonstrate that when we analyze the collective rights as non-excludable resources this aims important omitted challenges by traditional legal doctrine related with the adequate supply of collective rights, this happens because the problems of the -Olsonian- logic of collective action. For …

The Viability Of Citizens’ Suits Under The Clean Water Act After Gwaltney Of Smithfield V. Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Bevery Mcqueary Smith

Beverly McQueary Smith

No abstract provided.

Cultivating A Green Political Landscape: Lessons For Climate Change Policy From The Defeat Of California's Proposition 23, Eric Biber

Eric Biber

The article discusses climate change policy and the political aspects of green technology in America in the wake of the defeat of the global warming-related ballot initiative California Proposition 23 in 2010. The political dynamics of climate change policy are addressed, along with American environmental law, federal climate change legislation, and the California Air Resources Board. The political campaign contributions from the Valero and Tesoro oil companies in Texas are examined.

If You Had A Fundamental Human Right To A Particular Environment, What Would That Look Like?, Carter Dillard

Carter Dillard

Many environmentalists believe that because the earth has in the last several decades become largely a human environment in which pure nature or wild places uninfluenced by humans no longer exist, people ought to abandon the idea of wilderness entirely and do the best they can in a world dominated by humans. That would be a mistake. The idea of nature and wilderness in particular, or of places and things in the world relatively uninfluenced by humans, actually provides the foundation on which to build the international human right to a particular environment that some environmentalists have been looking for. …

Dangers Of Trying To Set Earth's Thermostat, Andrew Strauss, William Burns

Andrew L. Strauss

No abstract provided.

The Birth, Death, And Afterlife Of The Wild Lands Policy: The Evolution Of The Bureau Of Land Management’S Authority To Protect Wilderness Values, Olivia Brumfield

Michael Blumm

Since the enactment of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) in 1976, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has had a troubled relationship with wild lands, the nation’s last remaining places with wilderness characteristics. Although for twenty-five years BLM recognized wilderness values as a resource it must balance and could protect consistent with the agency’s multiple use mandate, in 2003 BLM largely disclaimed that interpretation, potentially imperiling future protection of wild lands that were not designated as wilderness or wilderness study areas. Since then, the agency has made incremental – but potentially powerful – steps toward reclaiming a …

Antimonopoly And The Radical Lochean Origins Of Western Water Law, Michael Blumm

Michael Blumm

This review of David Schorr's book, The Colorado Doctrine: Water Rights, Corporations, and Distributive Justice on the American Frontier, maintains that the book is a therapeutic corrective to the standard history of the origins of western water law as celebration of economic efficiency and wealth maximization. Schorr's account convincingly contends that the roots of prior appropriation water law--the "Colorado Doctrine"--lie in distributional justice concerns, not in the supposed efficiency advantages of private property over common property. The goals of the founders of the Colorado doctrine, according to Schorr, were to advance Radical Lochean principles such as widespread distibution of water …

The Growing Importance Of Sustainability To Lawyers And The Aba, John Dernbach, Lee Dehihns, Ira Feldman

John C. Dernbach

No abstract provided.

Law, The Laws Of Nature And Ecosystem Energy Services: A Case Of Wilful Blindness, David R. Hodas

David R. Hodas

Ecosystems services include the collection, concentration, and storage of solar energy as fossil fuels (e.g., coal, petroleum, and natural gas). These concentrated forms of energy were produced by ancient ecosystem services. However, our legal and economic systems fail to recognise the value of the ecosystem service subsidies embedded in fossil fuels. This ecosystem services price subsidy causes overuse and waste of fossil fuels in the free market: fossil fuels are consumed more quickly than they can be replaced by ecosystem services and in far larger quantities than they would be if the price of fossil fuels included the cost of …

Report On Pacific Islands Judges Symposium On Sustainable Development, G. L. Rose

Professor Gregory Rose

Report on the Pacific Islands Judges Symposium on Environmental Law and Sudstainable DevThe Pacific Islands Judges Symposium on Environmental Law and Sustainable Development was held over three days, 5-7 February 2002. The aim of the Symposium was to bring together judges from the region for information exchange, between themselves and experts in environmental law, and for discussion of potential roles of the judiciary in decision making for sustainable development. It was one in a series of judicial symposia on environmental law organised by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Other regions where such symposia have been held include Africa (1995), …

Engaging Deliberative Democracy At The Grassroots: Prioritizing The Effects Of The Fiscal Crisis In New York At The Local Government Level, Patricia E. Salkin, Charles Gottlieb

Patricia E. Salkin

Part I of this Article discusses many of the factors contributing to the fiscal crisis at the local level in New York including historic decreases in federal and state revenue sharing, the imposition of a new property tax cap, the failure of New York to address meaningfully the subject of unfunded mandates on local governments, and the dependency of some local jurisdictions on the timely adoption of a state budget. Part II discusses concepts of deliberative democracy and how local residents might be engaged to become partners with local officials in making difficult fiscal decisions that impact all community residents. …

The Sustainable Relationship: What The United States And The United Kingdom Can Teach Each Other About Climate Change And Sustainable Development At The National Level, John Dernbach, Andrea Ross

John C. Dernbach

No abstract provided.

Lands Council, Karuk Tribe, And The Great Environmental Divide In The Ninth Circuit, Michael Blumm, Maggie Hall

Michael Blumm

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the nation’s largest appellate court, with jurisdiction over fifteen judicial districts and 61 million people—almost 20 percent of the nation’s population—spans from Alaska to Arizona, from Montana to Hawaii. The Ninth Circuit has a reputation for being an environmentally sensitive court, but the court is as diverse as the terrain over which it has jurisdiction. Due to its size, the court’s en banc reviews do not include all twenty-nine judges but instead only panels of eleven. Thus, en banc panels can reflect the kind of diversity of opinion they aim to reduce.

Recently, the …

Constitutional Limitations On Land Use Controls, Environmental Regulations And Governmental Exactions, 2013 Edition, Garrett Power

Garrett Power

This electronic book is published in a searchable PDF format as a part of the E-scholarship Repository of the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. It is an “open content” casebook intended for classroom use in courses in Constitutional Law, Land Use Control, and Environmental Law and. It consists of 130 odd judicial opinions (most rendered by the U.S. Supreme Court) carefully selected from the two hundred years of American constitutional history which address the clash between public sovereignty and private property. The text considers both the personal right to liberty and the personal right in property. …

Hitting The Sustainability Accelerator: 51 Sustainability Experts, 4 Approaches, John Dernbach

John C. Dernbach

No abstract provided.

Acting As If Tomorrow Matters: Mapping The Obstacles To Sustainability, John Dernbach

John C. Dernbach

No abstract provided.

What Motivates Sustainability Efforts In The U.S.?, John Dernbach

John C. Dernbach

No abstract provided.

U.S. Sustainability Efforts: Modest Progress But An Increasingly Distant Goal, John Dernbach

John C. Dernbach

No abstract provided.

As If Tomorrow Matters: Accelerating Progress Toward Sustainability, John Dernbach

John C. Dernbach

No abstract provided.

Wasting Away: America’S Dysfunctional System Of Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal, Jacob Berman

Jacob Berman

This paper argues that the current system for disposing of civilian low-level radioactive waste in the United States is broken, and that large-scale reform is necessary to adequately handle the volume of waste expected from further nuclear decommissioning. Between 1947 and 1980, low-level radioactive waste disposal was the sole responsibility of the federal government. The Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act of 1980 upended this system, devolving responsibility for civilian low-level radioactive waste disposal to the states. Devolution has been a disaster. For the last thirty years, state governments have been beset by Not In My Back Yard syndrome, as project …

The Public Trust In Wildlife, Michael Blumm, Aurora Paulsen

Michael Blumm

The public trust doctrine, derived from ancient property principles, is thought to mostly apply to navigable waters and related land resources. The doctrine supplies a mediating force to claims of both private ownership and unfettered government discretion over these resources, vesting the state with trust responsibility to ensure that the use of these resources promotes long-term sustainability. A related doctrine—sovereign ownership of wildlife—is also an ancient public property doctrine inherited from England. State ownership of wildlife has long defeated private ownership claims and enabled states to enact and implement wildlife conservation regulations. This paper claims that these two doctrines should …

The Implementation Gap: What Causes Laws To Succeed Or Fail?, David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

It is important to go behind the “paper systems” many countries and private sector actors have created to manufacture the appearance of commitments to responsible economic activity, environmental protection and social justice. This produces the need to penetrate the veils that mask governments’ “apparent compliance” with the terms of sustainable development, and to be honest about the inability of voluntary codes of practice to shape the behavior of business and government. Implementation requires effective systems to carry out the law and policy mandates. Laws and policies are often poorly designed or deliberately sabotaged in their creation, but in many instances …

The Reality Of Business And Governmental Decision-Making In The Context Of Sustainable Development, David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

It is absolutely rational for economic actors and decision-makers to seek to operate in their own self-interest. The challenge for anyone who wishes to influence or alter the process lies in knowing where that self-interest lies and changing the nature of the self-interest if that is required or possible. That is a far greater challenge than many understand because regardless of what we might like to do in our personal lives, it is the institution within which we work that dictates how we think and what we value in our service to that institution. Given the short time frame within …

New “Architecture” And Revitalizing The Un Global Compact, David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

Some advocates of sustainable development possess an almost theological faith in what I refer to as “rhetorical” sustainable development as the path to providing for the sound future of human civilizations and critical ecological systems. Simply put, if we try to think “too big” and “bite off too much” then the system we are trying to control or influence consumes us and our resources and we fail miserably. There is real and predictable danger in grandeur. This means we need to think about achieving sustainability in very specific and concrete terms applied to clear goals and an honest understanding of …

Committee On Climate Change, Sustainable Development, And Ecosystems: 2012 Annual Report, John Dernbach

John C. Dernbach

No abstract provided.