Law Commons^™

An International Law Framework For Climate-Aligned Investment Governance, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Elena Klonsky, Fanny Marie Everard, Qiaozi Guanglin, Tyler Alviano, Justin Cuddihey, Mary Wang

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

The January 2024 CCSI Working Paper, An International Law Framework for Climate-Aligned Investment Governance, outlines a framework — and invites and hopes to inspire further thinking, research, and discussion — on how to bridge gaps and build cohesion among various areas of international law relevant to investment in climate mitigation and adaptation. The working paper identifies areas of international law that are or could be relevant to investment governance, highlights points of inconsistency, and proposes a framework to reform and integrate international law with the objective of promoting and facilitating climate investment flows and achieving climate-aligned regulation of investment.

Strengthening A One Health Approach To Emerging Zoonoses, Samira Mubareka, John Amuasi, Arinjay Banerjee, Hélène Carabin, Joe Copper Jack, Claire Jardine, Bogdan Jaroszewicz, Greg Keefe, Jonathon Kotwa, Susan Kutz, Deborah Mcgregor, Anne Mease, Lily Nicholson, Katarzyna Nowak, Brad Pickering, Maureen Reed, Johanne Saint-Charles, Katarzyna Simonienko, Trevor Smith, J. Scott Weese, E. Jane Parmley

Articles & Book Chapters

Given the enormous global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in Canada, and manifold other zoonotic pathogen activity, there is a pressing need for a deeper understanding of the human-animal-environment interface and the intersecting biological, ecological, and societal factors contributing to the emergence, spread, and impact of zoonotic diseases. We aim to apply a One Health approach to pressing issues related to emerging zoonoses, and propose a functional framework of interconnected but distinct groups of recommendations around strategy and governance, technical leadership (operations), equity, education and research for a One Health approach and Action Plan …

Are The Mdbs Accountable? Reflecting On The Independent Accountability Mechanisms Of The Multilateral Development Banks, Susan Park

Perspectives

The International Accountability Mechanisms of the Multilateral Development Banks provide important insights into how to hold intergovernmental organizations to account for their environmental and social impacts. This perspective identifies how the IAMs hold the Banks to account according to the six standard questions of accountability: who is accountable, to whom, for what are they accountable, and what are the standards, processes, and sanctions employed to demonstrate that the MDBs are accountable. This highlights what the IAMs can and cannot hold the MDBs to account for, and how this might shape further international grievance mechanisms for people seeking to defend their …

Transformative Governance Of Biodiversity: Insights For Sustainable Development, J. Visseren-Hamakers Ingrid, Jona Razzaque, Pamela Mcelwee, Esther Turnhout, Eszter Kelemen, Graciela M. Rusch, Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares, Ivis Chan, Michelle Mei Ling Lim, Et Al.

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

While there is much debate on transformative change among academics and policymakers, the discussion on how to govern such change is still in its infancy. This article argues that transformative governance is needed to enable the transformative change necessary for achieving global sustainability goals. Based on a literature review, the article unpacks this concept of transformative governance. It is: integrative, to ensure local solutions also have sustainable impacts elsewhere (across scales, places, issues and sectors); inclusive, to empower those whose interests are currently not being met and represent values embodying transformative change for sustainability; adaptive, enabling learning, experimentation, and reflexivity, …

Transparency For Whom? Grounding Land Investment Transparency In The Needs Of Local Actors, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Transparency is often seen as a means of improving governance and accountability of investment, but its potential to do so is hindered by vague definitions and failures to focus on the needs of key local actors.

In this new report focusing on agribusiness, forestry, and renewable energy projects (“land investments”), CCSI grounds transparency in the needs of project-affected communities and other local actors. Transparency efforts that seek to inform and empower communities can also help governments, companies, and other actors to more effectively manage operational risk linked to social conflict.

Troublingly, the report finds that:

• Disclosures around land investments continue …

Transparency Of Land-Based Investments: Cameroon Country Snapshot, Sam Szoke-Burke, Samuel Nguiffo, Stella Tchoukep

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Despite a recent transparency law and participation in transparency initiatives, Cameroon’s investment environment remains plagued by poor transparency.

In a new report focusing on agribusiness projects in Cameroon, CCSI and the Centre pour l’Environnement et le Développement (CED) find that:

• Communities continue to be excluded from decision-making around investments.
• The government pursues a top-down approach to concession allocation and remains reluctant to recognize all legitimate tenure rights.
• The government faces threats to its legitimacy as the grievances of citizens and investors alike lead to the barring of roads by communities and investor withdrawals.

CCSI and CED therefore call for:

• A …

Mining And The Sdgs: A 2020 Status Update, Responsible Mining Foundation, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In September 2015, the UN member states agreed on a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which represent the global agenda for equitable, socially inclusive, and environmentally sustainable economic development until 2030. Mining companies have the potential to become leading partners in achieving the SDGs. Through their direct operations, mining companies can generate profits, employment, and economic growth in low-income countries. And through partnerships with government and civil society, mining companies can ensure that benefits of mining extend beyond the life of the mine itself, so that the mining industry has a positive impact on the natural environment, climate …

Transparency In The Extractive Industries: Getting Serious About Politics To Get Serious About Impact, Leila Kazemi, Michael Jarvis

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

PLUS POLITICS is a multi-part series of briefs from the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment that aims to encourage practitioners to apply a more systematic political lens to their work on governance in the extractive industries. Each brief will deal with a key governance issue and will provide a brief analysis of its political challenges and practical recommendations to address them.

Introduction, Aldo Chircop, Floris Goerlandt, Claudio Aporta, Ronald Pelot

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This chapter introduces a multidisciplinary collection of chapters addressing various aspects of governance of Arctic shipping written by leading international scholars. It investigates how ocean changes and anthropogenic impacts affect our understanding of risk, policy, management and regulation for safe navigation, environment protection, conflict management between ocean uses, and protection of Indigenous peoples’ interests in Canadian Arctic waters. The book is divided in three parts, together providing a multi-faceted and interdisciplinary view on governance of Arctic shipping. The first part addresses conceptual and empirical aspects of risk governance, management, and assessment in the Canadian Arctic. The second part focuses on …

Time To Act: Response To Questions Posed By The Expert Panel On Sustainable Finance On Fiduciary Obligation And Effective Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, Janis P. Sarra, Cynthia Williams

All Faculty Publications

While there are numerous strategies to be deployed to move Canada to a financially sustainable future, this study addresses two critically important issues: fiduciary obligation of corporate- and pension-fiduciaries, and national action on environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) financial disclosure, including climate-related financial risk disclosure. The Canadian economy is facing significant challenges and disruptions in the transition to a lower carbon world. Absent clear and innovative steps to ensure our corporations and financial institutions act to address carbon emissions and other environmental, social and governance risks and opportunities, we will be seriously prejudiced in a world that is rapidly moving …

Foreword: Private, Environmental, Governance, Joshua Ulan Galperin

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This essay is the invited foreword to the 2017 J.B & Maurice C. Shapiro Environmental Law Symposium issue of the George Washington Journal of Energy and Environmental Law. The 2017 symposium was dedicated to the issue of private environmental governance. This essay recognizes the incredible growth of private environmental governance as an area of study in the legal academy. In addition to introducing the various contributions to the symposium issue, this essay proposes that rather than merely studying "private environmental governance" as an independent concept, scholars should look closely at the individual components, "private," "environmental," and "governance," to better understand …

Governance Interactions In Sustainable Supply Chain Management, Errol Meidinger

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

“Supply chains” are a major site of transnational business governance, and yet their dynamics and effectiveness are usually more assumed than interrogated in regulatory governance discourse. The very term “chain” implies a more determinist and simplistic understanding of supply relationships than is empirically supportable. Supply chains in practice are complex, dynamic, and highly variable networks. Based on peer-group presentations by over 60 supply chain professionals, this paper analyzes sustainable supply chain management practices in terms of the interactions conceptions of the Transnational Business Governance Interactions framework. It discusses possible refinements of the framework and suggests that sustainable supply chain management …

Slides: Practicing Sustainability In Natural Resource Industries, Gary D. Libecap

Natural Resource Industries and the Sustainability Challenge (Martz Winter Symposium, February 27-28)

Presenter: Gary D. Libecap, Bren School of Environmental Science and Management and Economics Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

10 slides

Offshore Renewable Energy Governance In Nova Scotia: A Case Study Of Tidal Energy In The Bay Of Fundy, Meinhard Doelle

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This article considers the governance approach (including the legislative context, the regulatory system and relevant policy context) to offshore renewable energy developments in Nova Scotia, with a focus on tidal energy in the Bay of Fundy. It explores applicable regulatory processes at the federal and provincial levels as well as the contribution of strategic environmental assessments carried out in 2008 and updated in 2013. The article assesses the ability of the current governance approach to encourage integrated decision making that considers environmental, social and economic factors, such as various environmental impacts and benefits, energy security, economic development opportunities, interaction with …

Global Environmental Law At A Crossroads: Introduction, Robert V. Percival, Jolene Lin, William Piermattei

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A New Regulatory Framework For Low-Impact/High-Value Aquaculture In Nova Scotia, Meinhard Doelle, William Lahey

Reports & Public Policy Documents

The report is the result of a detailed assessment of aquaculture regulations in Nova Scotia. It proposes a new regulatory framework for the Nova Scotia aquaculture industry based on the principles of effectiveness, openness, transparency, accountability, proportionality, integration, and precaution. The report is based on a 18 months independent review of the industry and how it is regulated, as well as various forms of engagement with the public and key stakeholders. The report draws on regulatory practice in key jurisdictions around the world, including Scotland, Chile, the US, and other provinces in Canada.

Private Environmental Governance, Michael P. Vandenbergh

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Environmental law has quietly transformed from a positive law field deeply rooted in administrative law to one that is also heavily rooted in private law and private governance. After two decades (1970-1990) of remarkable activity, more than two decades have now passed without a major federal environmental statute (1991-2012). Whether the appropriate next step is expansion or contraction, reforms to the federal statutory framework have stalled. Federal regulatory activity and state and local measures have filled some of the gap, but private governance efforts – the pursuit of public ends through private standards, monitoring, enforcement, and dispute resolution – now …

Slides: The Green Climate Fund: Challenges And Opportunities: Some Thoughts On How The Green Climate Fund Could Close The Energy Justice Gap, Martin Hiller

2012 Energy Justice Conference and Technology Exposition (September 17-18)

Presenter: Martin Hiller, Director‐General, Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP), Vienna, Austria

22 slides

Slides: Impacts Of Energy Deficits In Cooking, Illumination, Water, Sanitation, And Motive Power, Paul S. Chinowsky

2012 Energy Justice Conference and Technology Exposition (September 17-18)

Presenter: Dr. Paul Chinowsky, Director, Mortenson Center in Engineering for Developing Communities; Professor, University of Colorado

25 slides

From Global To Polycentric Climate Governance, Daniel H. Cole

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Global governance institutions for climate change, such as those established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, have so far failed to make a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Following the lead of Elinor Ostrom, this paper offers an alternative theoretical framework for reconstructing global climate policy in accordance with the polycentric approach to governance pioneered in the early 1960s by Vincent Ostrom, Charles Tiebout, and Robert Warren. Instead of a thoroughly top-down global regime, in which lower levels of government simply carry out the mandates of international negotiators, a polycentric approach provides …

Governing For Sustainable Coasts: Complexity, Climate Change, And Coastal Ecosystem Protection, J.B. Ruhl, Robin K. Craig

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The world’s coastal ecosystems are among the most complex on Earth, and they are currently being governed unsustainably, by any definition. Climate change will only add to this complexity, underscoring the necessity of finding new ways to govern for these ecosystems’ sustainable use. After reviewing the problems facing coastal ecosystems and innovations in their governance, this article argues that governance of coastal ecosystems must move to place-based adaptive management regimes that incorporate innovative and flexible regulatory mechanisms, such as market-based incentives.

Climate Change Governance: Boundaries And Leakage, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Mark A. Cohen

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article provides a critical missing piece to the global climate change governance puzzle: how to create incentives for the major developing countries to reduce carbon emissions. The major developing countries are projected to account for 80% of the global emissions growth over the next several decades, and substantial reductions in the risk of catastrophic climate change will not be possible without a change in this emissions path. Yet the global climate governance measures proposed to date have not succeeded and may be locking in disincentives as carbon-intensive production shifts from developed to developing countries. A multi-pronged governance approach will …

Agenda: Shifting Baselines And New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, And The Transformation Of The American West, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6)

The Center’s 29th annual conference will focus on the changes in the West resulting from rapid population growth, development, disrupted historical weather patterns and the effects of those changes on land, water, and energy resources. Speakers and panelists will address the adaptability of the legal and political institutions and how the transformation of the West may foreshadow fundamental changes to these institutions.

The agenda includes panel discussions that will address:

• Water for the 21^st Century —the big questions in Western water and rethinking Western water law.
• The Future of Energy —practical and sophisticated solutions to overcome the energy …

Climate Change: The China Problem, Michael P. Vandenbergh

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The central problem confronting climate change scholars and policymakers is how to create incentives for China and the United States to make prompt, large emissions reductions. China recently surpassed the United States as the largest greenhouse gas emitter, and its projected future emissions far outstrip those of any other nation. Although the United States has been the largest emitter for years, China's emissions have enabled critics in the United States to argue that domestic reductions will be ineffective and will transfer jobs to China. These two aspects of the China Problem, Chinese emissions and their influence on the political process …

Slides: What's In A Name? The Story Of The Utah Wilderness Reinventory, James R. Rasband

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

Presenter: James R. Rasband, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University

23 slides

Slides: Meaningful Engagement: The Public's Role In Resource Decisions, Mark Squillace

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

Presenter: Mark Squillace, Director, Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado Law School

22 slides

Slides: Tribal Perspectives On Natural Resource Policy, Donald Wharton

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

Presenter: Donald Wharton, Native American Rights Fund

16 slides

What’S In A Name? The Story Of The Utah Wilderness Reinventory, James R. Rasband

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

14 pages.

Includes bibliographical references

"James R. Rasband, Associate Dean of Research & Academic Affairs and Professor of Law, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University"

The New Wal-Mart Effect: The Role Of Private Contracting In Global Governance, Michael P. Vandenbergh

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Cartography Of Governance: An Introduction, Lakshman D. Guruswamy

Publications

No abstract provided.