Law Commons^™

A Comparison Analysis Between The Standards Used In The Dneiper River Basin Clean-Up And European Union Legislation, Hannah H. Naumoff-Dulski

ExpressO

A recent case study involved the clean-up efforts of the Dnieper River Basin by three countries, Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. The objective of the study was to provide a method for the identification, assessment, and prioritization of the most significant sources of pollution based on their impacts and characteristics. Herein, the standards employed in the Dnieper case study are comparatively analyzed against the relevant EU directives. The purpose in doing so was to determine if the standards employed in this project could serve as a benchmark for the necessary environmental regulations that would be required if these three countries were …

Nothing Dismal About It: Researching Environmental Law Without Getting Swamped, Jennifer Sekula

Library Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Recent Developments In The Law Of The "Taking Issue", John C. Keene

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Up Against A Wall: Europe’S Options For Regulating Biotechnology Through Regulatory Anarchy, Aaron A. Ostrovsky

ExpressO

Based on the current state of EU law and the political sentiment surrounding Genetically Modified Organisms, this paper argues that the best approach to regulating the import and export of GMOs into the Community and between Member States is by what I will call for the purposes of this Paper “regulatory anarchy.” This system sits in opposition to a hierarchical regulatory approach which may be associated with traditional neo-functionalist theories of Community integration. Applied in the context of GMOs, regulatory anarchy envisions integration not coming solely from Community rules conceived by the Commission, but by Member State negotiated rules accomplished …

Sovereignty, Self-Determination, And Environment-Based Cultures: The Emerging Voice Of Indigenous Peoples In International Law, Peter Manus

ExpressO

This article presents a survey of both the rhetoric and applications of international law addressing indigenous peoples' environmental rights. Part I assesses three terms that are widely used in international instruments - sovereignty, human rights, and self-determination - for their applicability to the environment-related interests of indigenous peoples. Part II presents a sixty year litany of international instruments as a means of tracing the evolution of global awareness of the uniquely vulnerable position that indigenous people occupy in the world community in connection with their environmental interests. Part III offers a comparative analysis of the cases Kitok v. Sweden and …

Can Business Learn To Love The Environment? The Case For A U.S. Corporate Carbon Fund, Sophie E. Smyth

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Getting Around The Gatt: Passing Gatt-Legal Legislation To Protect Marine Living Resources, Brad L. Milkwick

ExpressO

The WTO has been called, among other things, anti-environment. This is due in large part to the position that GATT dispute settlement panels have taken on environment-friendly legislation—such legislation is often struck down as being unduly restrictive of trade and therefore unenforceable under the GATT/WTO agreement. For example, in three seminal disputes that were brought before the GATT (often referred to as the Tuna/Dolphin I, Tuna/Dolphin II, and Shrimp/Turtle disputes), GATT dispute settlement bodies “recommended” against the United States and in favor of the countries which were allegedly engaging in environmentally-destructive practices. This article looks at those recommendations in some …

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Hypoxia In The Gulf Of Mexico: A Legal And Practical Analysis, Bradford T. Mclane

ExpressO

Each year, a large area of the Gulf of Mexico is seasonally depleted of life-giving oxygen. Called hypoxia, the phenomenon threatens to bring about a collapse of the Gulf’s marine ecosystem. A voluntary regime is working to address this threat, and has set a year 2015 goal of considerably reducing the size of the Gulf hypoxic area to less than 5,000 square kilometers by 2015. Implementation of this goal will entail an estimated reduction in nitrogen loading to the Gulf of at least thirty percent.

This note analyzes the conceptual transformation of this voluntary regime into a regulatory one. Because …

Embracing Uncertainty, Complexity And Change: An Eco-Pragmatic Reinvention Of A First Generation Environmental Law, Mary Jane Angelo

ExpressO

ABSTRACT Embracing Uncertainty, Complexity and Change: An Eco-Pragmatic Reinvention of a First Generation Environmental Law Mary Jane Angelo, University of Florida Levin College of Law Recent scientific reports demonstrate that despite more than thirty years of environmental regulation, we are experiencing unprecedented declines in bird and wildlife species, as well as ecosystem services. Pesticides are at least in part to blame for these profound declines. U.S. pesticide law has failed to carryout its mission. Moreover, a number of lawsuits have been filed recently asserting that the registration of certain pesticides is in violation of the federal endangered species act. One …

Sustainable Development And Private Global Governance, Douglas A. Kysar

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article utilizes recent controversy over Coca-Cola's alleged depletion of groundwater resources in India as a vehicle for exploring competing conceptions of global environmental governance and the role of private actors within them. Initially, it uses the Coca-Cola groundwater situation to identify core substantive and procedural meanings that lurk within the otherwise ingeniously ambiguous concept of sustainable development. Through this exercise, it is shown that - when properly understood - the sustainable development paradigm stands in considerable tension with the premises of market liberalism that drive such political and economic trends as global market integration; privatization and commodification of water …

Weighing And Balancing Social And Economic Considerations Of Siting Landfills To Address Environmental Justice Concerns, Sharon Shaheen

Student Thesis Honors (1996-2008)

Environmental justice in permitting new landfills is best addressed as one element of many weighed in an agency discretionary decision-making process. Siting landfills necessarily includes consideration of technical, social, economic and political issues. Currently, the landfill permitting process in New Mexico examines only technical, scientific, and geological factors. In effect, a permit must be granted if all of the technical specifications and notice requirements are met. To adequately address all of the impacts on a community when a landfill is sited nearby, an agency should have both the discretion to weigh and balance all relevant factors and the authority to …

Sharing Potential And The Potential For Sharing: Open Source Licensing As A Legal And Economic Modality For The Dissemination Of Renewable Energy Technology, Jason Wiener

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

An Economic Theory Of Infrastructure And Commons Management, Brett M. Frischmann

ExpressO

In this article, Professor Frischmann combines a number of current debates across many disciplinary lines, all of which examine from different perspectives whether certain resources should be managed through a regime of private property or through a regime of open access. Frischmann develops and applies a theory that demonstrates there are strong economic arguments for managing and sustaining openly accessible infrastructure. The approach he takes differs from conventional analyses in that he focuses extensively on demand-side considerations and fully explores how infrastructure resources generate value for consumers and society. As a result, the theory brings into focus the social value …

Connecticut Nitrogen Credit Exchange Program, Ann Powers

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Long Island Sound is a cherished national natural resource, surrounded by some of the most densely populated land in the country. It has long provided sustenance, economic opportunities and comfort to the spirit for those who inhabit or visit its shores and waters. Like many of our Nation's water bodies, it drains a substantial and diverse watershed, and suffers a broad range of environmental insults. The problem of most concern is the severe shortage of oxygen in the deep waters of the western part of the Sound during summer months. This hypoxia is attributable to excess nitrogen that fuels the …

J.B. Ruhl's "Law-And-Society System": Burying Norms And Democracy Under Complexity Theory's Foundation, Jeffrey Rudd

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Fourth Circuit Summary, Samuel R. Brumberg, Christopher D. Supino

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Public Agencies As Lobbyists, Jody Freeman

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Water Justice In South Africa: Natural Resources Policy At The Intersection Of Human Rights, Economics, & Political Power, Rose Francis

ExpressO

This paper analyzes water as a social justice issue in South Africa, a nation that has undergone tremendous political and legal transformations over the last fifteen years, but whose population nonetheless continues to suffer from severe inequities in access to freshwater resources. In light of growing water scarcity worldwide, this paper highlights that legal treatment of water resources has significant socioeconomic and distributive justice impacts, even in progressive constitutional democracies that have embraced principles of human rights and international legal norms. The paper explores historical changes in South African water law and evaluates the current political and legal status of …

Management-Based Strategies For Improving Private Sector Environmental Performance, Cary Coglianese, Jennifer Nash

ExpressO

Improvements in environmental quality depend in large measure on changes in private sector management. In recognition of this fact, government and industry have begun in recent years to focus directly on shaping the internal management practices of private firms. New management-based strategies can take many forms, but unlike conventional regulatory approaches they are linked by their distinctive focus on management practices, rather than on environmental technologies or emissions targets. This article offers the first sustained analysis of both public and private sector initiatives designed specifically to improve firms’ environmental management. Synthesizing the results of a conference of leading scholars and …

Soft Regulators, Tough Judges, Gerrit De Geest, Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci

George Mason University School of Law Working Papers Series

Judges have a tendency to be more demanding than regulators. In the United States, a majority of the courts has adopted the rule that the unexcused violation of a statutory standard is negligence per se. However, the converse does not hold: compliance with regulation does not relieve the injurer of tort liability. In most European legal systems, the outcome is similar. We use a framework in which, on the one hand, the effects of tort law are undermined by insolvency and evidence problems and, on the other hand, regulation is expensive in terms of monitoring and information gathering. We show …

Science, Judgment, And Controversy In Natural Resource Regulation, (With H. Doremus), A. Dan Tarlock

All Faculty Scholarship

Natural resource regulation is heavily "scientized," by which we mean both that the current regulatory structure requires the use of science in a wide range of decisions, and that decisionmakers generally emphasize the role of science in those decisions. Nonetheless, critics on all sides of the political spectrum claim to believe that regulatory decisions remain too political and insufficiently scientific. Administration of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the Klamath Basin illustrates the challenges of scientifically managing nature. A series of science-based decisions are needed, from species listing to consultation on federal actions. Those decisions carry substantial costs for the …

The Law Of Later-Developing Riparian States: The Case Of Afghanistan, (With J. Mcmurray), A. Dan Tarlock

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Science, Judgment, And Controversy In Natural Resource Regulation, (With H. Doremus), A. Dan Tarlock

Dan Tarlock

Natural resource regulation is heavily "scientized," by which we mean both that the current regulatory structure requires the use of science in a wide range of decisions, and that decisionmakers generally emphasize the role of science in those decisions. Nonetheless, critics on all sides of the political spectrum claim to believe that regulatory decisions remain too political and insufficiently scientific. Administration of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the Klamath Basin illustrates the challenges of scientifically managing nature. A series of science-based decisions are needed, from species listing to consultation on federal actions. Those decisions carry substantial costs for the …

The Law Of Later-Developing Riparian States: The Case Of Afghanistan, (With J. Mcmurray), A. Dan Tarlock

Dan Tarlock

No abstract provided.

Organizational Misconduct: Beyond The Principal-Agent Model, Kimberly D. Krawiec

ExpressO

This article demonstrates that, at least since the adoption of the Organizational Sentencing Guidelines in 1991, the United States legal regime has been moving away from a system of strict vicarious liability toward a system of duty-based organizational liability. Under this system, organizational liability for agent misconduct is dependant on whether or not the organization has exercised due care to avoid the harm in question, rather than under traditional agency principles of respondeat superior. Courts and agencies typically evaluate the level of care exercised by the organization by inquiring whether the organization had in place internal compliance structures ostensibly designed …

Disappearing Defendants V. Judgment Proof Injurers: Upgrading The Theory Of Tort Law Failures, Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci, Barbara Mangan

George Mason University School of Law Working Papers Series

Do injurers’ insolvency and victims’ reluctance to sue affect accident prevention in the same way? Are these circumstances less of a problem under the negligence rule than under strict liability? We argue, contrary to the literature, that the answer is, in most cases, negative and make three main points. First, the judgment proof problem and the disappearing defendant problem are shown to have different effects on injurers’ behavior and hence yield dissimilar levels of social welfare. Second, when these two problems occur simultaneously they may have offsetting effects. Third, the negligence rule is superior to strict liability only under some …

Mindless Guilt: Negative Aspects Of State Environmental Prosecutions Using The Public Welfare Exception, Aaron F. Kass

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

A Shallow Fix: The Uniform Environmental Covenants Act Leaves Hard Brownfield Questions Unanswered, Paul Stanton Kibel

Paul Stanton Kibel

No abstract provided.

Environmental Tribalism, Douglas A. Kysar, James Salzman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Recent writings by Dan Farber and J.B. Ruhl have put forward a strong case for "eco-pragmatic" and "radical middle" approaches to environmental policymaking. Rather than debate the merits of such an approach, in this Article we examine whether eco-pragmatic policy development is likely in practice and where it might occur, given the tribal nature of public environmental advocacy. We use the remarkably polarized reaction to Bjorn Lomborg's book, "The Skeptical Environmentalist," as a vehicle to explore the seemingly fundamental divide that exists between warring parties within the environmental law and policy communities. By offering a more complete understanding of why …