Law Commons^™

Water Security, Rhett B. Larson

Northwestern University Law Review

Climate change, as the dominant paradigm in natural resource policy, is obsolete and should be replaced by the water security paradigm. The climate change paradigm is obsolete because it fails to adequately resonate with the concerns of the general public and fails to integrate fundamental sustainability challenges related to economic development and population growth. The water security paradigm directly addresses the main reasons climate change ultimately matters to most people—droughts, floods, plagues, and wars. Additionally, this new proposed paradigm better integrates climate change concerns with other pressing global sustainability challenges—including that economic development and population growth will require 50% more …

Back To Its Roots: How §1983 Must Return To Its Origins To Provide A Remedy For The Inupiat Against Oil Drilling In Alaska's Arctic Circle, Julia Prochazka

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

As demand for oil and gas grows, companies are looking to the Chukchi Sea in Alaska as a potential source of oil and wealth. However, the land along the Chukchi Sea is also home to the Native Alaskan community of the Inupiat. Drilling comes in direct conflict with the way of the life of the Inupiat. Considering this conflict, this Comment explores the difficulty of a §1983 claim for the Inupiat. The failure of §1983 to provide a remedy for the Inupiat provides a frame through which to view how §1983 has deviated from its plain language and original purpose.

Going In Cerclas: The Evolution Of Arranger Liability And The Not-So-Useful Useful Product Doctrine, Martha Clarke

Northwestern University Law Review

Since the Supreme Court decision Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. United States, courts have wrestled with what it means to be an arranger under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). One aspect of arranger liability that has undergone radical change in the past decade is the useful product doctrine, which allows a party to escape arranger liability by proving it was selling a useful product rather than arranging for disposal.

Prior to Burlington Northern, courts applied the useful product doctrine restrictively, only allowing parties selling virgin products to escape liability and imposing …

After Flint: Environmental Justice As Equal Protection, David A. Dana, Deborah Tuerkheimer

Northwestern University Law Review

This Essay conceptualizes the Flint water crisis as an archetypical case of underenforcement—that is, a denial of the equal protection of laws guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Viewed as such, the inadequacy of environmental regulation can be understood as a failure that extends beyond the confines of Flint; a failure that demands a far more expansive duty to protect vulnerable populations.