Law Commons^™

When John Locke Meets Lao Tzu: The Relationship Between Intellectual Property, Biodiversity And Indigenous Knowledge And The Implications For Food Security, Paolo Davide Farah, Marek Prityi

Articles

This article aims to examine the relationship between the concepts of intellectual property, biodiversity, and indigenous knowledge from the perspective of food security and farmers’ rights. Even though these concepts are interdependent and interrelated, they are in a state of conflict due to their inherently enshrined differences. Intellectual property is based on the need of protecting individual property rights in the context of creations of their minds. On the other hand, the concepts of biodiversity, indigenous knowledge and farmers’ rights accentuate the aspects of equity and community. This article aims to analyse and critically assess the respective legal framework and …

Tarnished Gold: The Endangered Species Act At 50, Jonathan H. Adler

FIU Law Review

The ESA is arguably the most powerful and stringent federal environmental law on the books. Yet for all of the Act’s force and ambition, it is unclear how much the law has done much to achieve its central purpose: the conservation of endangered species. The law has been slow to recover listed species and has fostered conflict over land use and scientific determinations that frustrate cooperative conservation efforts. The Article aims to take stock of the ESA’s success and failures during its first fifty years, particularly with regard the conservation of species habitat on private land. While the Act authorizes …

Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under The Endangered Species Act, Eric Biber

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Despite the devastating impact climate change will have on biodiversity, most legal scholars and policymakers are skeptical that the flagship statute for protecting biodiversity in the United States, the Endangered Species Act (ESA), should be deployed to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. This skepticism has been driven by the concern that using the ESA to regulate greenhouse gases could lead to administrative issues, legal chaos, and political backlash that might endanger the Act overall.

In this article, I draw on three different elements to argue that the ESA could plausibly be used to regulate greenhouse gases. Specifically, I draw on recent …

About Sdlp, Sdlp

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

The Sustainable Development Law & Policy Brief (ISSN 1552-3721) is a student-run initiative at American University Washington College of Law that is published twice each academic year. The Brief embraces an interdisciplinary focus to provide a broad view of current legal, political, and social developments. It was founded to provide a forum for those interested in promoting sustainable economic development, conservation, environmental justice, and biodiversity throughout the world.

Law Library Blog (March 2023): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Conservation Easements: A Tool For Preserving Wildlife Habitat On Private Lands, Robin M. Rotman, Sarah A. Brown, Michael A. Powell, Sonja A. Wilhelm Stanis

Faculty Publications

Conservation easements are an essential tool for conserving private lands, and they have great potential for enhancing wildlife habitat and biodiversity. Private land conservation in the United States is likely to increase in the coming years, in light of Executive Order No. 14,008, issued by President Joseph Biden on January 27, 2021, which set a goal of conserving at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030 (Executive Office of the President 2021). There is, therefore, a need to evaluate the effect of conservation easements on wildlife habitat and biodiversity and to make recommendations for further enhancing the effectiveness …

Civil Liability For Unconventional Damages In Maritime Accidents: A Comparative Study Between The Egyptian And Emirati Legislations, Dr. Abdul-Rahman Mohamed Salem

مجلة جامعة الإمارات للبحوث القانونية UAEU LAW JOURNAL

occupy an important rank among other types of accidents due to the evolution of the role of the machine, including ships, as well as the scientific development of the marine field and the surrounding environment, and we will focus our research on non-traditional marine accidents. Trying to establish an appropriate definition thereof, defining their scope, limiting their species and types of the damages resulting from them, whether related to the marine environment or other environments or human in any of them.

Then we try to find a suitable legal basis for civil liability resulting from the damage of non-traditional marine …

Patents And Plants: Rethinking The Role Of International Law In Relation To The Appropriation Of Traditional Knowledge Of The Uses Of Plants (Tkup), Ikechi Mgbeoji

PhD Dissertations

Legal control and ownership of plants and traditional knowledge of the uses of plants (TKUP) is often a vexed issue, particularly at the international level because of the conflicting interests of states or groups of states in the matter. The most widely used form of juridical control of plants and TKUP is the patent system which originated in Europe. This thesis rethinks the role of international law and legal concepts, the major patent systems of the world and international agricultural research institutions as they affect legal ownership and control of plants and TKUP. The analysis is cast in various contexts …

Ccsi’S Consolidated Feedback On The Wba Draft Nature Benchmark Methodology, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Private sector actors are paying more attention to their negative impacts on climate, nature, and biodiversity. CCSI engages with private sector initiatives, frameworks, and benchmarks in this area to ensure the core corporate responsibility to respect human rights is prioritized and addressed.

As part of this work, in March and April 2022, CCSI submitted comments to and engaged with the World Benchmarking Alliance on their Draft Methodology for their Nature and Biodiversity Benchmark. The World Benchmarking Alliance is a leading multi-stakeholder organization which creates benchmarks to publicly assess and rank the world's most influential companies on their contributions to …

Adapting To A 4°C World, Karrigan Börk, Karen Bradshaw, Cinnamon P. Carlarne, Robin Kundis Craig, Sarah Fox, Joshua Ulan Galperin, Shi-Ling Hsu, Katrina F. Kuh, Kevin Lynch, Michele Okoh, Jessica Owley, Melissa Powers, Shannon Roesler, J.B. Ruhl, James Salzman, David Takacs, Clifford J. Villa

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The Paris Agreement's goal to hold warming to 1.5°-2°C above pre-industrial levels now appears unrealistic. Profs. Robin Kundis Craig and J.B. Ruhl have recently argued that because a 4°C world may be likely, we must recognize the disruptive consequences of such a world and respond by reimagining governance structures to meet the challenges of adapting to it. In this latest in a biannual series of essays, they and other members of the Environmental Law Collaborative explore what 4°C might mean for a variety of current legal doctrines, planning policies, governance structures, and institutions.

A Critical 21st Century Role For Public Land Management: Conserving 30% Of The Nation’S Lands And Waters Beyond 2030, Robert L. Glicksman, Sandra B. Zellmer

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The international goal of conserving 30 percent of the world’s lands and water to stave off the ravages of climate change and widespread species extinctions has come to the United States. The Biden Administration’s 30 by 30 Initiative commits the nation to placing 30 percent of its lands and waters in some kind of protected status by 2030. Because a substantial portion of the nation’s land base is owned by the federal government, 30 by 30 goals will be beyond reach if conservation commitments do not cover federal lands and resources. And because nearly 70 percent of the federal lands …

Civil Liability For Unconventional Damages In Maritime Accidents: A Comparative Study Between The Egyptian And Emirati Legislations, Dr. Abdul-Rahman Salem

UAEU Law Journal

Maritime accidents in general, and non-traditional ones in particular, occupy an important rank among other types of accidents due to the evolution of the role of the machine, including ships, as well as the scientific development of the marine field and the surrounding environment, and we will focus our research on non-traditional marine accidents. Trying to establish an appropriate definition thereof, defining their scope, limiting their species and types of the damages resulting from them, whether related to the marine environment or other environments or human in any of them.

Then we try to find a suitable legal basis for …

Misappropriation And Patenting Of Traditional Ethnobotanical Knowledge And Genetic Resources, Maxim V. Gubarev

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Four-fifths of all pharmaceuticals have been developed from natural plant resources, and native plant resources similarly play a significant role in the development of new and improved crops.

Environmental Law’S Extinction Problem, Akhtar-Khavari Afshin, Michelle Mei Ling Lim, Katie Woolaston

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The extinction of species and ecological systems is occurring more quickly than any other time in human history. Our social and cultural institutions and the concepts and framings that underpin them are key contributors to modern extinctions. In this paper we ask how engaging explicitly with extinction enables a critical and hopeful rethinking of environmental law. We explore the potential of this question by summarising and categorising the literature that discusses how extinction provides a useful frame and moral compass for interrogating environmental law rules, systems and ambitions. Through an evaluation of biodiversityrelated multilateral environmental agreements we illustrate the potential …

Biodiversity 2050: Can The Convention On Biological Diversity Deliver A World Living In Harmony With Nature?, Michelle Mei Ling Lim

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) ‘2050 Vision’ aims to achieve, by 2050, a world that is ‘living in harmony with nature.’ Yet biodiversity is threatened globally to an extent never before witnessed in human history. The Global Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES Global Assessment)—the largest ever assessment of the global state of biodiversity and ecosystems services—found that a sustainable global future for people and nature remains possible. However, this can only be achieved if we fundamentally redesign our economic, social, and governance systems. It is almost three decades since the CBD, the …

Human As Animals - Pluralizing Humans, Karen Bradshaw

Utah Law Review

Species-based inequality is embedded in our institutions of law, government, and property. Legal distinctions between people and animals drive biodiversity loss. Recent environmental movements—including the rights of nature, animal rights, and wildlife property ownership—seek to lessen the gap in law’s unequal treatment of humans and other living things. Despite growing popular support for such reforms, legal scholars have yet to directly grapple with the mindset underlying the legal status quo.

This Article identifies and challenges institutionalized speciesism in law. It critically examines the legal treatment of non-human animals. It also presents an alternative legal worldview—one informed by scientific, cultural, and …

Heeding The Call Of Covid-19, David Wiebers, Valery Feigin

Animal Sentience

We are grateful to all of our commentators. They have provided a wide range of valuable perspectives and insights from many fields, revealing a broad interest in the subject matter. Nearly all the commentaries have helped to affirm, refine, expand, amplify, deepen, interpret, elaborate, or apply the messages in the target article. Some have offered critiques and suggestions that help us address certain issues in greater detail, including several points concerning industrialized farming and the wildlife trade. Overall, there is great awareness and strong consensus among commentators that any solution for preventing future pandemics and other related health crises must …

De- And Re-Constructing Public Governance For Biodiversity Conservation Symposium: Governing Wicked Problems, Alejandro E. Camacho

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article deconstructs the substantive, procedural, and structural components of public governance in the United States to explain how the existing legal infrastructure lacks the legal adaptive capacity to manage the wickedness of biodiversity loss. That is, particularly in the context of global anthropogenic climate change, the substantive goals and tools of public action, the processes used by governmental institutions to advance such goals and implement such tools, and the structure of allocated authority among public institutions have been devised in ways that make biodiversity loss virtually impossible to tackle meaningfully.

First, the substantive goals of natural resources law are …

The New United Nations High Seas Treaty: A Primer, Robin Kundis Craig

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This short Insights piece provides an introductory overview to the United Nations' developing Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) treaty, which would add a Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to allow for biodiversity protections (marine protected areas) in the high seas.

Imagining Transformative Biodiversity Futures, Carina Wyborn, Federico Davila, Laura Pereira, Michelle Mei Ling Lim, Et Al.

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Biodiversity research is replete with scientific studies depicting future trajectories of decline that have failed to mobilize transformative change. Imagination and creativity can foster new ways to address longstanding problems to create better futures for people and the planet.

Biodiversity Impacts Of Investment And Free Trade Agreements, Lee C. Rarrick

Pace Environmental Law Review

The following Article identifies the myriad ways in which international investment and free trade agreements interact with biodiversity. It categorizes these interactions into three main groups and provides a literature review of the various real-world and policy impacts. The first part analyses arbitration procedures in these agreements that investors and trade partners can invoke to protect their economic expectations from otherwise proper State action, including regulation that is intended to promote biodiversity. The next part evaluates biodiversity provisions that are included directly in the free trade and investment agreements themselves, or in side agreements thereto. Some of these provisions reference …

The Nagoya Protocol And The Legal Structure Of Global Biogenomic Research, Sam F. Halabi, Michelle Rourke, Gian Luca Burci, Rebecca Katz

Faculty Publications

As life sciences technologies have advanced, so too has the potential for these international collaborations to lead to breakthrough medicines, enhance food security, and protect ecological systems. The linchpin of this progress is the development of high throughput genetic sequencing technologies. Researchers are now able to generate and compare large stretches of DNA - 1 million bases or more - from different sources quickly and inexpensively. Such comparisons can yield massive amounts of information about the role of inheritance in susceptibility to infection and illness as well as responses to environmental influences. In addition, the ability to sequence genomes more …

Environmental Injustice: How Treaties Undermine The Right To A Healthy Environment, Lisa E. Sachs, Lise Johnson, Ella Merrill

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Our planet faces unprecedented threats, including irreversible global warming, loss in biodiversity, and water pollution and water scarcity. The impacts of these environmental crises also threaten human rights and exacerbate inequality. Slowing these worsening environmental trends – and addressing the impacts of environmental change on populations – will require cumulative policy responses at the national and international level.

Complementary Authority And The One-Way Ratchet: Ecosystem Services Property, Regulation, And Wildlife Conservation, Kalyani Robbins

Kalyani Robbins

Due to the priorities of the Trump Administration, which are not a great match with those of the conservation community, we find ourselves in a period of rollbacks for all kinds of environmental regulation, including the protection of wildlife. When the federal government fails to adequately regulate, we look to other sources of authority to fill that gap. The first and most obvious place to look is to state and local governments. They are our best hope to avoid hemorrhaging vulnerable species during this presidency. Alas, looking at the realities of state wildlife conservation laws, we see the gaps remain. …

Reframing Humans (Homo Sapiens) In International Biodiversity Law To Frame Protections For Climate Refugees, Jullee Kim

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

Currently, application of international environmental law assumes that humans are separate from nature. Yet, the terminology commonly adopted for persons displaced as a result of climate change, “climate refugees,” represents the ultimate expression of the nexus where impacts from both natural and human systems coalesce. “Climate” represents the physical conditions appearing as a result of climate change and altering a person’s home to render it no longer habitable. While suitability of the term “refugees” in the climate change context is debated, it represents the political and societal conditions forcing the person to flee from their home, potentially across national borders, …

Community Orchards And Food Security In Appalachia, Ursula Ramsey

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Gmos, International Law And Indigenous Peoples, Casandia Bellevue

Pace International Law Review

This Article sprung from a desire to discover why—despite scientific uncertainty and the oft-cited precautionary principle in international law—genetically modified organisms are still allowed to spread via international trade and natural ecological cycles. While exploring this topic, it did not take long to come across the environmental justice impacts of genetically modified crops, and their particularly disparate impact upon indigenous peoples across the globe. Not only are GMOs threatening biodiversity and our planet, but also the very existence and cultural foundations of many indigenous groups.

This Article seeks to answer the following questions: What are the international agreements that can …

Complementary Authority And The One-Way Ratchet: Ecosystem Services Property, Regulation, And Wildlife Conservation, Kalyani Robbins

Faculty Publications

Due to the priorities of the Trump Administration, which are not a great match with those of the conservation community, we find ourselves in a period of rollbacks for all kinds of environmental regulation, including the protection of wildlife. When the federal government fails to adequately regulate, we look to other sources of authority to fill that gap. The first and most obvious place to look is to state and local governments. They are our best hope to avoid hemorrhaging vulnerable species during this presidency. Alas, looking at the realities of state wildlife conservation laws, we see the gaps remain. …

Book Review: Colin T Reid And Walters Nsoh, The Privatisation Of Biodiversity? New Approaches To Conservation Law, New Horizons In Environmental And Energy Law, Sara Seck

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The Privatisation of Biodiversity? New Approaches to Conservation Law, written by Colin T Reid and Walters Nsoh, is a recently published addition to the Edward Elgar book series New Horizons in Environmental and Energy Law. The book explores how “private rights and market devices” may serve as an alternative to “direct ‘command and control’ regulation”, and so ensure that the use of natural resources remains within ecological limits, while preventing the loss of habitat, habitat degradation, and species extinctions. A diverse range of mechanisms are considered under the “privatisation” heading, with “an emphasis on private law frameworks” that enable private …

Public Conservation Policies On Private Land: A Case Study Of The Brazilian Forest Code And Implications For The Agro-Industry Sector, Rayane Aguiar, Jody M. Endres, Caroline Taylor, Samuel Evans

Pace Environmental Law Review

The objectives of this paper are to discuss (1) a brief history of the Brazilian Forest Code (FC); (2) key aspects of the 2012 FC revisions; (3) the status of implementation, including institutional and field-level challenges, as well as economic incentives to ease compliance; and (4) the importance of the FC for the Brazilian agro-industrial sector.