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Full-Text Articles in Law
Natural Resources And Natural Law Part Ii: The Public Trust Doctrine, Robert W. Adler
Natural Resources And Natural Law Part Ii: The Public Trust Doctrine, Robert W. Adler
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
Natural Resources and Natural Law Part I: Prior Appropriation analyzed claims by some western ranchers, grounded in natural law, that they have property rights in grazing resources on federal public lands through prior appropriation. Those individuals advocated their position in part through civil disobedience and armed standoffs with federal officials. They also asserted that their duty to obey theistic natural law overrode any duty to obey the Nation’s positive law. Similar claims that individual religious beliefs override positive law have been made recently regarding a range of other controversial issues, such as same-sex marriage, public insurance for birth control, and …
Property, Unbundled Water Entitlements, And Anticommons Tragedies: A Cautionary Tale From Australia, Paul Babie, Paul Leadbeter, Kyriaco Nikias
Property, Unbundled Water Entitlements, And Anticommons Tragedies: A Cautionary Tale From Australia, Paul Babie, Paul Leadbeter, Kyriaco Nikias
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
As water becomes an increasingly scarce resource, a lack of clarity in relation to its use can produce both conflict among and inefficient use by users. In order to encourage markets in water and to ensure the viability and functionality of those markets, governments in many jurisdictions have moved away from commons property as a means of water allocation, and towards systems of private property in water. In doing so, one policy and legal option is “unbundling”, which seeks carefully to define both the entitlement to water and its separation into constituent parts. Advocates claim that unbundling makes water rights …
The Role Of The Courts In Guarding Against Privatization Of Important Public Environmental Resources, Melissa K. Scanlan
The Role Of The Courts In Guarding Against Privatization Of Important Public Environmental Resources, Melissa K. Scanlan
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
Drinking water, beaches, a livable climate, clean air, forests, fisheries, and parks are all commons, shared by many users with diffuse and overlapping interests. These public natural resources are susceptible to depletion, overuse, erosion, and extinction; and they are under increasing pressures to become privatized. The Public Trust Doctrine provides a legal basis to guard against privatizing important public resources or commons. As such, it is a critical doctrine to counter the ever-increasing enclosure and privatization of the commons as well as ensure government trustees protect current and future generations. This Article considers separation of powers and statutory interpretation in …
Blueprint For The Great Lakes Trail, Melissa K. Scanlan
Blueprint For The Great Lakes Trail, Melissa K. Scanlan
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
The Great Lakes are vast yet vulnerable. There is a need to focus the public’s attention on the significance of the lakes for the region as a cohesive, binational whole. To address this need, build on existing water law, and engage the public, this Article provides a blueprint to establish a Great Lakes Trail on the shores of the Great Lakes. The Trail will link together 10,000 miles of coastline and provide the longest marked walking trail in the world. It will demarcate an already existing, yet largely unrecognized, public trust easement and engage the public with their common heritage …