Law Commons^™

Climate Risk, Insurance Retreat, And State Response, Mark Nevitt, Michael Pappas

Georgia Law Review

Climate change is fundamentally destabilizing the private insurance industry, with many high-profile insurance companies exiting states in the face of catastrophic, climateinduced risk. This rapid “insurance retreat” represents a major market signal in response to climate-exacerbated risks. Private businesses are making actuarial decisions, assessing that some locations are just too vulnerable to insure. At the same time, this insurance retreat also poses a policy challenge for states as they react to the mounting insurance gaps left by exiting private insurers. This Article analyzes insurance retreat, its attendant policy challenges, and the lessons that can be drawn from state responses. It …

Table Of Contents

Georgia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Farmland And Forestland In An Era Of Climate Change: Hurricane Michael And Opportunities To Advance Rural Resilience, John Travis Marshall

Georgia Law Review

Catastrophic disasters fundamentally destabilize and reshape communities. They often cause loss of life and invariably inflict extensive property damage. Disabled individuals, the elderly, chronically ill persons, and families struggling to make ends meet are almost always left more vulnerable. Affected communities frequently experience population loss, a declining property tax base, and economic contraction. Over the last three decades, a string of major disasters has focused scholarly attention on their far-reaching impacts on large cities. Storms and earthquakes have reshaped urban landscapes and forced communities to reckon with their futures from San Francisco to Northridge, Houston to New Orleans, and Miami …

Building Climate Resilience With Local Tools, Shelley Saxer

Georgia Law Review

The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, celebrated the grassroots environmental movement that began in the ‘60s and early ‘70s and ushered in the creation of a new legal framework for controlling pollution and addressing environmental concerns in the United States. However, more than fifty years later, some experts fear that the environmental progress achieved during the ‘70s and ‘80s has begun to stall as the United States and other nations experience broad economic hardship and must shift their focus to more immediate concerns. Therefore, even as the damaging effects of climate change threaten communities across the globe, the …

Public Insurance As A Lever For Semi-Managed Climate Retreat, Albert C. Lin

Georgia Law Review

Private insurers are declining to issue or renew homeowner policies in California, Colorado, Florida, and Louisiana following massive payouts due to hurricane and wildfire damage in recent years. As climate change worsens, more private insurers will withdraw from property insurance markets. Governments, particularly at the state level, will likely expand their insurance programs to fill the gap. Just as the federal government now underwrites most flood insurance policies, public insurers will come to dominate the fire and wind insurance markets. Property insurance can generate price signals reflecting the risks of living in climate-vulnerable areas. However, public insurance programs often prioritize …

Empowering Cca Leadership: Overcoming Legal And Policy Barriers To A 24/7 Renewable Energy Full Decarbonization Strategy, Doug Karpa

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

The public itself is the best guarantor of its own interests. Thus, the public utility regulatory oversight model that has dominated the electricity sector for over 100 years must be retooled for a modern, more complex era into one that allows greater democratic accountability to protect the public interest affordably. Given the dangerous urgency of the climate crisis, the fate of California and beyond may well depend on California leading by creating a modern governance structure to match its cutting-edge electricity sector.

Ndls Communicator: Week Of 06.10.24, Notre Dame Law School

NDLS Communicator

The Latest News

• Notre Dame Law School expands partnership with the Ukrainian Catholic University
• U.S. Senate confirms ND Law School alum Edward S. Kiel as federal judge
• Notre Dame Law School's ACS Chapter Wins National Programming Award
• Zachary Damir ‘24 J.D. wins 2024 Smith-Doheny Legal Ethics Writing Competition

Faculty Briefs

• Emily Bremer presented her draft article, "Vacatur is Not a Remedy," at the Conference on Executive-Judicial Relations hosted by the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI), Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
• Derek Muller has authored "2020’s ‘fake elector’ schemes will be harder to try in 2024 – but not impossible" for …

Now You Have It, Now You Don’T: Taxing Crypto, Part 2, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

In “Coinbase: Are Cryptoassets Securities?” Tax Notes contributing editor Lee A. Sheppard highlights a recent district court decision indicating that some forms of cryptoassets are securities for securities law purposes and therefore fall under the jurisdiction of the SEC:

There are potential tax ramifications. Some, indeed many, cryptoassets could be securities under the securities law. That means that losses can’t be recognized on wash sales (section 1091). The IRS should issue a notice stating that many cryptoassets other than bitcoin are securities, so losses on wash sales can’t be recognized. A notice would not be a heavy lift. The taxpayers …

Empowering Family Forestland Owners To Reduce Wildfire Risk, Tom Lininger

Georgia Law Review

Wildfire risk is growing in the forested portion of the Wildland-Urban Interface, especially in the Western United States. Some commentators have suggested that the time has come for measures that would reduce the human presence in this area. In certain circumstances, however, family forestland owners have a salutary effect on forest resiliency. The attempt to exclude family forestland owners would create more problems than it would solve. A better strategy would be to assist family forestland owners in fireproofing their residences and improving the health of their forests.

Resilient Forest Management And Climate Change, Blake Hudson

Georgia Law Review

Climate change threatens the very existence of the world’s forests as temperature increases outpace forests’ ability to adapt. Society must implement adaptation policies aimed at making forests more resilient. This Article describes how we can better manage for more resilient forests by first detailing some of the scientific and policy complexity affecting our ability to do so. The Article then details the primary adaptation solutions for creating greater forest resiliency (reducing fire risk and integrating more climate resilient species into forests), some of the impediments to implementing those solutions (federalism, geographic and ecological differences in forests, and scientific unknowns), and …

The Role Of Clean Hydrogen In The U.S. Transition To A Net-Zero-Carbon Economy, Miranda Barfield

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

The goal of this Article is threefold: first, to explain why clean hydrogen has become a key part of the United States’ decarbonization plans in recent years; next, to describe the existing and forthcoming U.S. policies and programs designed to incentivize and enable the growth of the domestic clean hydrogen market; and finally, to examine whether the U.S. is deploying the correct legal tools to successfully unlock the decarbonization potential of the clean hydrogen industry.

Section II explains the decarbonization potential of hydrogen, including an overview of U.S. emissions today and a background discussion of what hydrogen is, how it …

Repurposing Fossil Infrastructure, Heather E. Payne

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

Our built environment includes infrastructure dedicated to fossil fuels: wells, pipelines, compressor stations, refineries, fossil gas storage caverns, gas stations. One challenge as we decarbonize is how we will repurpose these locations and networks as we move toward a decarbonized world.

This Article imagines the outcomes for three distinct pieces of our fossil fuel infrastructure and how each could be a part of our decarbonized future. First, given the challenges seen building long distance transmission, local sources of renewable electricity will become even more critical. In many places, the most plentiful of these is rooftop solar, but it faces a …

A Major Question For Antipollution Policy: Artificial Intelligence Regulation In The Wake Of West Virginia V. E.P.A., David Collins

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

This Comment proceeds in three parts. Part I traces the development of the Major Questions Doctrine. Under the “old” doctrine, the key determinations that an agency’s ruling was major were (1) policy novelty and (2) policy economic impact. After using these factors to find an agency’s rule to be major, the Court would then independently interpret the statute the agency claimed authority from. The “new” Major Questions Doctrine departs from this previous rationale. Although the Court still considers (1) policy novelty, under this scheme, the Court further assesses (2) the political significance or controversial nature of policy in question and …

Climate Regulation And Co-Benefits: The Reality Of Co-Benefits In Climate Policy And The Reality We Face Without Them, Riley Jacobs

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

The United States has long required administrative agencies to conduct Cost-Benefit Analyses (“CBA”) in their rulemaking. By conducting CBA, agencies “show their work” to Congress, courts, and constituencies as to why the agency wishes to regulate a certain way and what it would cost to do so.

This Article will focus on co-benefits, an increasingly divisive component of CBA. Co-benefits, or benefits occurring secondary to the targeted purpose of statutory authority, assist agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) in painting a holistic picture of everything the public has to gain from a rule’s passage. In recognizing that value, the …

Thriving In Theory, Missing The Mark: U.S. Organic Farming IndustryʼS Systemic Malfunctions And How Danish Organic Farming Policy Could Help Solve These Issues, Bailey Webster

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

Section one of this Article explains the overall framework of the U.S. organic farming industry, including certification, labeling, education, and funding. Section two explains the background and structure of Danish organic farming, administered by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Fisheries of Denmark. Section three addresses and analyzes current issues afflicting the U.S. organic farming industry. Section four explores a prominent organic farming case, Center for Food Safety v. Perdue. Additionally, this Article details the comparison between the U.S. and Danish organic farming policies that are most relevant to issues in the U.S. industry. Lastly, and most importantly, this …

Natural Gas Or National Gas–Would A Statewide Natural Gas Ban In New Development Violate The Commerce Clause?, Madison D. Montague

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

This Article analyzes: (1) the contours of a natural gas installation ban, how municipalities have incorporated these bans, and how the state government may pass a statewide ban; (2) the likelihood that these bans would place a substantial burden on interstate commerce; (3) who, if anyone, would have standing to sue to end these bans; and (4) whether anyone could prevail in an action against a ban on new gas development.

Digital Barter Taxes Are Good Tax Policy, Young Ran (Christine) Kim, Darien Shanske

Articles

This short essay, aimed at state legislators, argues that digital barter taxes are good tax policy.

The Health And Human Rights Impact Assessment: The Preeminent Value Of Equity, Lawrence O. Gostin, Eric A. Friedman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Health and Human Rights Journal launched 30 years ago at the dawn of the era of health and human rights. Health and human rights were more often viewed as being in tension than in harmony, and there was little guidance on the right to health itself. With the unabashed discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS in the name of public health at the forefront of our minds, Jonathan Mann and one of us (LOG) sought to provide practical guidance on when and how human rights could be limited in the name of public health, developing the first health and …

Narrating The Effective Law For Foreign Direct Investment, Aurora Jillena Meliala, Adinda Putri Prakasa, Jonathan Andre Woods

Indonesian Journal of International Law

Amidst the inflation phenomenon, the government approach to raising interest rates, and the threat of global recession, Foreign Direct Investment plays a pivotal role in boosting targeted economies. However, investors impugn the investment regulations’ efficacy and alternative dispute resolutions. Specifically, in the case of International State Dispute Settlement, to be claimed as an essential process in the investment regime, it has to guarantee the rights of private parties to sue a sovereign nation under the protection of public international law – usually manifested on BIT clauses. However, this study showed. BITs do not serve to attract additional FDI. While BITs …

Review On Illegal Wildlife Trade Provisions In Indonesia: Cost-Benefit Analysis And Law Enforcement, Adrianus Eryan

Indonesian Journal of International Law

Illegal wildlife trade is a crime that is rarely systematically exposed and difficult to investigate but generates extraordinary profits. As a one of mega biodiversity country in the world, Indonesia is an easy target for illegal wildlife trade. Unfortunately, existing law enforcement practices still need to be improved. There are at least two supporting factors enabling the wildlife crime: inadequate normative legal basis and weak law enforcement resulting from the high cost of crimes. The research is carried out through a series of theoretical frameworks of cost-benefit analysis and criticisms regarding ideal law enforcement practices through various court decisions. At …

European Union’S Approach To Reforming International Investment Law, Iveta Alexovičová

Indonesian Journal of International Law

The European Union (EU) continues to be a firm proponent of the international protection of foreign investments through a web of (mostly bilateral) investment agreements, initially developed and spread all over the world by its Member States. Nonetheless, shortly after acquiring its own competence in this area, the EU has joined efforts to reform the system in order to ensure greater balance between the investment protection and the states’ right to regulate in pursuance of other legitimate policy objectives. The EU has developed its own reform approach covering both substantive and procedural features of the system, and adopted an increasingly …

Legal Instruments On Marine Plastic Litter In The Eu And Asean, Muhammad Insan Tarigan

Indonesian Journal of International Law

Marine plastic litter represents a transboundary and oceanic health concern that has emerged as a collective responsibility of all countries. Consequently, all countries, including regional member states, must collaborate to assume an active role in developing solutions to this challenge. Regional agreements play a pivotal role in facilitating the implementation of policies and initiatives. However, there is currently no comprehensive global treaty in place to address the issue of marine litter and plastic pollution. With regard to the European Union, the European Commission has adopted a legislative framework with the objective of reducing the pollution of the marine environment caused …

Improving Indonesia’S Palm Oil Sustainability Through Financing: A Study On Disconnects And Potential Policy Solutions, Wewin Wira Cornelis Wahid, Kanaya Ratu Aprillia, Deasy Ramatia, Nadya Setiawati, Syukron Subkhi, Abdul Baits Dehana Padma Swastika, Elisabeth Rianawati

Indonesian Journal of International Law

The European Union’s Second Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) has brought significant discourse on Indonesia’s palm oil sector. Following growing global initiatives in sustainable palm oil, Indonesia should focus on improving palm oil sustainability rather than rely on markets that accept the country’s palm oil as is. However, there are still disconnects in  sustainable palm oil, especially in the financial aspects. Therefore, this research aims to identify significant disconnects and propose solutions within a financing context. The disconnects include the absence of mandatory policies for sustainable palm oil financing, limited adoption of sustainability policies by smaller financiers, concerns about ISPO …

Branding Beyond Boundaries: The Future Of Trademarks And Advertising In Augmented Reality, Maddi Gambone

The University of Cincinnati Intellectual Property and Computer Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Policing/Mediation Nexus: An Autoethnographic Exploration Of The Journey From Police Officer To Certified Mediator, Wendell C. Wallace

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

By their very nature, policing and mediation are viewed as disparate professions. However, since the inception of policing, police officers have traditionally been involved in managing and handling conflict situations and thus, mediation type interventions have historically been an important component of police work. For the most part, police officers are untrained in mediation; however, many police officers are comfortable serving as go-between for neighbors, families, and communities in conflict using their intuition. As a result of acting as a ‘mediator’ for conflicting parties, without any formal mediation training, many former and current police officers eventually engage in mediation training …

Table Of Contents & Masthead, Reeve Lanigan

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Rebuilding Trust In A Divided Community: An Integrated Approach, Shaphan Roberts

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Metropolitan cities face a myriad of social challenges, including increased crime, homelessness, and declining business vitality. These issues are interrelated, demanding solutions that are multifaceted and systemic. Solutions backstopped by law enforcement are needed to foster an environment conducive to business growth, job creation, and reducing homelessness. However, a widespread lack of trust in local law enforcement complicates addressing these challenges, highlighting the importance of community engagement and cooperation for effective policing and crime prevention. A comprehensive approach is necessary to address these social challenges. Integrating the stakeholder and sectors models with insights from literature focusing on community policing, economic …

Letter From The Editor, Reeve Lanigan

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

To foster dialogue and encourage community engagement surrounding these issues, this year The Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal (DRLJ) hosted its annual symposium in collaboration with the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution and the Weinstein International Foundation to explore how elements of alternative dispute resolution can apply to community policing strategies to prevent and deescalate crime. The symposium, “The Tactics of Resolution: Exploring International Innovation in Law Enforcement and Conflict Resolution,” brought students, law enforcement officials, academics, and policymakers together to engage in enriching conversations on how to establish safer and more harmonious global community

Deserts Still Need Water: Using Adr Processes To Support Rural Residents And Counter The Challenges Stemming From The Shortage Of Lawyers In The “Great American Legal Desert”, Whitney Heuermann

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Researchers dub rural America the “Great American Legal Desert,” deriving its nickname from the fact that roughly 20% of the nation's population lives in rural America while only 2% of small law practices are located in rural areas. This comment proposes that an increase in alternative dispute resolution (ADR) programming and usage serves as a viable avenue to alleviate the lawyer shortage’s harmful effects in rural America. This note begins by generally identifying ADR’s pros, such as cost, privacy, and community preservation, and then correlating these advantages to various aspects of rural America. ADR programming in Kentucky, Idaho, and Kansas …

Not Your Mother’S Marriage: Utilizing Intergenerational Trauma-Informed Divorce Mediation To Discourage Unhealthy Relational Cycles In Children Of Divorce, Abigail Davis

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article discusses how divorce mediators can discourage cycles of broken relationships and reduce a child’s likelihood of experiencing intergenerational trauma as a result of the dissolution of their parents’ marriage. Divorce mediators must become knowledgeable about the impact of intergenerational trauma and the most favorable mediation outcomes for the wellbeing of the children involved. This includes encouraging families into an optimal settlement, referring parties to important resources for proactive parenting, making necessary mental health referrals, and enhancing the lives of children experiencing divorce. A mediator well-equipped with a strong referral system and cross-disciplinary knowledge of social, emotional, and behavioral …