Cultural Heritage Law Commons^™

Conservation Co-Governance As A Cure: Investigating Aotearoa New Zealand's Conservation Co-Governance Model As A Blueprint For Restoring Navajo Sovereignty In Managing Canyon De Chelly, Shana R. Herman

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

The Mysterious Case Of The Attacks Against The Halifax Public Gardens: The Enclosure Of "Common" Property , Public Access To Nature, And Sustainability In The City, Dr. Sara Gwendolyn Ross

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Reno-Sparks Indian Colony V. Haaland, William N. Rose

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Reno-Sparks Indian Colony v. Haaland added clarity to the scope of a federal agency’s duty to consult with Tribes under the National Historic Preservation Act. The case was the culmination of unsuccessful litigation efforts by Tribes to stop a large mining project, and it demonstrated the high hurdle Tribes face when challenging whether a federal agency has engaged in reasonable and good faith consultation.

Solar Energy Industries Association V. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Brandy Keesee

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In Solar Energy Industries Association v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“Solar Energy”), the court grappled with a complex web of regulatory and environmental considerations. The overall dispute was the promulgation and implementation of Order 872, a directive issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or “Commission”), and its alignment with the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (“PURPA”) and the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”). The dispute in Solar Energy is about FERC’s interpretation and application of PURPA in managing qualifying facilities (“QFs”). The crux of the contention was whether FERC’s 2020 rule revisions set forth in Order 872 …

What The Trust? Overcoming Barriers To Renewable Energy Development In Indian Country, Malcolm M. Gilbert, Aspen B. Ward

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Avoiding The Pitfalls In Administrative Record Review Cases, Kim Wilson, Brian Brammer

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Corner Crossing: Unlocking Public Lands Or Invading The Airspace Of Landowners?, Kevin Frazier

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

States Of Mind Or State Of Crime: Exploring The Prosecution Of Environmental Crimes In The Western United States, Joshua Ozymy, Melissa Ozymy

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cutting The Mussel's Threads: A Legal Perspective On Invasive Species, Hallee C. Frandsen

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Editors And Staff Members

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Arizona V. Navajo Nation, Sarah K. Yarlott

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Arizona v. Navajo Nation clarified the United States’ trust duties to protect tribal water rights under the Winters doctrine and the 1868 Treaty with the Navajo. Under the Winters doctrine, Indian reservations are permanent homes that include an implicit reservation of water rights. However, Winters did not elaborate on the United States’ role in securing those rights. In Navajo Nation, the Court settled whether the United States has an implied duty under its trust obligations to take affirmative steps in securing water rights for tribes; the Court held no such implied duty exists.

A History Of Corporate Law Federalism In The Twentieth Century, William W. Bratton

Seattle University Law Review

This Article describes the emergence of corporate law federalism across a long twentieth century. The period begins with New Jersey’s successful initiation of charter competition in 1888 and ends with the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002. The federalism in question describes the interrelation of state and federal regulation of corporate internal affairs. This Article takes a positive approach, pursuing no normative bottom line. It makes six observations: (1) the federalism describes a division of subject matter, with internal affairs regulated by the states and securities issuance and trading regulated by the federal government; (2) the federalism is an …

Stakeholder Capitalism’S Greatest Challenge: Reshaping A Public Consensus To Govern A Global Economy, Leo E. Strine Jr., Michael Klain

Seattle University Law Review

The Berle XIV: Developing a 21st Century Corporate Governance Model Conference asks whether there is a viable 21st Century Stakeholder Governance model. In our conference keynote article, we argue that to answer that question yes requires restoring—to use Berle’s term—a “public consensus” throughout the global economy in favor of the balanced model of New Deal capitalism, within which corporations could operate in a way good for all their stakeholders and society, that Berle himself supported.

The world now faces problems caused in large part by the enormous international power of corporations and the institutional investors who dominate their governance. These …

Henderson And The Objective Observer Standard: The Future Of Race-Conscious Standards Post-Students For Fair Admissions, Gabriela Dionisio

Seattle University Law Review

On June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Students for Fair Admissions v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, which struck down race-conscious admissions policies. Within just a year after its ruling, Students for Fair Admissions has already had a sweeping impact, reaching beyond higher education. Although the Supreme Court did not indicate whether Students for Fair Admissions applies to sectors beyond higher education, law firms, and other employers have already modified their diversity policies and initiatives, erasing race and company diversity considerations. Given those dramatic changes, there is growing fear that Students for Fair Admissions …

Same Crime, Different Time: Sentencing Disparities In The Deep South & A Path Forward Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Hailey M. Donovan

Seattle University Law Review

The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. The American obsession with crime and punishment can be tracked over the last half-century, as the nation’s incarceration rate has risen astronomically. Since 1970, the number of incarcerated people in the United States has increased more than sevenfold to over 2.3 million, outpacing both crime and population growth considerably. While the rise itself is undoubtedly bleak, a more troubling truth lies just below the surface. Not all states contribute equally to American mass incarceration. Rather, states have vastly different incarceration rates. Unlike at the federal level, …

Offshore Wind: A Comparative Of The United States And Norway

Fordham Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Assessing The Human Right To Water And Sanitation In International Law And The Conflict In The Nile Basin

Fordham Environmental Law Review

Ethiopia’s construction and operation of the Grand Ethiopian

Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile has intensified the long-

standing water conflict involving Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan, and

highlights the urgent need for a new legal framework for the Nile

Basin’s governance. This article traces the history of the international

human right to water and sanitation and previous attempts to govern

water use in the Nile Basin. We argue that outdated colonial-era

treaties, which Egypt and Sudan insist on using as a baseline for

negotiations, are a significant obstacle to resolving the Nile conflict

and managing the region’s water resources …

Debts And Desertion: Bankruptcy Law And The Orphan Well Crisis

Fordham Environmental Law Review

The issue of orphan wells—unplugged and unproductive oil and

gas wells with no responsible operator—poses a significant

environmental and public health threat in the United States. The scale

of this crisis is alarming: there are over 120,000 documented orphan

wells and potentially millions more undocumented. These wells are

often significant sources of methane emissions and other toxins that

exacerbate climate change and endanger the health of surrounding

communities. This paper examines the orphan well crisis, exploring

how wells become orphaned and the environmental and health

impacts associated with them. Furthermore, it delves into how the

situation is likely to worsen …

The Need For Corporate Guardrails In U.S. Industrial Policy, Lenore Palladino

Seattle University Law Review

U.S. politicians are actively “marketcrafting”: the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act collectively mark a new moment of robust industrial policy. However, these policies are necessarily layered on top of decades of shareholder primacy in corporate governance, in which corporate and financial leaders have prioritized using corporate profits to increase the wealth of shareholders. The Administration and Congress have an opportunity to use industrial policy to encourage a broader reorientation of U.S. businesses away from extractive shareholder primacy and toward innovation and productivity. This Article examines discrete opportunities within the …

Securities Regulation And Administrative Deference In The Roberts Court, Eric C. Chaffee

Seattle University Law Review

In A History of Securities Law in the Supreme Court, A.C. Pritchard and Robert B. Thompson write, “Securities law offers an illuminating window into the Supreme Court’s administrative law jurisprudence over the last century. The securities cases provide one of the most accessible illustrations of key transitions of American law.” A main reason for this is that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a bellwether among administrative agencies, and as a result, A History of Securities Law in the Supreme Court is a history of administrative law in the Supreme Court of the United States as well.

Delegated Corporate Voting And The Deliberative Franchise, Sarah C. Haan

Seattle University Law Review

Starting in the 1930s with the earliest version of the proxy rules, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has gradually increased the proportion of “instructed” votes on the shareholder’s proxy card until, for the first time in 2022, it required a fully instructed proxy card. This evolution effectively shifted the exercise of the shareholder’s vote from the shareholders’ meeting to the vote delegation that occurs when the share-holder fills out the proxy card. The point in the electoral process when the binding voting choice is communicated is now the execution of the proxy card (assuming the shareholder completes the card …

Capitalism Stakeholderism, Christina Parajon Skinner

Seattle University Law Review

Today’s corporate governance debates are replete with discussion of how best to operationalize so-called stakeholder capitalism—that is, a version of capitalism that considers the interests of employees, communities, suppliers, and the environment alongside (if not before) a company’s shareholders. So much focus has been dedicated to the question of capitalism’s reform that few have questioned a key underlying premise of stakeholder capitalism: that is, that competitive capitalism does not serve these various constituencies and groups. This Essay presents a different view and argues that capitalism is, in fact, the ultimate form of stakeholderism. As such, the Essay urges that the …

The Esg Information System, Stavros Gadinis, Amelia Miazad

Seattle University Law Review

The mounting focus on ESG has forced internal corporate decision-making into the spotlight. Investors are eager to support companies in innovative “green” technologies and scrutinize companies’ transition plans. Activists are targeting boards whose decisions appear too timid or insufficiently explained. Consumers and employees are incorporating companies sustainability credentials in their purchasing and employment decisions. These actors are asking companies for better information, higher quality reports, and granular data. In response, companies are producing lengthy sustainability reports, adopting ambitious purpose statements, and touting their sustainability credentials. Understandably, concerns about greenwashing and accountability abound, and policymakers are preparing for action.

In this …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

The Marijuana Insurgency: Federalism And Social Reframing In Policy Reform, Matthew P. Cavedon

Seattle University Law Review

After fifty years of federal prohibition, marijuana reform efforts have won political and legal success. These victories hold lessons for anyone seeking to resist federal law without being able to directly affect it.

Victory can come from reframing an issue. For marijuana reform, social reframing—not formal legal analysis or material factors—provides the best explanation for how advocates achieved change. Their unconventional political tactics, akin to those used by insurgents in wartime, undercut federal prohibition by winning hearts and minds.

This is an analysis of the sociology of legal change. It is also the story of how ordinary Americans retook personal …

What Is In Your Tampon? Increasing Transparency In Menstrual Products, Elianna Spitzer

Seattle University Law Review

The average person who menstruates will bleed for an average of five days, every twenty-four to thirty-eight days, over several decades and could use thousands of disposable menstrual products in their lifetime. Menstrual products line retail shelves. They can be found in homes, bags, and bodies—but until 2021, manufacturers were not required to disclose the ingredients used to make these products to consumers at all. In fact, they still are not federally required to disclose menstrual product ingredients on product packaging. Instead, in recent years, changes to menstrual product labels have largely been the result of state legislation. In 2019, …

Shareholder Primacy Versus Shareholder Accountability, William W. Bratton

Seattle University Law Review

When corporations inflict injuries in the course of business, shareholders wielding environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) principles can, and now sometimes do, intervene to correct the matter. In the emerging fact pattern, corporate social accountability expands out of its historic collectivized frame to become an internal subject matter—a corporate governance topic. As a result, shareholder accountability surfaces as a policy question for the first time. The Big Three index fund managers, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, responded to the accountability question with ESG activism. In so doing, they defected against corporate legal theory’s central tenet, shareholder primacy. Shareholder primacy builds …

Verses Turned To Verdicts: Ysl Rico Case Sets A High-Watermark For The Legal Pseudo-Censorship Of Rap Music, Nabil Yousfi

Seattle University Law Review

Whichever way you spin the record, rap music and courtrooms don’t mix. On one side, rap records are well known for their unapologetic lyrical composition, often expressing a blatant disregard for legal institutions and authorities. On the other, court records reflect a Van Gogh’s ear for rap music, frequently allowing rap lyrics—but not similar lyrics from other genres—to be used as criminal evidence against the defendants who authored them. Over the last thirty years, this immiscibility has engendered a legal landscape where prosecutors wield rap lyrics as potent instruments for criminal prosecution. In such cases, color-blind courts neglect that rap …

We Shall Overcome: The Evolution Of Quotas In The Land Of The Free And The Home Of Samba, Stella Emery Santana

Seattle University Law Review

When were voices given to the voiceless? When will education be permitted to all? When will we need to protest no more? It’s the twenty-first century, and the fight for equity in higher education remains a challenge to peoples all over the world. While students in the United States must deal with the increase in loans, in Brazil, only around 20% of youth between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-four have a higher education degree.

The primary objective of this Article is to conduct an in-depth comparative analysis of the development, implementation, and legal adjudication of educational quota systems within …

Pacific Islands And The U.S. Military: The Legal Borderlands Of The Environmental Movement, Sonia Lei

Seattle University Law Review

Climate change remains an urgent, ongoing global issue that requires critical examination of institutional polluters. This includes the world’s largest institutional consumer of petroleum: the United States military. The Department of Defense (DoD) is a massive institution with little oversight, a carbon footprint spanning the globe, a budget greater than the next ten largest nations combined, and overly generous exemptions to environmental regulations and carbon reduction targets. This Comment examines how this lack of accountability and oversight plays out in the context of three Pacific islands that have hosted U.S. military bases for decades. By considering the environmental impact of …