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Disaster Law Commons

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Articles 1 - 8 of 8

Full-Text Articles in Disaster Law

Trial By Fire: Disaster Justice And Lessons Learned, Clifford Villa Jul 2026

Trial By Fire: Disaster Justice And Lessons Learned, Clifford Villa

Faculty Scholarship

Disaster Justice reflects the intersection of environmental justice and disaster law. The study of disaster justice is becoming increasingly essential as disasters become more frequent and devastating in the face of accelerating climate change. Disaster law is marked by statutes such as the federal Stafford Act and by theory such as the “disaster cycle” of readiness, response, and recovery. Environmental justice recognizes that the distribution of harms such as bad air or water quality may be distributed inequitably among groups such as low-income populations or racial minorities. In similar fashion, the adverse impacts of disasters may also be distributed inequitably …


Socio-Legal Framework For Vulnerability: Using Public-Private Partnerships As A Tool For Disaster Management, Latisha Nixon-Jones Apr 2026

Socio-Legal Framework For Vulnerability: Using Public-Private Partnerships As A Tool For Disaster Management, Latisha Nixon-Jones

Pepperdine Law Review

As disasters continue to grow in size and intensity, the question arises: can governments effectively meet local and regional disaster response and recovery needs? This Article examines the history of utilizing public-private partnerships (PPPs) to enhance government functions in disaster management. The primary objective of this Article is to assess whether involving private entities in governmental roles is an effective strategy for building resilient communities and ensuring public safety, particularly for vulnerable populations. Existing literature focuses on the financial and logistical aspects of PPPs with mere mentions of legal importance. To address these failures, this Article proposes a novel socio-legal …


Destroy, Rebuild, Repeat: How To Break The Climate Disaster Cycle, Mark Nevitt Mar 2025

Destroy, Rebuild, Repeat: How To Break The Climate Disaster Cycle, Mark Nevitt

Vanderbilt Law Review

Climate change is fundamentally reshaping how we live, where we live, and whether we invest in or retreat from climate-exposed communities—but climate and disaster law is not changing with the climate. This legal latency is driven by antiquated statutes, doctrines, and policies that have not kept pace with the climate moment. Ex ante adaptation decisions governing where to live are life and death choices that shape ex post disaster response. Laws and policies should facilitate sound climate decisionmaking, but too often they frustrate individual and governmental decisions on whether to stay or retreat. In this Article, I argue that laws …


U.S. Disaster Policy: Oversight Challenges And The Promise Of Multi-Level Governance, Nancy J. Knauer Jan 2023

U.S. Disaster Policy: Oversight Challenges And The Promise Of Multi-Level Governance, Nancy J. Knauer

Lewis & Clark Law Review

U.S. disaster preparedness and response policy now plays an increasingly central role in the lives of many Americans. The COVID-19 pandemic and the strong uptick in extreme weather events have placed a heightened burden on our emergency management resources. In 2021, it seemed that hardly a week went by without a new emergency declaration as we battled devastating wildfires and drought in the West and catastrophic flooding and storms in the East. To further complicate matters, these unrelenting weather-related disasters played out within the context of an unprecedented and multi-year public health crisis—the COVID-19 pandemic. This Article examines the history …


Nagwediẑk’An Gwaneŝ Gangu Ch’Inidẑed Ganexwilagh: The Fires Awakened Us: Tsilhqot’In Report On The 2017 Wildfires, Jocelyn Stacey, Crystal Verhaeghe, Emma Feltes Jan 2019

Nagwediẑk’An Gwaneŝ Gangu Ch’Inidẑed Ganexwilagh: The Fires Awakened Us: Tsilhqot’In Report On The 2017 Wildfires, Jocelyn Stacey, Crystal Verhaeghe, Emma Feltes

All Faculty Publications

This report documents the experiences of the Tsilhqot'in Nation during the historic 2017 wildfire season. It identifies needs and recommendations for moving forward with nation-to-nation emergency management.


Election Emergencies: Voting In The Wake Of Natural Disasters And Terrorist Attacks, Michael T. Morley Jan 2018

Election Emergencies: Voting In The Wake Of Natural Disasters And Terrorist Attacks, Michael T. Morley

Scholarly Publications

Our electoral system is vulnerable to terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and other calamities that can render polling places inaccessible, trigger mass evacuations, or disrupt governmental operations to the point that conducting an election becomes impracticable. Many states lack “election emergency” laws that empower officials to adequately respond to these crises. As a result, courts are frequently called upon to adjudicate the consequences of election emergencies as a matter of constitutional law, often applying vague, subjective, ad hoc standards in rushed, politically charged proceedings. This Article examines the legal steps various government actors took in response to terrorist attacks and natural …


Vulnerability, Canadian Disaster Law And The Beast, Jocelyn Stacey Jan 2018

Vulnerability, Canadian Disaster Law And The Beast, Jocelyn Stacey

All Faculty Publications

This article is the first step in a major research project on Canadian disaster law. As such, the article's first objective is to map the terrain of the law in Canada that governs disasters. To provide context for this exercise in mapping, the article focuses on the circumstances surrounding the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire ('the Beast'). Focusing on the 'the Beast' also gives rise to the article's second objective: a critical examination of the ways in which Canadian disaster law fails to reflect foundational social science research on disaster harm. The article argues that the current framework of Canadian law …


A Domestic Right Of Return: Race, Rights, And Residency In New Orleans In The Aftermath Of Hurricane Katrina, Lolita Buckner Inniss Jan 2007

A Domestic Right Of Return: Race, Rights, And Residency In New Orleans In The Aftermath Of Hurricane Katrina, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This article begins with a critical account of what occurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This critique serves as the backdrop for a discussion of whether there are international laws or norms that give poor, black Katrina victims the right to return to and resettle in New Orleans. In framing this discussion, this article first briefly explores some of the housing deprivations suffered by Katrina survivors that have led to widespread displacement and dispossession. The article then discusses two of the chief barriers to the return of poor blacks to New Orleans: the broad perception of a race-crime nexus …