Environmental Law Commons^™

Resourcing Green Technologies Through Smart Mineral Enterprise Development: A Case Analysis Of Cobalt, Saleem Ali, Perrine Toledano, Nicolas Maennling, Nathaniel Hoffman, Lola Aganga

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement requires the world to adopt ‘green technologies’ such as renewable energies and electric transportation at an unprecedented scale. While many countries have implemented policies to spur the adoption of such technologies, a lack of focus has been placed on the sourcing of minerals that are required as inputs. As a result, there is likely to be a significant deficit that may constrain the adoption of green technologies.

In this report, we argue that a neglected area in addressing the mineral scarcity challenge is the private sector’s current trajectory for geological mineral exploration and …

Complicated-But Not Too Complicated: The Sunset Of E.U. Law In The U.K. After Brexit, Maimon Schwarzschild

Cardozo Law Review

The article examines the complexities of Brexit, focusing on the integration of EU law into UK law and the challenges of disentangling the two legal systems post-Brexit. It explores key areas such as free movement, environmental law, and the forms of EU law, highlighting the interconnectedness of EU and UK legal frameworks. The author suggests a "sunset clause" approach to manage the transition, allowing EU laws to expire unless explicitly retained, to align with the UK's newfound independence and regulatory autonomy.

Polar Opposites: Assessing The State Of Enviromental Law In The World's Polar Regions, Mark P. Nevitt, Robert Percival

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Dethroning State Security: Introducing A Human Security Perspective To Absorb The Dangers Of Climate Change To The Self-Determination Of Island State Inhabitants, Anemoone Soete

Buffalo Environmental Law Journal

One unmistakable and indisputable consequence of Climate Change is found in the realm of oceans. Sea-levels are currently rising at a pace unknown to mankind and as a consequence island states are destined to lose habitable land territory. Whereas some may lose parts, others will lose all of it in the current business as usual scenario. This reality first begs the question as to whether an island state will continue to be a state once bereft of a territorial basis. Secondly, it must be considered how islanders might retain legal personality should this is no longer be possible through the …

The Human Right To Environment In The 21st Century: A Case For Its Recognition And Comments On The Systemic Barrier It Encounters, Luis E. Rodriguez-Rivera

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Incentive Compatible Climate Change Mitigation: Moving Beyond The Pledge And Review Model, Gabriel Weil

Scholarly Works

Climate change represents a global commons problem, where individuals, businesses, and nation-states all lack sufficient incentives to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to levels consistent with meeting their collectively agreed upon mitigation goals. The current "pledge and review" paradigm for global climate change mitigation, which many see as a major breakthrough, relies primarily on moral pressure, reputational incentives, and global public opinion to foster cooperation on mitigation efforts over and above those driven by maximization of narrow conceptions of national interests. Given the scale of the emissions reductions required to meet stated mitigation goals, the substantial economic costs of deep …

Disproportionate Realities: The Climate Justice Implications Of Mitigation Policies Across Scales, Tinuviel Carlson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Global climate change will have disproportionate effects on low-income and minority communities around the world producing important justice challenges. As national governments increasingly rely on local governments, civil society, and private transnational actors to establish and implement climate actions policies, it is important to assess whether and how these newly emergent actors can address these justice challenges. First this thesis examines concepts of justice in relation to climate change across different scales in order to develop a comprehensive conceptual framework of climate justice. This conceptual framework expands the scale of the international climate justice movement address local concerns. Further, the …

Implementing Shared-Use Of Mining Infrastructure To Achieve The Sustainable Development Goals, Perrine Toledano, Nicolas Maennling

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Many of the Sustainable Development Goals will only be achieved if the population has access to basic services, such as access to water, power, transport, and telecommunications. However, in many developing countries there is a lack of infrastructure to guarantee these services and there are insufficient public funds to finance growing needs. In resource-rich countries, the mining sector can play a key role in increasing access to infrastructure. Mining-related infrastructure is often developed to serve the exclusive need of the investors, but if it is shared and developed to serve the broader needs and uses of the host economy it …

The Paris To Projects Research Initiative, Robert B. Gibson, Karine Peloffy, Meinhard Doelle

Research Papers, Working Papers, Conference Papers

This working paper explores the key components and provisions that need to be incorporated into impact assessment legislation to ensure that assessed undertakings help meet Canadian climate change mitigation commitments and duties.

This discussion paper includes a summary that serves as a basic briefing note on the core climate components that should be included in the new federal legislation. It also includes a box presenting the tests for determining an undertaking's contributions to meeting Canada's international climate change mitigation commitments, and a more detailed discussion of implications for the new law.

Climate Adaptation Law: Governing Multi-Level Public Goods Across Borders, Maria L. Banda

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The increasingly severe and irreversible effects of climate change around the world make adaptation to a changing climate an immediate and urgent global priority, as the Paris Agreement on Climate Change acknowledged. Yet adaptation investment--to make communities and ecosystems more resilient to climate change--has been slow to materialize. Closing the finance gap and rising to the challenge of adaptation requires two conceptual shifts in how we think about adaptation law and governance. The first is that optimal adaptation is a public good, much like a healthy climate or safe streets. Everyone is better off in a resilient community that can …

Conclusions: The Value Of An Innovation Framework For International Law, Alastair Neil Craik, Sara Seck

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The concluding chapter to Global Environmental Change and Innovation in International Law provides an assessment of the value of an innovation framework for further scholarship in the field of international environmental law. The authors note that thinking more systematically about how international law structures innovation and how innovation within law arises has potential to generate new insights into the role of law in the development of sustainable transitions and may provoke greater attention to the sources and processes of legal transformations themselves. Identifying the constraints to legal innovation, particularly in the context of increasingly complex system demands, was identified as …

Edging Towards Principled Ocean Governance: Law Of The Sea And Beyond, David Vanderzwaag

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Elisabeth Mann Borgese is well known for her commitment to advancing the legal order for the improved regulation of the world’s oceans. Her advocacy with respect to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is the subject of other essays in this volume. However, in the decades since 1982, legal principles, sometimes linked to provisions in treaties, have become critical in the global quest for sustainable seas and healthy coastal communities. Principles, such as precautionary and ecosystem approaches, have influenced the negotiation, implementation, and interpretation of international agreements. They may also guide national ocean law and …

Paris To Projects Research Initiative, Robert B. Gibson, Karine Peloffy, Meinhard Doelle

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This working paper explores the key components and provisions that need to be incorporated into impact assessment legislation to ensure that assessed undertakings help meet Canadian climate change mitigation commitments and duties.

This discussion paper includes a summary that serves as a basic briefing note on the core climate components that should be included in the new federal legislation. It also includes a box presenting the tests for determining an undertaking's contributions to meeting Canada's international climate change mitigation commitments, and a more detailed discussion of implications for the new law.

Lessons For The Treaty Process From The International Law Commission And International Environmental Law, Sara L. Seck

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The chapter examines Amnesty case studies in order to document the state practice identified and the gaps that need to be filled. The chapter will then consider the work of the ILC in its progressive codification of the law on prevention and loss allocation with respect to transboundary harm arising from hazardous activities, culminating in draft Articles8 and draft Principles,9 respectively, in 2001 and 2006. The modest claim of this chapter is that as the key United Nations body responsible for the progressive development and codification of international law, the work of the ILC should surely be of relevance to …

Conclusions: The Value Of An Innovation Framework For International Law, Sara L. Seck, Alastair Neil Craik

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The concluding chapter to Global Environmental Change and Innovation in International Law provides an assessment of the value of an innovation framework for further scholarship in the field of international environmental law. The authors note that thinking more systematically about how international law structures innovation and how innovation within law arises has potential to generate new insights into the role of law in the development of sustainable transitions and may provoke greater attention to the sources and processes of legal transformations themselves. Identifying the constraints to legal innovation, particularly in the context of increasingly complex system demands, was identified as …

Shipping And Climate Change: International Law And Policy Considerations, Aldo Chircop, Meinhard Doelle, Ryan Gauvin

Reports & Public Policy Documents

This report investigates the international law and policy challenges to the determination of the international shipping industry's contribution to climate change mitigation efforts through the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a specialized agency of the United Nations and the competent intergovernmental organization with respect to shipping in international law. The report sets out the international legal framework that serves as context for the IMO efforts, the challenge of regulating greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping and the process and issues in determining the industry's 'fair share' of mitigation efforts and potential legal pathways. The report concludes with general, policy and legal …

Annex 6: Changing Ocean Impacts On The Key Forage Fish Species Arctic Cod In The Western Canadian Arctic – Linking Climate Model Projections To Subsistence Fisheries, Nadja Steiner, William W. L. Cheung, Helen Drost, Carie Hoover, Jen Lam, Lisa Miller, Andres M. Cisneros-Montemayor, Tessa Sou, U. Rashid Sumaila, Paul Suprenand, Travis C. Tai

Reports & Public Policy Documents

This annex highlights the results of a study focusing on the potential impacts of ocean acidification and other climate- related stressors on marine species relevant for subsistence fisheries in the Western Arctic Bioregion. The study uses a knowledge co-production approach developed in the form of a multi-step process based on a combination of modelling and analysis tools including the Scientific Method and Indigenous Traditional Knowledge (Figure A6.1). Once all steps have been completed, uncertainties can be estimated and improvements can be made either with respect to the individual steps or to the linkages between them. The process can then be …

Examples Of Global And Regional Laws And Policies Relevant To Addressing The Potential Impacts Of Climate Change And Ocean Acidification, David Vanderzwaag, Nadja Steiner, Jan René Larsen

Reports & Public Policy Documents

Laws and policies relevant to the potential impacts of climate change and ocean acidification on marine species and coastal communities appear at the global and regional level, as well as the national level (see Annex 6).

International Law And Policy Considerations For Shipping's Contribution To Climate Change Mitigation, Aldo Chircop, Meinhard Doelle, Ryan Gauvin

Reports & Public Policy Documents

This report investigates the international law and policy challenges to the determination of the international shipping industry's contribution to climate change mitigation efforts through the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a specialized agency of the United Nations and the competent intergovernmental organization with respect to shipping in international law. The report sets out the international legal framework that serves as context for the IMO efforts, the challenge of regulating greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping and the process and issues in determining the industry's 'fair share' of mitigation efforts and potential legal pathways. The report concludes with general, policy and legal …

Regulatory Cooperation In International Trade And Its Transformative Effects On Executive Power, Elizabeth Trujillo

Faculty Scholarship

As international trade receives the brunt of local discontent with globalization trends and recent changes by the Trump administration have put into question the viability of such trade arrangements moving forward, there has been a clear trend in using international trade fora for managing regulatory barriers on economic development. This paper will discuss this recent trend in international trade toward increased regulatory cooperation through the creation of formalized transnational regulatory bodies, such as the U.S.-EU Regulatory Cooperation Body that was being discussed in the TTIP negotiations and comparable ones in the Canadian-EU Trade Agreement as well as U.S.-Mexico and U.S.- …

Environment, States, And International Organizations: The Role Of Global Environmental Conventions In Protecting The Environment, Natalia Escobar Pemberthy

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Global environmental conventions are created to address and resolve global environmental problems. Assessments of the achievement of specific environmental goals, however, indicate that there is room for progress and that stronger collective action is required. Given that there are no empirical instruments to measure implementation and to determine the factors behind individual countries’ results, challenges emerge that require the expansion of existing analytical frameworks around environmental conventions and their role as global governance instruments. This study develops an empirical instrument – the Environmental Conventions Index – to assess the implementation of global environmental conventions, determining the main trends for both …

An Arctic Peril: The Pitfalls And Potential Of A Fragmentary Polar Law, Erik Vande Stouwe

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

As Arctic ice coverage recedes in the face of rising global temperatures, the Arctic Ocean is rapidly becoming a promising frontier over which coastal nations vie. Even as indigenous peoples reckon with ecological catastrophe, the promise of ice-free summers is drawing global shipping giants to invest in sea routes over the northern coasts of Canada and Russia. Hydrocarbon extraction and deep-sea mining interests are clamoring to develop newly accessible regions of the high north, and fishing trawlers are chasing increasingly elusive fisheries further north with the warming Arctic waters. Against this backdrop, tourists on diesel-hungry cruise ships are rushing to …

The “Right” Right To Environmental Protection: What We Can Discern From The American And Indian Constitutional Experience, Deepa Badrinarayana

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Should there be a constitutional right to environmental protection? Arguments for and against are aplenty, but there is no consensus on this issue. Drawing on the experience within the U.S. and Indian Constitutions, this article posits that the right to environmental protection has normative and practical significance, because a constitutional right attaches to an individual and, hence, can protect an individual from environmental harms, whereas environmental laws, that focus primarily on reducing adverse environmental impact on a general population, may not. It further argues that, to be effective, three constitutionally-embedded rights that are central to preserving the right to environmental …

Blueprint For Survival: A New Paradigm For International Environmental Emergencies, Claire Wright

Fordham Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Tale Of Two Trade Powers: Balancing Investor-State Dispute Settlement And Environmental Risk Between The European Union And United States In A Changing Political Climate, Sarah Ben-Moussa

Fordham Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

International Gas Outlook And Implications For Developing Tanzania’S Gas Projects, Nicolas Maennling, Perrine Toledano, Thomas Mitro

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In the frame of its partnership with Uongozi – Tanzania, CCSI drafted a brief that reviews recent international gas developments, the outlook in this regard and implications for the development of proposed offshore gas projects in Tanzania. As the country aims to benefit from its gas discoveries by increasing its domestic gas use, it also outlines some of the trade-offs and considerations that need to be taken into account when negotiating the domestic gas allocation.

Study On The Implementation Of The Port Reception Facilities Regulations Of Marpol In Vietnam, Thanh Hoang Nguyen

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Small Sustainability Supply: How Small Business And Lean Manufacturing Can Change Supply Chains, Carlos Lopez

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Benefitting From Sustainable Development, Victoria Frappaolo

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Batteries Included: Incentivizing Energy Storage, Lindsay Breslau, Michael Croweak, Alan Witt

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

Distributed Energy Storage (“DES”) technologies that allow households and businesses to store substantial amounts of electricity on site are rapidly advancing and could soon have dramatic impacts on the nation’s electricity generation, transmission, and distribution markets. These technologies could provide numerous benefits, including enhanced energy security, grid stability, and greater support for renewable generation technologies, but several obstacles are slowing their adoption throughout the country. Among these obstacles are stubbornly high manufacturing costs and the potential impacts of DES development on utilities and the traditional energy regulatory framework. Fortunately, policymakers in California, New York, Hawaii, and some other states are …