Environmental Law Commons^™

Fish Don't Litter In Your House: Is International Law The Solution To The Plastic Pollution Problem?, Taylor G. Keselica

Pace International Law Review

This article addresses the complex issue of plastic pollution—focusing on ocean plastics. Specifically, this article examines the ocean plastics problem, critiques current binding and non-binding international environmental law surrounding ocean plastics, hazardous wastes, and pollution, and proposes a more effective solution to the ocean plastics problem. Section I provides a basic history of the creation of plastics and discusses plastics as they are used today. Section II considers the concerns surrounding ocean plastics, focusing on impacts of plastic on marine ecosystems as well as human health effects. Section III, IV, and V discuss the ongoing attempts to address the ocean …

Death Of Dillon’S Rule: Local Autonomy To Control Land Use, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In order for municipal governments to promote sustainable and green development, create safe densities and open spaces in response to the pandemic, protect lives and property in areas vulnerable to natural disasters, and to manage climate change, they must be able to influence the development and preservation of privately owned land. For them to control the negative impacts of oil and gas facilities, they must find power to regulate matters that are typically the prerogative of state agencies. To legalize emerging renewable energy technologies, they must have authority to make them permitted uses in their zoning ordinances, and to innovate …

Trauma-Centered Social Justice, Noa Ben-Asher

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article identifies a new and growing phenomenon in the American legal system. Many leading agendas for gender, racial, and climate justice are centered on emotional trauma as the primary injury of contemporary social injustices. By focusing on three social justice movements--#BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, and Climate Justice--the Article offers the first comprehensive diagnosis and assessment of how emotional trauma has become an engine for legal and policy social justice reforms. From a nineteenth century psychoanalytic theory about repressed childhood sexual memories that manifest in female hysteria, through extensive medicalization and classification in the twentieth century, emotional trauma has evolved and expanded …

Financing Our Future’S Health: Why The United States Must Establish Mandatory Climate-Related Financial Disclosure Requirements Aligned With The Tcfd Recommendations, Colin Myers

Pace Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

All Dogs Get Regulatory Protection—And This Means Wolves Too: Extending Species- Specific Animal Welfare Act Protections, Megan Edwards

Pace Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Come Hell Or High-Water: Challenges For Adapting Pacific Northwest Water Law, Robert T. Caccese, Lara B. Fowler

Pace Environmental Law Review

The Pacific Northwest region of the United States has been recognized as a leader in crafting water laws that work to balance human needs and ecological considerations. However, this region is experiencing changing dynamics that test the strength of existing water policies and laws. Such dynamics include increasing populations, new and exempt uses, quantification of tribal treaty rights, species protection, renegotiation of the Columbia River Treaty, and the impacts of a changing climate. Together, these dynamics are stressing the legal framework, which remains vital to ensuring sustainable water supplies now and into the future. The history behind water resources management …

Bringing Animal Protection Legislation Into Line With Its Purported Purposes: A Proposal For Equality Amongst Non-Human Animals, Jane Kotzmann, Gisela Nip

Pace Environmental Law Review

The United States has a strong history of enacting laws to protect animals from the pain and suffering inflicted by humans. Indeed, the passage of the Massachusetts’ Body of Liberties in 1641 made it the first country in the world to pass such laws. Nevertheless, contemporary animal protection laws in all jurisdictions of the United States are limited in their ability to adequately realize their primary purpose of protecting animals from unnecessary or unjustifiable pain and suffering. This is a result of limited statutory definitions of ‘animal’ and far-reaching exclusions commonly found in animal protection legislation. These exclusions frequently apply …

Suffering Matters: Nepa, Animals, And The Duty To Disclose, David N. Cassuto, Tala Dibenedetto

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires the federal government to disclose potential environmental harms arising from agency actions. Animal suffering is an environmental harm, yet no court has ruled that its infliction triggers a reporting obligation under NEPA. This Article argues that animal suffering should be a cognizable environmental harm under NEPA, that considerations of animal suffering should factor into whether an agency must prepare an EIS--and should be discussed in the content of the EIS.

Part II of this Article introduces and explains the procedural requirements of NEPA. Part III discusses animal suffering--how it is defined, how laws …

Public-Private Partnerships And Smart Growth: A Legislative Tool Kit For Public- Infrastructure Projects, Emma Lagle

Pace Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Extraterritoriality In Common Law Climate Actions: Judicial Restraint Or Judicial Error?, Aaron B. Rudyan

Pace Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Omnipresent Chemicals: Tsca Preemption In The Wake Of Pfas Contamination, Frederick A. Mcdonald

Pace Environmental Law Review

Over the past few decades, studies addressing the harms of PFAS have gradually progressed, and now scientists believe increased exposure could lead to reproductive defects and a higher risk of cancer. Given the amplified concern surrounding these pervasive chemicals, states are proactively filing lawsuits on behalf of their citizens and enacting legislation to combat this nation-wide contamination epidemic. However, given the 2016 Amendment to the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, states looking to regulate the manufacturing or looking to ratify a state- wide ban on the manufacturing of such chemicals may face preemption under actions taken by the United …

How Clean Is Clean?: An Analysis On The Difference Between The Affordable Clean Energy Rule And The Clean Power Plan And Why States Should Adhere To Stricter Emissions Standards, Katherine Mccormick

Pace Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Biodiversity Impacts Of Investment And Free Trade Agreements, Lee C. Rarrick

Pace Environmental Law Review

The following Article identifies the myriad ways in which international investment and free trade agreements interact with biodiversity. It categorizes these interactions into three main groups and provides a literature review of the various real-world and policy impacts. The first part analyses arbitration procedures in these agreements that investors and trade partners can invoke to protect their economic expectations from otherwise proper State action, including regulation that is intended to promote biodiversity. The next part evaluates biodiversity provisions that are included directly in the free trade and investment agreements themselves, or in side agreements thereto. Some of these provisions reference …

Seeing The Forest For The Trees: Public And Private Law Tools For Halting Deforestation, Harriette I. Resnick

Pace Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Land Use Strategies That Mitigate Climate Change, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article discusses techniques and strategies that municipal governments can employ to mitigate climate change, of which land use and municipal law lawyers should be aware.

Constitutionalizing Nature's Law: Dignity And The Regulation Of Biotechnology In Switzerland, James Toomey

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The Swiss Constitution was amended by referendum in 1992 to include two unique provisions: Article 119, which imposes strict limits on genetic and reproductive technologies in humans in order to protect ‘human dignity’, and Article 120, which commits the Swiss federal government to limiting genetic technologies in non-human species on the basis of the ‘dignity of the creature’. This article analyzes the role of ‘dignity’ as a limit on biotechnologies in the Swiss constitutional order. It concludes that the understanding of dignity the constitution embraces codifies a contestable metaphysical theory of value at the constitutional level. Specifically, the Swiss constitutional …

The Public Trust Doctrine In The 21st Century, Nicholas A. Robinson

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In this Symposium's initial lecture, I will (a) provide a glimpse into life in Medieval England to explain the context from which Magna Carta arose, (b) describe the evolution of environmental rights from Magna Carta to the Forest Carter, (c) explore in a case study how “liberties of the forest” functioned for 800 years in England's Royal Forest of Dean, ultimately sustaining the ecological systems of Dean, (d) discuss the “liberties of the forest” in light of Elinor Ostom's common pool analyses, and (e) offer some views on the question just posed. I shall start by describing the English environment …

Measuring Brief (United States Of America), Kayla Race, Gordon Rowe, Sydney Sell

Pace Environmental Law Review Online Companion

No abstract provided.

Measuring Brief (Hexonglobal Corporation), Yliana Trevino-Hawkins, Andrea Reed, Sarah Surgeoner

Pace Environmental Law Review Online Companion

No abstract provided.

Measuring Brief (Organization Of Disappearing Island Nations, Apa Mana, And Noah Flood), Tess Pocock, Sheridan Schuessler

Pace Environmental Law Review Online Companion

No abstract provided.

2019 Bench Memorandum

Pace Environmental Law Review Online Companion

No abstract provided.

2019 Competition Problem

Pace Environmental Law Review Online Companion

No abstract provided.

The Legitimacy Of Judicial Climate Engagement, Katrina Fischer Kuh

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Courts in key climate change cases have abdicated their constitutional responsibility to protect a prejudiced and disenfranchised group (nonvoting minors and future generations) and remedy an insidious pathology in public discourse and the political process: the industry-funded climate disinformation campaign. This Article posits that this abdication results from courts' uneasiness about displacing the prerogatives of democratically elected bodies. This uneasiness is misplaced. Court engagement with climate cases would strengthen democracy in accord with widely accepted justifications for countermajoritarian judicial review. This Article first describes in detail how courts exhibit a frustrating reticence to accept jurisdiction over cases that present questions …

Ex Situ Preservation Of Historic Monuments In The Era Of Climate Change, Shelby D. Green

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Cultural heritage (historic buildings, landscapes, and natural monuments) is being threatened by all manner of evils--attacks by belligerents seeking military advantages, increased consumptive uses, and significantly, the idiosyncratic effects of climate change. Climate change portends sea level rise and coastal erosion threats that will inundate coastal areas and the historic structures located there. Melting permafrost and changes in soil composition threaten the loss of buried archaeological evidence and compromise the integrity of ancient buildings designed for a less malevolent climate.

State and local governments have been undertaking measures to build sustainable communities to mitigate the coming changes in the climate, …

Transnational Perspectives On The Paris Climate Agreement Beyond Paris: Redressing American Defaults In Caring For Earth’S Biosphere, Nicholas A. Robinson

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Anxiety about the fate of human civilization is rising. International Law has an essential role to play in sustaining community of nations. Without enhancing International Environmental Law, the biosphere that sustains all nations is imperiled. Laws in the United States can either impede or advance global environmental stewardship. What is entailed in such a choice?

The biosphere is changing. At a time when extraordinary technological prowess allows governments the capacity to know how deeply they are altering Earth's biosphere, nations experience a perverse inability to cooperate together. The Arctic is melting rapidly, with knock on effects for sea level rise …

Establishing Climate Change Standing: A New Approach, Ian R. Curry

Pace Environmental Law Review

Climate change is one of the thorniest political, legal, and economic issues of our time. Therefore, a new legal approach to the issue is required. This Note proposes a streamlined approach for climate change standing, one that assumes injury in fact and causation for a class of discernible climate change harms. A streamlined approach will enable litigants harmed by climate change to seek redress in court, providing an outlet for redress where there has previously been none. Part II of this Note discusses the constitutional doctrine of standing. It begins with a summary of Article III and the logic behind …

Climate Displaced Peoples: Utilizing Regional Approaches To Combat Climate-Induced Displacement In The 21st Century, Oshani Amaratunga

Pace Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Preemption, I Think Not: Evaluating California’S Stored Energy Procurement Law Against Ferc Order 841, Raymond Richards

Pace Environmental Law Review

California’s Energy Storage Systems procurement mandate is a groundbreaking measure designed to supply more clean and reliable energy to the state by allowing the capture of power produced now to be used later. While this technology is still developing, a ready market for such resources will help advance capabilities and bring down cost. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) Order 841 will springboard storage technology in regions covered by Regional Transmission Organizations (“RTOs”) by allowing storage providers non-discriminatory and accommodating access to the FERC wholesale markets. Although FERC’s new Order speaks directly to the issue of storage technology, it should not …

Protecting Natural Resources - Forever: The Obligations Of State Officials To Uphold "Forever" Constitutional Provisions, Rachel E. Deming

Pace Environmental Law Review

This Article analyzes the attacks on a state constitutional conservation lands program since the election of a governor and state legislature opposed to environmental regulation in 2010 – a precursor to current happenings at the federal level under the Trump administration. Former Florida Governor Rick Scott and his administration have spent an average of over $40 million a year in taxpayer money to defend and, in most cases, pay judgments, in lawsuits challenging mandates of the Florida Constitution.

I examine this issue of ignoring or deliberately violating constitutional requirements through the lens of state constitutional provisions that protect natural resources, …

You Don’T Need Lungs To Suffer: Fish Suffering In The Age Of Climate Change With A Call For Regulatory Reform, David N. Cassuto, Amy O'Brien

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Fish are sentient — they feel pain and suffer. Yet, while we see increasing interest in protecting birds and mammals in industries such as farming and research (albeit few laws), no such attention has been paid to the suffering of fish in the fishing industry. Consideration of fish welfare including reducing needless suffering should be a component of fisheries management. This article focuses on fisheries management practices, the effects of anthropogenic climate change on fisheries management practices, and the moral implications of fish sentience on the development and amendment of global fishing practices. Part I examines domestic and international fisheries, …