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Articles 31 - 60 of 725

Full-Text Articles in Environmental Law

The Role Of Private Liability In The Fight Against Climate Change, Matthew Salavitch Feb 2025

The Role Of Private Liability In The Fight Against Climate Change, Matthew Salavitch

Pace Environmental Law Review

Parties have increasingly turned to courts both to seek redress for current climate-related harms and to compel states and private actors to reduce their future GHG emissions. As a result, courts around the world have been faced with the task of defining the proper role of the judiciary in fighting climate change. In the United States, however, many courts have had difficulty defining the judiciary’s proper role in providing redress for climate-related harms, especially in relation to comprehensive federal regulation of air pollution under the Clean Air Act (CAA). Considering the uncertainty surrounding the preemptive effect of the CAA on …


Ngo Partnerships Providing Legitimacy To Private Environmental Governance, Isabelle Hayes Feb 2025

Ngo Partnerships Providing Legitimacy To Private Environmental Governance, Isabelle Hayes

Pace Environmental Law Review

The climate crisis is one of the most pressing issues our world faces today. Traditionally, the government has been the actor to facilitate change in the environmental governance realm. However, an absence in comprehensive environmental action and legislation has led to the emergence of another framework—private environmental governance. Private environmental governance allows actors from the private sector to fill the gaps of government inaction on environmental issues and lead the sustainability movement. A concern of private action is the absence of legitimacy, which can come with government action. Thus, private companies can choose to engage in partnerships with nongovernmental organizations …


Interpreting Congress, Joshua Ulan Galperin Jan 2025

Interpreting Congress, Joshua Ulan Galperin

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article introduces the concept of congressional interpretation. Congressional interpretation describes a strategy on which the Supreme Court relies, but rarely acknowledges. It occurs when courts try to understand what the law is by looking beyond a specific statute, or even a specific statute’s legislative history, and instead turning to vague beliefs about congressional behavior. Courts use congressional interpretation to: understand the relationship between a substantive statute and subsequent appropriations; evaluate statutes on the basis of post-enactment congressional inaction; and impose assumptions about congressional norms through clear statement rules. For instance, a court considers whether Congress granted statutory authority when …


Representing Climate Wreckers, Camila Bustos Jan 2025

Representing Climate Wreckers, Camila Bustos

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In recent years, lawyers have become increasingly aware of the implications of the climate crisis for legal practice. Amidst this context, United Nations Secretary General Ant6nio Guterres has urged recent graduates to decline work on behalf of "climate wreckers." This Article examines how professional responsibility rules and principles in the United States should be interpreted on a warming planet, particularly in the context of attorneys representing so-called "climate wreckers" in civil matters. I use the term "climate wrecker" to refer to fossil fuel corporations and trade associations that have engaged in public disinformation campaigns to stall climate action and sow …


Abundance And Other Food Fixations, Margot J. Pollans Jan 2025

Abundance And Other Food Fixations, Margot J. Pollans

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Although most people in the United States no longer devote the majority of their time to food production, processing, and distribution, food remains a daily fixation. This Article explores three driving food fixations--abundance, thinness, and health--and situates each against an inverse fear--scarcity, fatness, and illness, respectively. Mapping these threats onto U.S. food policy, this Article examines, among other policy arenas, food waste policy, nutrition and health claim labeling law, and food additive regulations. Across food policy, these fixations feed what this Article calls the “politics of abundance.” This politics helps to insulate the food industry from deeper systemic reform aimed …


State Responsibility For Disrupting Earth’S Climate System: Anticipating The Icj Advisory Opinion, Natalia Urzola, Nicholas A. Robinson, Léonore Gaboardi Carandell, Daye Chen, Bryce Clark, Madison Routledge Pettus Jan 2025

State Responsibility For Disrupting Earth’S Climate System: Anticipating The Icj Advisory Opinion, Natalia Urzola, Nicholas A. Robinson, Léonore Gaboardi Carandell, Daye Chen, Bryce Clark, Madison Routledge Pettus

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will deliver an advisory opinion on the legal obligations of nations with respect to the mounting damage caused by climate change. This ruling will definitively restate applicable international law, provide a basis for new global policy decisions within the U.N. General Assembly, and provide a predicate for new lawsuits in national courts. To be effective, remedies for breaching a government's duties to avert climate change will require a “collective remedy,” not merely financial compensation. This ruling was sought by law students from the South Pacific and elsewhere; this Article, also by young …


The Blm's Public Lands Rule And "Periodic Adjustments In Use To Conform To Changing Needs And Conditions" Under The Federal Land Policy And Management Act, Jamie Pleune Dec 2024

The Blm's Public Lands Rule And "Periodic Adjustments In Use To Conform To Changing Needs And Conditions" Under The Federal Land Policy And Management Act, Jamie Pleune

Pace Environmental Law Review

On May 9, 2024, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) finalized new regulations, cumulatively referred to as the “Public Lands Rule.” According to the preamble for the rule, the purpose of the regulations is “to advance the BLM’s multiple use and sustained yield mission by prioritizing the health and resilience of ecosystems across public lands.” When making land management decisions, the definition of multiple use requires the BLM to take into account “the long-term needs of future generations.” Those resource needs include “recreation, range, timber, minerals, watershed, wildlife and fish, and natural scenic, scientific and historical values.” Despite this directive, …


Community Benefits And Alternative Energy Infrastructure Siting, Edward W. De Barbieri Dec 2024

Community Benefits And Alternative Energy Infrastructure Siting, Edward W. De Barbieri

Pace Environmental Law Review

This essay studies the increasing use of community benefits frameworks in the siting of alternative energy infrastructure. It begins with a discussion of the community benefits agreement movement, the types of agreements that fall under the community benefits agreement frame, as well as the use of community benefits agreements at local law, and in different geographic contexts. Next, it introduces the increasing use of community benefits legal tools in the context of wind energy infrastructure siting. The second part of this essay presents an example of an agreement to share community benefits particularly in the context of federal subsidies through …


Expanding The Toolbox Of Sustainable Business Law: The Transnational Impacts Of The Eu Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (Csddd), Anne-Marie Weber Dec 2024

Expanding The Toolbox Of Sustainable Business Law: The Transnational Impacts Of The Eu Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (Csddd), Anne-Marie Weber

Pace Environmental Law Review

The contemporary global economy relies extensively on interconnected value chains that often span different continents, presenting challenges when operations result in human rights violations or environmental damage. This has prompted the emergence of non-binding due diligence guidelines and binding laws in several countries, reflecting the necessity of fostering accountability in transnational business activities. The European Union’s adoption of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) on May 24th, 2024, represents a novel significant milestone in this trajectory. As a new instrument of binding transnational business law, the CSDDD aims to promote sustainable business practices, with implications extending beyond EU borders. …


A Transformative Era Of Action: How The Public Land And Private Sectors Are Realigning To Solve The Energy Transition And Climate Change, Roger Martella, Jillian Lavery, Michael O'Hora Dec 2024

A Transformative Era Of Action: How The Public Land And Private Sectors Are Realigning To Solve The Energy Transition And Climate Change, Roger Martella, Jillian Lavery, Michael O'Hora

Pace Environmental Law Review

Over the last 50 years, environmental laws have transformed the areas we inhabit—and Planet Earth—for the better. Since the daybreak of the environmental law movement in 1970, our air and water are clearer, the lands we navigate are cleaner, and the food and products we consume are safer. Unfortunately, this same legal framework has not met the same success when tackling two of the biggest challenges of ours and future generations: the energy transition and climate change. Since the Supreme Court empowered the Environmental Protection Agency to act on climate change over fifteen years ago, conventional environmental laws and policies …


Climate Change, Democracy, And The Major Questions Doctrine, Joshua Ulan Galperin Oct 2024

Climate Change, Democracy, And The Major Questions Doctrine, Joshua Ulan Galperin

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This brief Essay progresses in four parts. I will first argue that climate change is impacting the Court’s decisionmaking. Next, I will show that the significance of climate change as a modern political issue has caused the Court to downplay the statutory arrangement Congress created in the Clean Air Act. Third, I will suggest that the Court is not genuinely failing to appreciate the design of the Clean Air Act. Instead, the Court is aware of that design and feels the design goes beyond a constitutionally acceptable delegation of legislative power. Confronting the Nondelegation Doctrine head-on, however, would force the …


Beyond Reform: Food Sovereignty And The Future Of Global Food Systems, Smita Narula Jul 2024

Beyond Reform: Food Sovereignty And The Future Of Global Food Systems, Smita Narula

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

We live in a deeply destructive food system, and the need for alternatives is clear. Yet state and corporate actors, beholden to an extractive, industrial model of food production, continue to push for incremental reforms instead of transformative action. In response, food sovereignty movements are charting a normative path in international human rights law to secure peasants' rights and promote more sustainable and just alternatives to our industrial food system. Against the backdrop of the political economy of industrial agriculture, this Article compares mainstream approaches to food systems reform with transformative alternatives rooted in food sovereignty. It explores two key …


They “Eyeballed” The River And Built The Dam: Lessons From The Hidrotambo Dam Flood Disaster To Guide Improvements In Environmental Impact Assessment Law In Ecuador, Rachel E. Conrad Jun 2024

They “Eyeballed” The River And Built The Dam: Lessons From The Hidrotambo Dam Flood Disaster To Guide Improvements In Environmental Impact Assessment Law In Ecuador, Rachel E. Conrad

Pace International Law Review

Ecuador is a trailblazer in human and environmental rights. The country enshrined in its 2008 Constitution the human right to water and the right to live in a healthy and ecologically balanced environment. It was also the first country in the world to recognize nature as a subject of rights in and of itself. However, the Ecuadorian legislature has failed to fully recognize these rights in the country’s civil law codes. This article explores the shortcomings of Ecuadorian law on Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) and proposes modifications to better ensure the protection of international and constitutional human and nature’s rights …


40 Years After The Moratorium On Commercial Whaling: Assessing The Competence Of The International Whaling Commission To Confront Critical Threats To Cetaceans, Chris Wold Jun 2024

40 Years After The Moratorium On Commercial Whaling: Assessing The Competence Of The International Whaling Commission To Confront Critical Threats To Cetaceans, Chris Wold

Pace International Law Review

With Japan’s withdrawal from the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW), no member of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) hunts whales commercially except by objection or reservation, thus intensifying the debate over what the IWC should do and what it may do. For decades, some IWC members have questioned the mandate of the IWC to manage small cetaceans, regulate whaling in coastal State exclusive economic zones, and make recommendations concerning entanglement, bycatch, and other threats to whale conservation. An analysis of the ordinary meaning of the ICRW and the practice of the IWC shows that the IWC has …


Protecting The Environment In Times Of Armed Conflict: The 2023 Elisabeth Haub Award For Environmental Law And Diplomacy Transcript, Nicholas Robinson May 2024

Protecting The Environment In Times Of Armed Conflict: The 2023 Elisabeth Haub Award For Environmental Law And Diplomacy Transcript, Nicholas Robinson

Pace Environmental Law Review

2023 Elisabeth Haub Award for Environmental Law and Diplomacy honoring Ambassador Marja Lehto of Finland and Former Ambassador Marie Jacobsson of Sweden for their pivotal roles advancing environmental law and policy to protect the environment in times of armed conflict.


When It Rains, It Pours: Weather Modification Law In The United States And A Proposal For Federal Control, Brendan Woodruff May 2024

When It Rains, It Pours: Weather Modification Law In The United States And A Proposal For Federal Control, Brendan Woodruff

Pace Environmental Law Review

Though weather modification has been used as a strategy to address issues such as drought throughout history, there continues to be a lack of federal regulation addressing weather modification. This Note surveys state regulations on weather modification and examines the current status of how the federal government addresses weather modification. Ultimately, this Note makes the case for why the Department of the Interior should take on the federal regulation of weather modification.


Protecting Public Land From Trespass: Why The Six-Year Statute Of Limitations In 28 U.S.C. § 2415(B) Is Appropriate For All Trespass Cases On Federal Land, Zach Fader May 2024

Protecting Public Land From Trespass: Why The Six-Year Statute Of Limitations In 28 U.S.C. § 2415(B) Is Appropriate For All Trespass Cases On Federal Land, Zach Fader

Pace Environmental Law Review

The United States has the authority to bring claims for trespass on federal land under the statutes of the state in which the trespass occurs. Many states have statutes that codify and often alter the elements of common law trespass while also providing for double or treble damages. Thus, in cases of trespass on federal lands, the government is incentivized to bring claims under state trespass statutes. Doing so adds an alternate theory of liability and maximizes the opportunity to recover adequate damages. 28 U.S.C. § 2415(b), in part, sets a six-year statute of limitations for when the United States …


Fighting Climate Gentrification In The Courts, Samantha Blend May 2024

Fighting Climate Gentrification In The Courts, Samantha Blend

Pace Environmental Law Review

Climate gentrification, a specific type of gentrification that occurs when the impacts of climate change displace lower-income communities, will likely increase in severity as climate change worsens. While policies such as inclusionary zoning may be the most efficient way to combat climate gentrification, litigation can fill gaps that may arise in such policies. This Note examines potential causes of action for climate gentrification litigation and their likelihood of success. Based on an examination of the different causes of action and their likelihood of success, this Note concludes that climate gentrification litigation can help legitimize the issue of climate gentrification and …


Community Leadership For Healthy Lakes In New York, Nicholas A. Robinson May 2024

Community Leadership For Healthy Lakes In New York, Nicholas A. Robinson

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This is the text of a speech given at the 2024 New York State Federation of Lake Associations annual conference on May 3, 2024 in Lake George, New York.


Give It A Nudge: A Comparative Analysis Of The Values And Application Of Voluntary Environmental Programs In The United States, Pianpian Wang May 2024

Give It A Nudge: A Comparative Analysis Of The Values And Application Of Voluntary Environmental Programs In The United States, Pianpian Wang

Dissertations & Theses

In recent years, companies have increased their voluntary commitments to reducing carbon emissions and implementing sustainability goals. While existing research mainly focuses on government-organized voluntary environmental programs (VEPs), exploring corporate voluntary commitments is essential. The business sector’s active role in environmental management is noteworthy. Traditionally, governments have relied on command-and-control regulations and market incentives to compel companies to protect the environment. However, companies are now demonstrating a willingness to go beyond legal requirements. Naturally, we seek answers to whether these commitments are effective, what factors can contribute to their authenticity, and how we compare these voluntary commitments to other VEPs. …


The Secret Lives Of Environmental Rights, Sonya Ziaja Apr 2024

The Secret Lives Of Environmental Rights, Sonya Ziaja

Pace Environmental Law Review

Do constitutional environmental rights change hearts and minds? How could they? This Essay describes three possible hypotheses of the relationships among constitutional environmental rights, meaning, and behavior: The Separate Domains Approach, The Constitutive Approach, and The Mutually Constitutive Approach. The theories underlying these hypotheses, and explored in this Essay, may provide some insight into constitutional environmental rights and how they may evolve throughout generations.


State Constitutions In The Woods, Quinn Yeargain Apr 2024

State Constitutions In The Woods, Quinn Yeargain

Pace Environmental Law Review

Before the adoption of environmental rights provisions beginning in the 1970s, most state constitutions did not contain provisions that protected the natural environment from degradation. Instead, to the contrary, many constitutions—especially in western states—contained policies that have long entrenched carbon-intensive infrastructures and have favored extractive industries. But starting in the early 1900s, a handful of states began amending their constitutions to incorporate environmental policy provisions. These additions helped preserve forested lands by giving state governments the power to respond to uncontrolled forest fires and adopt policies to prevent deforestation. Other amendments established fish and game commissions as constitutional entities, safeguarding …


Some Lessons For Crafting A State Constitution-Based Right To A Clean Environment, Heidi Gorovitz Robertson Apr 2024

Some Lessons For Crafting A State Constitution-Based Right To A Clean Environment, Heidi Gorovitz Robertson

Pace Environmental Law Review

While New York most recently added an environmental rights amendment to its constitution, Pennsylvania and Montana have had these amendments in their constitutions since the seventies. Hawaii, Rhode Island, Illinois, and Massachusetts have enacted weaker iterations of rights to a clean environment. Other states, like Maine, have faced challenges that blocked an amendment’s passage. This Article provides an initial analysis of the state environmental rights amendments currently in place, examining their origins, language, placement in the constitutions, and the major judicial decisions impacting their interpretation. It concludes by comparing the existing environmental rights amendments to the proposed amendment that failed …


Indigenizing The Right To A Healthy Environment, Elisabeth Parker, Heather Tanana Apr 2024

Indigenizing The Right To A Healthy Environment, Elisabeth Parker, Heather Tanana

Pace Environmental Law Review

The most severe impacts resulting from environmental degradation are experienced by already-vulnerable populations, including Indigenous peoples. A growing number of countries are formally recognizing the basic human right to a healthy environment, which can help realize environmental and climate justice for these communities. On July 28, 2022, the United Nations General Assembly passed a landmark resolution formally recognizing the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. The adoption of this resolution represents a pivotal moment in the understanding and implementation of a human rights-based approach to protecting the environment. However, it is important to recognize that historically, Indigenous …


Green Amendments, Land Use, And Transportation: What Could Go Wrong?, Michael Lewyn Apr 2024

Green Amendments, Land Use, And Transportation: What Could Go Wrong?, Michael Lewyn

Pace Environmental Law Review

As more states amend their constitutions to include a green amendment, the vague nature of these amendments leaves a concerning amount of interpretative power to courts. This article examines how some courts have interpreted green amendments and how these interpretations risk the misuse of green amendments. Additionally, this article examines how such misuse may be avoided.


The Value Of Constitutional Environmental Rights And Public Trusts, John C. Dernbach Apr 2024

The Value Of Constitutional Environmental Rights And Public Trusts, John C. Dernbach

Pace Environmental Law Review

As part of the modern environmental movement of the 1970s, five states (Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Montana, and Pennsylvania) adopted constitutional amendments recognizing a right to a quality environment, a public trust for public natural resources, or both. Half a century later, there is a renewed interest in constitutional environmental rights, inspired in no small part by the failure of existing laws to adequately address the climate crisis. A sixth state (New York) recognized a constitutional right to a quality environment in 2021, and more than a dozen states are considering such amendments. Still, the great majority of environmental protection at …


130 Years And Counting Into Forever — New York's Forever Wild Constitutional Amendment And Lessons For Modern Green Amendments, Timothy E. Cox Apr 2024

130 Years And Counting Into Forever — New York's Forever Wild Constitutional Amendment And Lessons For Modern Green Amendments, Timothy E. Cox

Pace Environmental Law Review

In the 135 years of New York’s Forever Wild Amendment’s existence, it has been challenged by a range of court cases and thereby interpreted by courts throughout New York. The results of these cases frequently have upheld the heart of Forever Wild: to protect New York’s Forest Preserve land. This Article provides a history of the Forever Wild Amendment, an analysis of the courts’ and New York Attorney General’s interpretations of the Amendment, and a discussion of how this information can guide the future of New York’s Green Amendment.


Administering Environmental Justice: How New York’S Environmental Rights Amendment Could Transform Business As Usual, Rebecca Bratspies Apr 2024

Administering Environmental Justice: How New York’S Environmental Rights Amendment Could Transform Business As Usual, Rebecca Bratspies

Pace Environmental Law Review

Since New York became the latest state to pass an environmental rights amendment, there has been a great deal of analysis regarding how the judi- ciary will interpret the Green Amendment; however, state and local officials need not wait for the courts to enforce the Green Amendment. This Article explores the authority state and local officials have to carry out the purpose of the Green Amendment. Additionally, it discusses what the passage of the Green Amendment means in practice and how, and why, state officials such as the Attorney General should implement the Green Amendment.


Introduction, Marisa Barber Apr 2024

Introduction, Marisa Barber

Pace Environmental Law Review

Introduction


Climate Change And Internal Displacement In Colombia: Chronicle Of A Tragedy Foretold, Camila Bustos Apr 2024

Climate Change And Internal Displacement In Colombia: Chronicle Of A Tragedy Foretold, Camila Bustos

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

One of the key challenges stemming from climate change will be climate displacement, as sudden and gradual events disrupt livelihoods and force millions to leave their homes. Despite the existing scholarship's focus on cross-border movement, the majority of climate displaced people will move internally instead of or before seeking refuge outside their nation's borders. What obligations do states owe to their citizens when those states have historically not been emitters but have still failed to protect domestic populations from displacement related to environmental disasters and climate change impacts? Through exploring the disaster management framework in Colombia and conducting a case …