Environmental Law Commons^™

If I Had A Hammer: The Oecd Guidelines For Multinational Enterprises As Another Tool To Protect Indigenous Rights To Land, Heather Bowman

Washington International Law Journal

As developing countries embrace market economies, a primary source of investment is in the form of foreign direct investment through action by Multinational Enterprises (“Multinationals”) inside a country’s borders. Activity by a Multinational is often regulated only by the host country, which may place minimal restrictions on it for fear of losing investment. This places the country’s people and environment at risk. Indigenous peoples affected by poorly planned or managed development have no opportunity to change plans before they are enacted, and have little chance to obtain reparation for damages suffered. A way of addressing this lack of participation in …

Sustainable Energy Law In Latin America, Victor M. Tafur

Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation addresses legal issues at the intersection of energy and environmental law in Latin America. It is intended for legal and non–legal researchers, scholars and decision-makers in the Latin American region and worldwide, as a contribution to understanding the complexities and particularities involved at the nexus of energy and environmental law in the Latin American context. To achieve these goals, the study analyses the legal principles behind energy and environmental regulation in the region, compares specific energy and environmental laws in various countries of Latin America, and advances several theses as a result of the analysis.

Examining Epact 2005: A Prospective Look At The Changing Regulatory Approach Of The Ferc, Heather Curlee

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Global Warming Litigation Under The Alien Tort Claims Act: What Sosa V. Alvarez Machain And Its Progeny Mean For Indigenous Arctic Communities, Mini Kaur

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Probing Environmental Discretion: An Argument For Regulating Greenhouse Gases From Motor Vehicles Under The Clean Air Act, Omari O. Jackson

ExpressO

The topic of my comment centers on a discussion of the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Massachusetts v. EPA case. In this case, the D.C. Circuit addressed the issue of whether the Clean Air Act authorized the EPA Administrator to control greenhouse gas emissions of new motor vehicles and engines. A three-judge panel voted 2-1 against reviewing the EPA’s decision that it lacked authority under federal law to regulate them. Late last term, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to hear arguments to resolve this controversy. This comment asserts that the Clean Air Act authorizes the EPA to regulate …

"Five Myths About Sprawl", Michael E Lewyn

ExpressO

The article reviews a recent book about suburban sprawl (Robert Bruegmann’s “Sprawl: A Compact History”), and shows how the book exemplifies a wide variety of misconceptions about the causes and effects of suburban sprawl. For example, Bruegmann argues that the near-universal existence of some suburban development means that sprawl is inevitable in a free society. My article responds that there is a huge difference between fundamentally pedestrian-friendly cities with some suburban development and regions where an automobile is a necessity even for city-dwellers. The article goes on to show how, by promoting auto-oriented sprawl, government made the latter situation common.

Sustainable Development And Market Liberalism's Shotgun Wedding: Emissions Trading Under The Kyoto Protocol, David M. Driesen

ExpressO

This article analyzes the international emissions trading regime at the heart of the world’s effort to address global warming as a means of exploring broader international governance issues. The trading regime seeks to marry two models of global governance, market liberalism, which embraces markets as the model of global governance, and sustainable development, which seeks to change development patterns to protect future generations. This article explores emissions trading’s implications for understanding the relationship between these ideals.

This article presents new data and theory unsettling the traditional view that market mechanisms encourage innovations vital to sustainable development. Market actors fail to …

Light From The Trees: The Story Of Minors Oposa And The Russian Forest Cases , Oliver Austin Houck

ExpressO

This article describes two lawsuits in the late twentieth century that changed their countries in ways from which there will be no return. One took place in the Philippines, emerging from the reign of Fernando Marcos, and the other in Russia, following a near century of communist rule. They have two things in common. They declared the rights of their citizens to challenge, and reverse, government decisions. And they were about the environment, more particularly, trees. What we learn is that notions of environmental protection, citizen enforcement and judicial review have traveled the world and that, in differing legal systems, …

The New Nuisance: An Antidote To Wetland Loss, Sprawl, And Global Warming, Christine A. Klein

ExpressO

In 1992, Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council held that governments must provide compensation to landowners whenever regulations deprive land of all economically beneficial use, unless the restrictions inhere in background principles of the state’s law of property and nuisance. Such background principles, the Court added, may evolve in accordance with new knowledge. Thus, nuisance became “new” in two critical respects: it expanded from offense to affirmative defense, and it explicitly recognized that new learning continuously redefines the boundaries of nuisance. More than a dozen years have passed since Lucas, and much is new: The years have brought a shift …

The Social Obligation Of Property Ownership: A Comparison Of German And U.S. Law, Rebecca Lubens

ExpressO

Although both Germany and the United States have strong market-based economies characterized by rigorous protection of private property rights, the two countries have different conceptions of land ownership based on distinct notions of the individual’s place in society. Whereas property protection under the U.S. Constitution emphasizes individual freedom, German law explicitly considers the individual’s place in and relationship to the social order in defining ownership rights. The property clause in the German Grundgesetz (The Basic Law, the German constitution) contains an affirmative social obligation alongside its positive guarantee of ownership rights. The U.S. Constitution, on the other hand, does not …

Regulating Evolution For Sale: An Evolutionary Biology Model For Regulating The Unnatural Selection Of Genetically Modified Organisms, Mary Jane Angelo

ExpressO

In the past ten years there has been an explosion in the genetic manipulation of living organisms to create commercial products. This genetic manipulation has, in effect, been a directed change in the evolutionary process for the purpose of profit. This deliberate alteration of the path of evolution has brought with it a panoply of novel environmental, human health, and economic risks that could not have been foreseen when U.S. environmental and health protection laws evolved. Many products of genetic engineering have been modified to possess traits that increase their ability to reproduce and survive in the environment. By genetically …

The "Benefits" Of Non-Delegation: Using The Non-Delegation Doctrine To Bring More Rigor To Benefit-Cost Analysis, Victor B. Flatt

ExpressO

This article examines the problems of benefit-cost (or cost-benefit) analysis in our regulatory system and posits that a more nuanced version of the “non-delegation” doctrine (made famous in Schechter Poultry) could improve many of the problems associated with the use of benefit-cost analysis. In particular this article notes that many of the problems with benefit-cost analysis are its use by agencies to make large policy decisions, which could be characterized as legislative. The article also notes that though the “non-delegation” doctrine may appear to be dead or dormant, that a form of it, in separation of powers doctrine, exists in …

Discounting, On Stilts, Douglas A. Kysar

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This paper provides a critical overview of several articles presented at the Intergenerational Discounting and Intergenerational Equity Conference held at the University of Chicago Law School on April 27-28, 2006. First, it demonstrates that conventional normative justifications offered for the use of discounting future costs and benefits for policy analysis in the intergenerational context do not withstand scrutiny. Second, it observes that the compensatory transfers that are sometimes thought to sanitize the cost-benefit procedure in the intergenerational context are deeply problematic, both in their theoretical construction and in their practical adequacy for the tasks they are being deployed to accomplish. …

The Eastern Lowland Gorilla: Saving The Victims Of Coltan, Amy Costanzo

ExpressO

This article addresses the demand for coltan and the effects of this demand on the Eastern Lowland Gorilla, a species of great ape residing largely in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, home to greatest coltan reserves in the world. The growing demand for coltan has had a devastating effect on this animal, which includes habitat destruction, gorillas being killed for bushmeat, and baby gorillas being orphaned or sold as pets.

It addresses the international agreements, including CITES and the Convention on Biological Diversity, that have already been passed in an effort to help save the Eastern Lowland Gorilla, among …

British National Parks For North Americans: What We Can Learn From A More Crowded Nation Proud Of Its Countryside, Federico Cheever

ExpressO

England and Wales contain twelve national parks coverings more than 10 percent of their landscape. Although these parks are managed as national resources, the vast majority of the land within their borders is privately owned. Although they are managed to preserve their natural qualities, they contain farms, towns and roughly 300,000 people. They contain nothing North Americans would consider wilderness. Although recognized national assets, nationally funded, they are administered by boards made up largely of local representatives. Since passage of the National Parks and Access to Countryside Act of 1949, the British have managed to develop a national park system …

Making Regulation Evolve: A Case Study In Maladaptive Management, Alejandro E. Camacho

ExpressO

This Article is the first cross-disciplinary, comprehensive assessment of one of the earliest regulatory reinvention programs developed to foster more participation and adaptation in decision-making—the Endangered Species Act’s Habitat Conservation Plan Program. Drawing not only from legal sources but also integrating data from recent scientific studies, interviews, surveys of government officials, newspaper investigations, and unpublished databases, this Article delves into the pioneering but defective HCP program as an example of regulatory innovation gone awry.

In the active literature on regulatory reinvention, many have pointed to the HCP program as a prototype for collaborative, experimentalist innovations in governance. Though a few …

It Might Have Been: Risk, Precaution, And Opportunity Costs, Douglas A. Kysar

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article, which is part of a larger project on the competing merits of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and the precautionary principle (PP) as competing policymaking paradigms for environmental, health, and safety regulation, examines one specific plank of the case against the PP: the claim that the principle's ignorance of the opportunity costs of precaution leads to indeterminate or impoverishing policy advice. Because PP defenders emphasize the limits of human knowledge and the frequency of unpleasant surprises from technology and industrial development, they prefer an ex ante stance of precaution whenever a proposed activity meets some threshold possibility of causing severe …

Modern Public Trust Principles: Recognizing Rights And Integrating Standards, Alexandra B. Klass

ExpressO

The public trust doctrine has a long history from its beginnings as an obligation on states to hold lands submerged under navigable waters in trust for the public, to its resurgence in the 1970s as a protector of natural resources, to its influence on state statutory and constitutional law as the public embraced environmental protection principles. However, many have argued that the public trust doctrine has not lived up to its potential as a major player in environmental and natural resources law. This article proposes a new framework for the public trust doctrine as a state tool for environmental protection …

Aug 1, 2006, Ifc, Draft Ehs Guidelines For Aquaculture, Ifc

IFC E&S Performance Standards

No abstract provided.

Carbon Dioxide And The Clean Air Act, Eric Schwartz

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The EPA's authority to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act is supported by the statute's broad definition of "air pollutant" and judicial interpretations, including the Supreme Court's decision in Massachusetts v. EPA. The agency's initial reluctance to regulate CO2 was based on policy considerations, not legal limitations, and the Chevron doctrine requires courts to defer to the EPA's interpretation when Congress's intent is unclear. The ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA established that states have standing to challenge the EPA's failure to regulate CO2, emphasizing the importance of federal authority in addressing climate change. This decision has significant implications …

Waters Of The United States: Theory, Practice And Integrity At The Supreme Court, Jamison E. Colburn

ExpressO

In the Supreme Court's two wetlands cases this Term, a question of statutory interpretation divided the justices sharply, in part because so much rides on the particular statutory provision at issue. The provision, a cryptic definition within the Clean Water Act (CWA), has now provided three separate occasions at the Court where the justices have confronted (1) the Chevron doctrine and the Court’s own ambivalence toward it, and (2) the CWA's enormous project of restoring the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters. In this essay, I argue that the way the Court went about resolving its differences …

Brief For American Lung Association Et Al. As Amici Curiae Supporting Petitioners, Environmental Defense V. Duke Energy Corporation, No. 05-848 (U.S. Jul. 21, 2006), Hope M. Babcock, Kristi M. Smith

U.S. Supreme Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

Tough Love: The Dramatic Birth And Looming Demise Of Unclos Property Law (And What Is To Be Done About It), Peter S. Prows

ExpressO

The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS”) represents the culmination of thousands of years of international relations, conflict, and now nearly universal adherence to an enduring order for ocean space that is the most significant achievement for international law since the UN Charter. UNCLOS establishes international property law erga omnes that, by legal and political necessity, required a bargained consensus to be effective. This bargain, in essence, provided coastal States with extended but limited jurisdictions, while ensuring that the seabed and its mineral resources beyond were the “common heritage of mankind” that would peaceably and …

Environmental Law At Maryland, No. 23, Summer-Fall 2006

Environmental Law at Maryland

No abstract provided.

'Tis A Gift To Be Simple: A Model Reform Of The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This essay introducing the June 2006 edition of the Federal Sentencing Reporter (Vol. 18, No. 5) describes two important contributions to the movement for real reform of the federal sentencing system. First, Professor Bowman summarizes the recommendations of the Constitution Project Sentencing Initiative (CPSI) report on federal sentencing. The CPSI report, reproduced in this Issue, cautions against any over-hasty legislative response to the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Booker, suggests some near-term improvements to the existing federal sentencing system, and then sets out a framework for a reformed and markedly simplified federal sentencing regime. Second, Professor Bowman describes …

Understanding Citizen Perspectives On Government Decision-Making Processes As A Way To Improve The Administrative State, David L. Markell

Scholarly Publications

This Article explores possible insights from the “procedural justice” literature about features of government decision making processes that citizens are likely to consider to be particularly valuable or important. Numerous commentators have urged that the government take steps to increase citizen participation in its decision making processes as a way to offset concerns about government legitimacy. The premise of the Article is that incorporating into government decision making processes features that are important to citizens is a potentially helpful step in fostering meaningful citizen participation. Processes that citizens value are more likely to be processes that citizens use and that …

The Public Trust Doctrine: A Conservative Reconstruction & (And) Defense, Barton H. Thompson Jr.

Southeastern Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

An Economic Assessment Of The Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, Rosalind Bark-Hodgins, Bonnie G. Colby

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

A People's History Of Wilderness, Edited By Matt Jenkins, Laura Pritchett

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Help For Hotspots: Ngo Participation In The Preservation Of Worldwide Diversity, Bradley M. Bernau

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This Note explores the role that nongovernmental organizations can and do play in the preservation of global biodiversity hotspots. The hotspot concept-developed in the late 1980s alongside the new field of conservation biology-identifies particular areas of the world that contain high levels of endemic species that are highly threatened or endangered. Some experts have argued that by focusing species conservation efforts on these areas, a maximum amount of species can be protected and preserved using a minimum amount of time, money, and effort, allowing the remaining, scarce funds and resources to be directed toward species conservation efforts elsewhere.

Without commenting …