Environmental Law Commons^™

Doing Business Under Canadian Environmental Law, Jeffrey C. Bates, Gregory A. Bibler, David S. Blackmar

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

In recent years, the role of the environmental risk management has become increasingly significant to multinational corporations. Corporations from the United States and elsewhere are now undertaking aggressive assessments of environmental regulatory compliance, and are incorporating environmental due diligence into transactions such as mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and divestitures. The first step toward assessing compliance often involves interpretation of complex, vaguely written environmental statutes and regulations. Matters are made more difficult by the fact that each governmental structure is different, and environmental controls inevitably will be administered in ways unfamiliar to foreign companies, even in countries which have emulated the …

The Controls On The Transfrontier Movement Of Hazardous Waste From Developed To Developing Nations: The Goal Of A "Level Playing Field", Michelle M. Vilcheck

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

In the 1970s, the United States Congress began passing national environmental legislation. One reason for such legislation was to "level the playing field" among the fifty states so that economic advantage did not accrue to one state at the expense of environmental quality and public health.' The world now faces a similar need for environmental legislation on an international level. Environmental laws of individual nations have become more and more divergent as developed countries, such as the United States, enact tougher environmental laws, while less developed nations fail to enact any environmental regulations. The variant standards of these environmental laws …

Trade Protectionism And Environmental Regulations: The New Nontariff Barriers, C. Ford Runge

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

This article reviews some economic and legal aspects of the growing role of environmental, health, and safety regulations operating as disguised barriers to trade. While this has always been a recognized problem in trade policy, the issue has gained new force as environmental policies move to the forefront of many national agendas. Because environmental standards have a growing national constituency, they are especially attractive candidates for disguised protectionism. International distinctions in the tolerable level of environmental risks are created because the weight attached to environmental standards tends to vary with the income levels of different countries. Incentives are created to …

Global Warming: Integrating United States And International Law, Lakshman D. Guruswamy

Publications

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Last Frontiers For Mineral Resources: A Comparison Of International Law Regarding The Deep Seabed, Outer Space, And Antarctica, Barbara E. Heim

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The nations of the world have begun to tap three resource areas--the deep seabed, outer space, and Antarctica. These areas are unique insofar as no nation can claim them exclusively as its own. As a result, these three areas raise unique international questions. Not only are they largely undisturbed, but these areas are also the testing ground for recently developed international treaties that attempt to usher in a new era of international cooperation. This Note examines both the exploration and exploitation of mineral resources in the deep seabed, outer space, and Antarctica. The physical nature of each area, the resources …

International Environmental Bankruptcy: An Overview Of Environmental Bankruptcy Law, Including A State's Claims Against The Multinational Polluter, Rick M. Reznicsek

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note focuses on current environmental bankruptcy law in the United States. It analyzes the claims of a state against a corporate polluter when the corporation discharges a toxic substance in violation of the state's environmental laws, refuses to clean up the waste, and then files bankruptcy in lieu of paying for the cleanup.

This Note analyzes the court decisions subsequent to the United States Supreme Court opinions in Ohio v. Kovacs and Midlantic National Bank v. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to evaluate the current status of United States bankruptcy law on the issues of the automatic stay; …

Agenda: Boundaries And Water: Allocation And Use Of A Shared Resource, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Boundaries and Water: Allocation and Use of a Shared Resource (Summer Conference, June 5-7)

Conference organizers and/or faculty included University of Colorado School of Law professors David H. Getches, Lawrence J. MacDonnell and Charles F. Wilkinson.

Boundaries and Water: Allocation and Use of a Shared Resource is the topic of the Center's annual summer program on water this June. Most of the major rivers in the western United States are shared between two or more states. Often tribal governments play an important role in water allocation and use decisions. International considerations also may be involved in some cases. These interjurisdictional issues extend to groundwater as well as surface water.

This conference will provide the …

Dispute Settlement In International Environmental Issues: The Model Provided By The 1982 Convention On The Law Of The Sea, John W. Kindt

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Essay discusses the merits of the dispute settlement provisions found in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and calls for recognition and utilization of the provisions in all manner of disputes arising within the international legal community. Professor Kindt notes that despite the fact that the Convention's dispute settlement provisions represent the first time all major interest blocs of states have agreed upon a standard set of provisions for dispute settlement, the provisions have not received the attention they deserve. After analyzing the reasons for this lack of consideration, he urges that the dispute …

The Marine Mammal Protection Act And International Protection Of Cetaceans: A Unilateral Attempt To Effectuate Transnational Conservation, Laura L. Lones

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note examines how the United States has used the Marine Mammal Protection Act to further international protection of cetaceans--dolphins, porpoises, and whales. The author first reviews the manifold reasons for protecting cetaceans. The author next describes the international operation of the Act as amended in 1984 by surveying those sections that have an impact on United States relations with other states and the regulations and cases that implement those sections. The author concludes that these restrictions have produced a decline in porpoise mortality, although more can be done. The author next describes the successes of the Act's treaty program. …

Conflicting Principles Of Canadian Environmental Reform: Trubeck And Habermas V. Law And Economics And The Law Reform Commission, Rod Northey

Dalhousie Law Journal

Early in the 1970s, the American legal scholar, David Trubeck, made a far-reaching observation: Law is a practical science. It does not ordinarily dwell on fundamental questions about the social, political and economic functions of the legal order. Satisfied with implicit working assumptions about these matters, legal thought moves rapidly to more tractable questions. But when law's solutions to social problems fail to satisfy, it becomes necessary to examine the basic theory from which they derive. Trubeck expounded this thesis in connection with legal developments in the Third World. Using an idea he termed the "core conception" of law, Trubeck …

Books Received, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

CIVIL JUDGMENT RECOGNITION AND THE INTEGRATION OF MULTIPLE STATE ASSOCIATIONS: CENTRAL AMERICA, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY

By Robert C. Casad

Lawrence: The Regents Press of Kansas, 1981. Pp. 258.$25.00.

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COMPARATIVE LAW YEARBOOK

VOL. 4, 1980

Edited by Dennis Campbell

The Hague/Boston/London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1981. Pp. 371.

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CONSTITUTION-MAKING: PRINCIPLES, PROCESS, PRACTICE

By Edward McWhinney

Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981.Pp. 231. $20.00.

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THE ENVIRONMENTAL LAW OF THE SEA

Edited by Douglas M.Johnston

Gland, Switzerland: International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, 1981. Pp. 419.

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INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS: ENVIRONMENTS AND …

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion: The Codification Of A Potential Technology, Maureen O`C. Walker, Murray A. Bloom

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Rapid technological advancement has been the hallmark of post-industrial societies for more than a quarter of a century. This progress is forever disrupting our established legal systems. Nowhere is this tension more evident than in the discoveries of the developing energy industry. An exception to this process is the infant industry of ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC). The United States Congress recently enacted legislation establishing the legal framework for the OTEC process, which has not yet been proven on a commercial scale.

OTEC is a form of solar energy that takes advantage of the vertical temperature differentials in those regions …

The Role Of Unilateral State Action In Preventing International Environmental Injury, Richard B. Bilder

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This discussion suggests that unilateral state action to prevent international environmental injury is likely to play an important and continuing role in efforts to deal with international environmental problems. It also suggests the futility of attempting to characterize unilateral action as inherently either desirable or undesirable. While multilateral actions seem generally preferable to unilateral action, effective multilateral arrangement in many cases may not be practically attainable. Unilateral action may be the only feasible alternative to inaction. Under these circumstances, a respectable argument can be made for the propriety of unilateral action on at least an interim basis pending achievement of …

The Senegal Valley Authority: A Unique Experiment In International River Basin Planning, Theodore Parnall, Albert E. Utton

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Footnote To The Nuclear Test Cases: Abuse Of Right--A Blind Alley For Environmentalists, Jerome B. Elkind

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In a recent article entitled "French Nuclear Tests and Article 41: Another Blow to the Authority of the Court," the author questioned the approach of the learned Judges of the International Court of Justice to article 41 of the Court's Statute. The title of that article was intended to deplore the recent tendency of States (most particularly France, but also Iceland) who are parties to the Statute of the International Court of Justice to arrogate to themselves the right to determine whether the Court has jurisdiction...

The judgment of December 20, 1974 is but one more example of the extremes …

Recent Developments--Recent Decisions, Philip B. Barr, Jr., Michael Stukenberg

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

All nations recognize the enormous problem of marine pollution. The sources of marine pollution are definable, and there are methods by which these sources may be restricted. Virtually all mankind would prefer less pollution to more. Prevention, however, becomes less attractive in light of its costs, which assume both political and economic characteristics. Varying political and economic climates coupled with problems of sovereignty and national self-interest render agreement on the imposition of standards difficult. This Recent Development will chart past and present efforts at the preservation of the marine environment, consider the issues confronting the United Nations Third Conference on …

Development Of International River Basin: Regulation Of Riparian Competition: Part Ii, Nitza Shapiro-Libia

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Artificial Islands Constructed On United States Continental Shelf Denied Status Of Independent Sovereignty, Journal Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The United States brought injunction and trespass claims in the federal district court against three private persons to prevent the unauthorized construction of artificial islands atop several submerged coral reefs located about four and one-half miles off the southeast coast of Florida. These reefs were composed of the skeletal remains of coral organisms and lay at a depth of 600 feet. The reefs continued to grow laterally, but had reached their maximum height and were completely submerged at all times except at low tide when their highest projections were momentarily visible. The reef area, which harbored countless varieties of marine …

Legal Aspects Of The French Nuclear Tests, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

Even at the level of scholarly or diplomatic argumentation it is important to inquire into the competing interests and legal factors involved in the atmospheric tests. This is true not only because differing political expectations or even measures might depend on the consensus as to the legality or illegality of the French tests, but also because the precedential value of the tests will be of greater or less force depending upon whether there is agreement at the time of the tests that France was or was not acting within her international legal rights.