Environmental Law Commons^™

Cle Working Paper No.1/2021--Grassroots And Litigation-Based Approaches To Advancing Indigenous Rights: Lessons From Extractive Industry Resistance In Mesoamerica, Justin Wiebe

Centre for Law and the Environment

Indigenous peoples are frequently recognized as excellent stewards of their traditional territories. These territories, which often exhibit extraordinary levels of biodiversity, face disproportionate and growing threats from extractive industry. In opposing these threats, Indigenous peoples increasingly rely on internationally-defined Indigenous rights, including those set out in UNDRIP and ILO Convention 169. It is uncertain, however, how these rights are most effectively advanced. In this paper, I tease out strategies — both grassroots-based and litigation-based — that show promise in this regard. Drawing on Waorani resistance to an oil auction in Ecuador and Indigenous resistance to a large-scale mining project in …

Should The European Union Fix, Leave Or Kill The Energy Charter Treaty?, Martin Dietrich Brauch

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In the early 1990s, the European Economic Community – the predecessor of the European Union (EU) – spearheaded an initiative to promote international cooperation in the energy sector, particularly with post-Soviet States in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Out of this process the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) was born in 1994. Going much beyond international cooperation, the treaty allows foreign investors in the energy sector to sue their host States in international arbitral tribunals and claim monetary compensation when policy measures and other State action affect their interests.

Fast-forward to 2021. With 135 known cases initiated to date, the ECT’s …

2021 Final Butte Reduction Works (Brw) Phase I Quality Assurance Project Plan (Qapp) Revision 3. February 2021, Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

The Devil In Nepa's Details: Amending Nepa To Prevent State Interference With Environmental Reviews, Clay F. Kulesza

William & Mary Law Review

The environment is susceptible to human harms because it lacks a voice of its own. Yet environmentalists have used their voices for generations to promote environmental protection, causing Congress to pass a variety of laws that prevent needless environmental destruction. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) advances this goal by directing the federal government to undergo an environmental review process anytime it wants to begin a project that could have detrimental environmental impacts. This process ensures that the federal government knows how a project will impact the environment and whether any feasible alternatives to a project may have …

If You Don’T Have A Cow (Or Chicken Or Pig), You Can’T Call It Meat: Weaponizing The Dormant Commerce Clause To Strike Down Anti-Animal- Welfare Legislation, Jessica Berch

Utah Law Review

Industrial meat producers and proponents of plant-based diets are locked in legislative and litigation battles. On the legislative battlefront, meat producers are attempting to prohibit vegetarian and vegan food manufacturers from calling their products “meat,” “burgers,” “pork,” or other similar “meaty” descriptions. At the same time, animal-welfare advocates are urging states to pass laws to better the lives of animals in various ways, such as requiring meat producers to provide farm animals more space or other enhanced conditions. On the litigation side, both the meat producers and the plant-based companies are attempting to deploy the Dormant Commerce Clause (“DCC”) to …

Culturally Diverse Expert Teams Have Yet To Bring Comprehensive Linguistic Diversity To Intergovernmental Ecosystem Assessments, Abigail J. Lynch, Fernández-Llamazares Álvaro, Ignacio Palomo, Pedro Jaureguiberry, Amano Tatsuya, Zeenatul Basher, Michelle Lim, Tuyeni Heita Mwampamba, Aibek Samakov, Odirilwe Selomane, Michelle Mei Ling Lim

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Multicultural representation is a stated goal of many global scientific assessment processes. These processes aim to mobilize a broader, more diverse knowledge base and increase legitimacy and inclusiveness of these assessment processes. Often, enhancing cultural diversity is encouraged through involvement of diverse expert teams and sources of knowledge in different languages. In this article, we examine linguistic diversity, as one representation of cultural diversity, in the eight published assessments of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Our results show that the IPBES assessment outputs are disproportionately filtered through English-language literature and authors from Anglophone countries. To …

Biodiversity 2050: Can The Convention On Biological Diversity Deliver A World Living In Harmony With Nature?, Michelle Mei Ling Lim

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) ‘2050 Vision’ aims to achieve, by 2050, a world that is ‘living in harmony with nature.’ Yet biodiversity is threatened globally to an extent never before witnessed in human history. The Global Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES Global Assessment)—the largest ever assessment of the global state of biodiversity and ecosystems services—found that a sustainable global future for people and nature remains possible. However, this can only be achieved if we fundamentally redesign our economic, social, and governance systems. It is almost three decades since the CBD, the …

We Still Have Lessons To Learn From Woburn, And Flint Is A Good Place To Start, Rose Mooney

Notre Dame Law Review

By analyzing a previous water contamination lawsuit, this Note offers advice to litigants battling their current water crises. Specifically, this Note assesses the water contamination crisis that occurred in Woburn, Massachusetts, from the mid- to late-twentieth century and offers guidance to litigants fighting for clean water in Flint, Michigan, today. There is strength in this type of comparison: “Change in legislative actions and policy- making often result from previous environmental disasters out of which the public demands a change. In other words, we arguably learn from these disasters and effect changes to prevent them from occurring again.” The Woburn litigation …

Treading Water: How Citizens, States, And The Environmental Protection Agency Can Restore Proper Criminal Enforcement Of The Clean Water Act's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, Marley Kimelman

Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy

Upon the passage of the Clean Water Act (“CWA”) in 1972, primary responsibility for protecting the United States' water quality and preventing water pollution shifted from the states to the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”). The program at the heart of the Clean Water Act, the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (“NPDES”), requires anyone who discharges pollutants into the waters of the United States to abide by the terms of a permit issued under the program. If a discharge occurs in violation of the permit or without a permit, and prosecutors are able to prove the responsible party acted with ordinary …

Building Back Better: Investing In A Resilient Recovery For Washington State, Kevin Tempest, Jonah Kurman-Faber, Ruby Wincele

Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy

This article analyzes the potential jobs and community health benefits created by a sample Resilient Recovery Portfolio of investments in Washington State. This type of investment mindset can kick-start job growth, shared economic prosperity, cleaner air, and climate-resilient communities, thereby serving as a template for Building Back Better in Washington and elsewhere. A Resilient Recovery Portfolio supports over ten jobs per million dollars invested in clean transportation, forest conservation and ecosystem restoration, clean energy, water and energy efficiency, low carbon agriculture, and sustainable industry programs. By comparison, the state’s ten largest industries support 4.3 jobs per million dollars invested. This …

From Loon Lake To Chuckanut Creek: The Rise And Fall Of Environmental Values In Washington's Water Resources Act, Rachael Paschal Osborn

Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy

The year 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the Water Resources Act of 1971, Washington’s program to protect instream flows in state rivers. Implementation has been controversial and, even a half century later, incomplete. Part 1 introduces the Act. Part 2 examines its legislative history, and administrative development by the Department of Ecology. The Act innovated water allocation, putting instream flows and public uses of rivers on par with out-of-stream water rights. But river protection labors under serious limitations, chief among them the subordination of instream flows to pre-existing water rights. And, although only half of Washington’s watersheds are protected …

Table Of Contents

Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Restriction Of Placing Certain Single-Use Plastic Products On The Hungarian Market, Anita Boros

Journal of Environmental Sustainability

One of the means of rationalizing Hungarian waste management -in the context of the waste hierarchy- is to increase the rate of waste recycling and reprocessing. Although the Hungarian plastics industry is a very dynamically developing area, the Hungarian legislator has also recognized that the use of certain products is extremely harmful in the long run. Accordingly, stricter measures than the EU directive have been taken and accordingly a number of single-use plastic products from July 2021 are to be banned. In addition, in the case of plastic carrier bags, economic tools have been developed and further improved, which, according …

Environmental Justice And Pennsylvania's Environmental Rights Amendment: Applying The Duty Of Impartiality To Discriminatory Siting, Jacob Elkin

Panel II: Reshaping EJ Law & Social Policy

Since the 1970s, there has been a growing awareness that environmental hazards are disproportionately sited in low-income communities and communities of color. Under the label of the environmental justice movement, community groups have pursued various means to fight against the discriminatory concentration of environmental burdens in their neighborhoods. Yet in its Civil Rights Act and Equal Protection Clause jurisprudence, the Supreme Court has largely shut the door on federal environmental justice litigation by requiring plaintiffs to prove that the government acted with discriminatory intent in its siting and permitting decisions.

This Note argues that Pennsylvania’s Environmental Rights Amendment provides an …

Counting Carbon: Forward-Looking Analysis Of Decarbonization, Ryan Thomas Trahan

UC Law Environmental Journal

Policy analysis primarily looks backward to solve problems of individual and public choice. Analysts often seek to derive and draw marginal curves from existing data to extrapolate observed relationships into the future. Indeed, the White House Council on Environmental Quality recently issued a proposed rule that would, among other things, codify the concepts underlying these tools for environmental matters, i.e., requiring the considered effects of a proposed action to be “reasonably foreseeable” and meet a “reasonably close causal relationship.” That proposal expresses a perspective with a long tradition, yet it presents a curious circumstance. Although marginal and statistical regression tools …

Cle Working Paper No. 3/2021--A Roof Over Our Stomachs: The Right To Housing In Canada And Its Implications For The Right To Food, Tasha Stansbury

Centre for Law and the Environment

In 2019, the Canadian government passed the National Housing Strategy Act, legislating for the first time a human right to housing in Canada. This was largely the result of pressure from housing advocates to align Canada’s legislation with the right to housing embedded in international human rights instruments. Despite similar efforts, food rights advocates have not had the same success in having the right to food recognized in Canadian law. This paper considers the question of whether, and how, food rights advocates can use the process of achieving a legislated right to housing as a model in pursuing the legislation …

Revitalizing Greenhouse Gas Permitting Inside A Biden Epa, Matt Haber, Seema Kakade

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Environmental Enforceability, Seema Kakade

Faculty Scholarship

There are great expectations for a resurgence in federal environmental enforcement in a Biden-led federal government. Indeed, federal environmental enforcement suffered serious blows during the Trump Administration, particularly at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), including large cuts in the budget for enforcement and reversals of key enforcement policies. Yet, while important to repair the damage, truly strengthening federal environmental enforcement will require more. This Article highlights the need for greater attention to the multiple hurdles that plague environmental enforcement. In doing so it makes three contributions to the literature. First, it asserts that even though environmental statutes, regulations, and guidance …

Protecting Third Parties In Contracts, Kishanthi Parella

Scholarly Articles

Corporations routinely impose externalities on a broad range of non-shareholders, as illustrated by several unsuccessful lawsuits against corporations involving forced labor, human trafficking, child labor, and environmental harms in global supply chains. Lack of legal accountability subsequently translates into low legal risk for corporate misconduct, which reduces the likelihood of prevention. Corporate misconduct toward non-shareholders arises from a fundamental inconsistency within contract law regarding the status of third parties: On the one hand, we know that it takes a community to contract. Contracting parties often rely on multiple third parties—not signatories to the contract—to play important roles in facilitating exchange, …

Locked Up In The Eye Of The Storm: A Case For Heightened Legal Protections For Incarcerated People During Hurricanes, Maya Habash

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

The Lack Of Regulation In Preventing Greenwashing Of Cosmetics In The U.S., Alexa Riccolo

Journal of Legislation

If you walked through your local grocery or beauty store today, there is no doubt that you would be bombarded with thousands of different products. You may also observe that many labels accompanying these products utilize terms such as “organic,” “natural,” or “green” in their marketing efforts. Most consumers look to these labels and trust that the products are better for their health and the environment. In a recent study, over 80% of millennials believe that purchasing ecofriendly products not only improves their quality of life, but 75% of millennials are actively looking to make greener changes in their homes …

How The Safe Drinking Water Act & The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, And Liability Act Fail Emerging Contaminants: A Per- And Polyfluoralkyl Substances (Pfas) Case Study, Carly Johnson

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Political Accountability And Judicial Review In The Context Of Climate Change Regulation, Leah Vasarhelyi

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Protecting Cultural Heritage By Recourse To International Environmental Law: Chinese Stances On Faultless State Liability, Riccardo Vecellio Segate

UC Law Environmental Journal

Several international policy documents define the environment as made of “natural heritage” and “cultural heritage” together, along the lines of concepts such as “biosphere” or “ecosystem” which have been introduced relatively recently to define the complexity of humanenvironment interactions. Nevertheless, distinguishing natural heritage from the cultural one helps analyse situations where damage inflicted to the former negatively impacts the latter. In fact, cultural heritage sits under siege worldwide due to polluting activities and environmental degradation, which are causing irreparable damage to—or even the disappearance of— valuable expressions of civilisations’ legacy. Most damages are transboundary, thereby calling into question bilateral forms …

The Glass Is Half Full But Contaminated: An Analysis Of The United States’ Financial Investment In The Drinking Water Infrastructure System, Maya Marshall

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

The Legal And Administrative Risks Of Climate Regulation, Jonathan Adler

Faculty Publications

Dramatic and rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are necessary to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) at acceptable levels. Prioritizing federal environmental regulation as the primary means of achieving these goals may be a strategic mistake. Regulatory mandates, particularly if based upon existing statutory authority, will be vulnerable to legal attack, obstruction, and delay. Climate legislation can reduce the legal risks and accelerate the rate of policy implementation, but only on the margin. Adopting regulatory controls, sector-by-sector, technology-by-technology will be immensely resource intensive for the EPA and other federal agencies. Even with authorizing legislation, federal regulatory strategies may …

“Forgotten” By The Clean Water Act: The Anacostia River’S Evolving Environmental Justice Problems, Madeleine Dwyer

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Colorado Environmental Law Journal

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Central Banks And Climate Change, Christina P. Skinner

Vanderbilt Law Review

Central banks are increasingly called upon to address climate change. Proposals for central bank action on climate change range from programs of “green” quantitative easing to increases in risk-based capital requirements meant to deter banks from lending to climate-unfriendly business. Politicians and academics alike have urged climate risk as both macroeconomic and financial stability risk. Relative to counterparts abroad, the U.S. central bank—-the Federal Reserve—-has been more measured in its response.

This Article offers a legal explanation why. It urges that, despite the substantive importance of climate change, the U.S. Federal Reserve presently has relatively limited legal authority to address …

A Right Of Ethical Consideration For Non-Human Animals, Michael Ray Harris

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.