Environmental Law Commons^™

Los Recursos Naturales De Alto Valor: ¿Una Bendición O Una Maldición Para La Paz?, Päivi Lujala, Siri Aas Rustad

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Dejarles En Bancarrota A Los Saqueadores De Paz: ¿Cuál Es El Rol De Las Fuerzas De Paz De La Onu?, Philippe Le Billon

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Nota Del Los Editores, Veronica Kennedy, Jocelyn Rivera

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Faculty Profiles, David Newman

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Coral Reefs In The Philippines, Maggie Parks

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Practitioner's Corner: Ken Markowitz On Serving As An Environmental Advocate, Kimberly Righter

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

2001 Supreme Court Redux, Mary Stevens

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Next Verse, Same As The First: Inadequacies In The Government's Legal Approach Toward Biotechnology, Kimberly Righter

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Implementing Kyoto, Glenn Wiser

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Overcoming Legal And Institutional Barriers To The Implementation Of Innovative Environmental Technologies, David Strifling, Walter Mcdonald, Hannah Hathaway, Joe Naughton

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

This paper examines the possible reasons that stormwater management system operators (typically municipalities) have generally been reluctant to adopt RTC technology.

Our interdisciplinary team of law faculty, engineering faculty, and graduate students from both disciplines studied dozens of examples involving RTC implementation in the United States and abroad. We also examined the literature detailing institutional barriers to RTC innovation. Finally, we reviewed numerous legal decisions related to municipal liability for stormwater management (or mismanagement).

From this foundation, we distilled several institutional and legal barriers that prevent municipalities from embracing this particular type of innovation. The paper suggests a variety of …

The Wild And Scenic Rivers Act At 50: Overlooked Watershed Protection, Michael C. Blumm, Max M. Yoklic

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (WSRA) marked its fiftieth anniversary in 2018 without much fanfare. The WSRA has been somewhat overshadowed by the Wilderness Act, which preceded it by four years, and by the National Environmental Policy Act and the pollution control statutes which followed in the 1970s. But the WSRA was a significant conservation achievement, has now extended its protections to over 200 rivers, and has the potential to provide watershed protection to many more in the future. This article explains the statute and its implementation over the last half-century as well as a number of challenges to …

Customary Law Of Indigenous Communities: Making Space On The Global Environmental Stage, Melissa L. Tatum

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

The high stakes often involved in controversies regarding who owns valuable natural resources and who has the authority to regulate environmental contaminants have resulted in fierce legal battles and struggles to establish and define international principles of law. Grand theoretical debates have played out on the international stage regarding the principle of free, prior, and informed consent and the legal contours of corporate social responsibility. Meanwhile, often under the radar, Indigenous people around the world have worked to create a sustained niche for their community and culture in the face of exploitation and environmental devastation at the hands of the …

A Review Of Sierra Leone’S Mines And Minerals Act, Tehtena Mebratu-Tsegaye, Perrine Toledano, Sophie Thomashausen

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

With the support of Oxfam, the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment reviewed select provisions in the Mines and Minerals Act 2009 and corresponding policy statements from the Minerals Policy 2018 to provide recommendations for how to best align the anticipated new mining law with international best practice. The 2009 law was reviewed with a focus on the following topics:

• Fiscal regime;
• Climate change;
• Access to and use of land;
• Community consultations and participation;
• Human rights; and
• Community development agreements.

The policy brief aims to support the Government of Sierra Leone in the ongoing law reform process.

Preview—United States Forest Service V. Cowpasture River Preservation Association: Can The Pipeline Cross The Trail?, Alizabeth Bronsdon

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The Supreme Court of the United States will hear oral argument in this matter on Monday, February 24, 2020, at 10 a.m. in the Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C. Anthony Yang, Assistant to the Solicitor General, will likely argue for the United States. In a divided oral argument, Paul D. Clement will likely appear for Atlantic Coast Pipeline, LLC, the petitioner in consolidated case No. 18-1587, Atlantic Coast Pipeline, LLC v. Cowpasture River Preservation Association. Michael K. Kellogg will likely appear for the Respondents.

Moat Mentality: Onshore And Offshore Approaches To Wind Waking, K.K. Duvivier, Brendan Mooney

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Wind energy developers are becoming increasingly aware of the dam- aging impact of wakes from turbines. To deal with the issue on land, many terrestrial developers have adopted a “moat mentality,” creating buffer zones around their wind plants1 to protect them from neighboring wind de- velopments. While these “moats” may protect the investment of a partic- ular wind developer, they render large areas that could be generating elec- tricity into unproductive waste zones. US offshore wind development is in its nascence. This article will explore ways that offshore wind developers are addressing waking issues and whether they can find more …

Preparing Legal Frameworks For Environmental Disasters: Practical Considerations For Host States, Brooke Guven, Perrine Toledano, Lise Johnson

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Projects in the extractives sector carry risks of lasting, and sometimes irreversible, damage to the environment. Nonetheless, these projects are important for accelerating the economic development of host countries. Governments seeking to mitigate the adverse effects of foreign investment often face pushback from investors that are unwilling to change their practices in order to avert environmental disaster. This report sets forth certain steps that host-governments can take during the pre-investment, operation, and enforcement phases of extractives projects to provide financial and other protection in the context of environmental disasters associated with private sector investments.

Upon comparative review of five Case …

Safe & Environmentally Sound Recycling Of Ships: A Stocktaking Of The Current State Of International Law, Ishtiaque Ahmed

Fordham Environmental Law Review

Ship-breaking is one of the most dangerous occupations in the world and widely known as a pollution-heavy industry. This industry is currently concentrated primarily in three South Asian developing countries, namely Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Ensuring the safe and environmentally sound recycling of ships remains a global concern. There are many international regulations which apply to the activities of ship-breaking, but none of them address the issue in a comprehensive manner. The most relevant international instrument governing ship recycling, the 2009 Hong Kong Convention remains unenforceable due to non-ratification by the chief ship recycling states. The only enforceable international instrument …

Debunking The Myths Behind The Nepa Review Process, John C. Ruple, Heather Tanana

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires major federal actions that significantly affect the quality of the human environment to undergo an environmental review prior to federal authorization or funding. The decision to license or permit a project on federal lands is generally considered a major federal action subject to NEPA review. NEPA’s critics allege that the review process delays federal decision making, unduly impedes development, and results in excessive litigation. These claims, however, are not supported by empirical evidence. Using quantitative analyses we challenge four pervasive myths about NEPA compliance and litigation, and we argue that efforts to “streamline” …

The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem Revisited: Law. Science, And The Pursuit Of Ecosystem Management In An Iconic Landscape, Robert B. Keiter

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Thirty years ago, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) concept and ecosystem management surfaced as key to preserving this legally fragmented region’s public lands and wildlife in the face of mounting development pressures. Yellowstone’s grizzly bears were in sharp decline and wolves were absent from the landscape, while bison and elk management issues festered. The GYE’s national forest lands were subject to extensive logging, energy leasing, and other commercial activities that cumulatively threatened the region’s ecological integrity. In the face of extreme jurisdictional complexity and a strong commitment to agency discretion, a high-profile federal “Vision” effort to improve and better coordinate …

Electric Utility Alignment With The Sdgs & The Paris Climate Agreement, Perrine Toledano, Aniket Shah, Nicolas Maennling, Ryan J. Lasnick

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

The 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda poses a unique and critical challenge to the energy sector: how to scale access to clean energy to power sustainable, economic development for a growing population, while simultaneously decarbonizing global energy supply. Expanding access to clean energy will play a crucial role in achieving nearly every one of the Sustainable Development Goals, including those related to agricultural production, health outcomes, educational performance, water systems, access to infrastructure, and reducing inequalities. However, practices by some actors in the energy sector, and continued over-reliance on greenhouse gas-intensive fossil fuels also undermine global efforts to mitigate climate change …

When Losses Are Too Big: Evaluating The Economic Loss Doctrine In California, John T. Nockleby

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

The pure economic loss doctrine is a rule developed by common law courts to shield a defendant from exposure to negligence suits where a party has not suffered physical injury or property damage, and the only losses someone suffers are economic in nature—such as lost profits or wages. Most recently, the California Supreme Court evaluated whether the doctrine should be applied in a case involving a massive environmental disaster, holding that the doctrine shielded a utility from liability for the economic losses to neighboring businesses caused by its putative negligence.

In October of 2015, a huge underground natural gas storage …

A Framework For Assessing The Impact Of Private Climate Governance, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Jonathan M. Gilligan

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The growing sense of urgency by the public for action to address climate change stands in stark contrast to the slow pace and limited accomplishments of national and international institutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Political institutions face significant structural barriers to taking strong and rapid action to cut emissions, but private environmental governance has potential to avoid those barriers and achieve rapid emissions reductions. It appears unlikely that private governance alone can reduce emissions enough to stabilize the climate, but it does have the potential to reduce emissions sufficiently and quickly enough to buy time for enacting more comprehensive …

Trump Administration Makes A Splash: The Altered Clean Water Act's Rippling Effect On State And Federal Water Regulation, Brian W. Blomain

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

The Sound Of Freedom At Naval Air Station Whidbey: Environmental Impact Review Under The National Historic Preservation Act And National Environmental Policy Act, James K. Kelly

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Will The River Ever Get A Chance To Speak? Standing Up For The Legal Rights Of Nature, Caroline Mcdonough

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

We Didn't Start The Fire…Did We? Analyzing Why California Cannot Seem To Extinguish Its Worsening Wildfire Problem, Rizzlyn Terri M. Melo

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

High Time To Go Green: Environmental Impact Of Marijuana Legalization, Kahn R. Wiedis

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Montana Environmental Information Center V. Department Of Environmental Quality, Anthony P. Reed

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The DEQ renewed a 1999 MPDES Permit on September 14, 2012 that allowed Western Energy Company to discharge pollutants from the Rosebud Mine into streams. Environmental groups MEIC and the Sierra Club sued, arguing this violated both the Montana Water Quality Act and federal Clean Water Act because the DEQ’s interpretation of its own regulations that exempted waters with ephemeral characteristics from water quality standards was arbitrary and capricious. The district court agreed, but the Montana Supreme Court reversed. It held the DEQ’s interpretation was lawful and remanded for further fact finding to assess how the DEQ applied the interpretation …

We Can Fight Climate Change With The Army We Have, Michael A. Quirke

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Disunity Among The United States: Navigating Net-Metering Without Getting Electrocuted, Aundene Szmolyan

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

As it stands, the progress towards fighting climate change at the national level is in disarray, and there is a complete disunity of direction and goals at the state level. This paper highlights the disunity by providing a case study of the different regulations, which affect the solar power industry across all fifty states, with a particular focus paid to net metering regulations. Through an examination of this industry, three startling conclusions will emerge. First, investor-owned utilities apply intense political pressure through lobbying efforts to maintain the current status quo of the utility industry’s economic model, which results in the …