Environmental Law Commons^™

“Small” Voices, Big Wins: Analyzing Remedies In Children’S Climate Cases, Maria Antonia Tigre

Washington and Lee Law Review

Children’s climate litigation has emerged as a powerful tool to address the climate crisis, with young plaintiffs around the world taking governments and corporations to court to demand climate action. This Article examines successful cases—those in which relief sought by the applicants was fully or partially granted—across five continents, providing an “around the world” perspective on the evolution and impact of youth-led climate litigation. Focusing on landmark cases in Australia, Colombia, South Africa, South Korea, and the United States, this analysis highlights the arguments presented by young plaintiffs and the judicial reasoning that supported the relief granted. Through a comparative …

Varied Legal Parameters Shape Fiduciaries’ Ability To Act On Climate Risk, Cynthia Hanawalt, Andy Fitch

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Commentators who advocate either for or against corporate and asset managers addressing climate risks often refer to “fiduciary duty” as justification for their claims. Yet no field of corporate or asset management actually imposes one standalone fiduciary duty. Nor do any two business-law fields impose the same fiduciary regime. Instead, these fields adopt differing arrays of fiduciary duties to address various types of relationships, comprising a different blend of affirmative obligations and/or prohibitions, assessed with different degrees of strictness by enforcers and courts. As a result, overgeneralizations about fiduciaries’ duty in all business-law contexts tend to further obscure what a …

The Moral Boundary Of The Firm, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Jane E. Miller, Margaret Blair, Jonathan M. Gilligan

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Scholars have wrestled with the legal boundary of the firm for generations. The legal boundary limits the extent to which a firm can be held liable for the torts, contractual, and regulatory obligations of other corporations. The existence of a legal boundary suggests that the law limits incentives for firms to control the climate and other environmental harms caused by their corporate suppliers. Yet recent research demonstrates that many of the largest corporations impose environmental requirements on their suppliers that exceed the legal requirements imposed on these suppliers. This suggests that some factors other than the threat of liability may …

Improving Distributional Analysis In Regulatory Evaluation: An Assessment Of The 2023 Circular A-4, W. Kip Viscusi, A. Fraas, John D. Graham, Kerry Krutilla, Randall Lutter, Jason F. Shogren

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The November 2023 revision to OMB Circular A-4 expands upon past guidance on distributional assessment in regulatory impact analysis and adds new options for conducting it, such as the use of distributional weights based on the marginal utility of income. This note explores the implications of key changes suggested in the 2023 guidelines and addresses modeling and data challenges that could yield recommendations for future revisions. We suggest that progress in improving distributional assessment in regulatory impact analysis is most likely if federal agencies collaborate with the National Science Foundation to produce model distributional analyses for different types of regulations.

Analysis Of Environmental Law Scholarship 2023-2024, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Chloe C. Allen, Linda K. Breggin, Sydney C. Schoonover

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review (ELPAR) is published by the Environmental Law Institute’s (ELI’s) Environmental Law Reporter in partnership with Vanderbilt University Law School. ELPAR provides a forum for the presentation and discussion of some of the most creative and feasible environmental law and policy proposals from the legal academic literature each year. The articles that are considered include all environmental law articles published in select law journals during the previous academic year. The law journal articles that are republished and discussed are selected by Vanderbilt University Law School students with input from their course instructors and an …

The Potential And Perils Of Financializing Climate Risk Governance: Insights For Urban Policymakers, Emma Colven, Madison Condon, Kelly Hereid, Savannah Cox

Faculty Scholarship

In this roundtable discussion, Savannah Cox speaks with three experts about the financialization of climate risk governance: Kelly Hereid, a climate scientist at Liberty Mutual, Madison Condon, an associate professor at Boston University School of Law, and Emma Colven, a lecturer in risk, environment, and society at King’s College London. In this conversation that ranges from Miami to Jakarta, Savannah, Kelly, Madison, and Emma discuss the legal, political, and technical challenges relating to financialized climate risk governance: on one hand, the rise of insurance companies and rating agencies as de facto “risk assessors” and, on the other hand, the proliferation …

Methane Removal Under The Paris Agreement, Romany M. Webb

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

In the 2015 Paris Agreement, the international community agreed to “strengthen the global response to climate change” by limiting the “increase in global average temperatures to well below" 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and ideally to 1.5 degrees Celsius. As recognized in the Agreement, to stay within these limits, global greenhouse gas emissions must be rapidly reduced, “so as to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century” — a situation commonly described as “net zero.” The need to reach net zero has prompted growing …

Annual Review Of Seqra Cases And Developments, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

The New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) turns 50 this year. The statute has changed only a little in the last half century, but it continues to be a font of litigation. The courts decided 43 cases under SEQRA in 2024.

Implementation of SEQRA is also raising policy issues. The legislature is considering whether to amend SEQRA to speed up affordable housing projects, and the State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is drafting regulations concerning the role SEQRA should play in advancing environmental justice.

A constant theme is the tension between thoroughly studying important project impacts and involving …

Editors And Staff Members

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Letter From The Editors

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Property Clause Power Play: The Blm's Conservation Rule And Loper Bright, Meridian S. Wappett, Sandra B. Zellmer

Public Land & Resources Law Review

This article examines the implications of Loper Bright on public land management through rulemaking. Part II provides a comprehensive overview of the case, its holding, and its potential ramifications. Part III delves into the history of the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), to illuminate the evolution and underlying rationale for agency deference. Part IV analyzes the constitutional framework underpinning the BLM’s statutory authority, rooted primarily in the Property Clause, which delegates the task of making “needful” rules governing public lands to Congress and to federal land management agencies. Finally, Part V argues that the Rule is valid, whether a reviewing court …

A Most Essential Power: The Case For Restoring Comprehensive Land Use Authority In Indian Country, Michelle Bryan

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Part I of this article provides a brief overview of allotment and its lingering jurisdictional quagmire on impacted reservations. Stepping outside of Indian Country, Part II then outlines the U.S. Supreme Court’s longstanding recognition of sweeping, area-wide government land use authority—authority it considers among the “most essential” and “least limitable.” The Court has never applied this established law when determining tribal sovereignty over land use. That application is long overdue.

Part III details how we arrived at this state of affairs—how tribes, despite starting with sovereign control over land use throughout their territories, experienced losses in that authority over time …

Water Knows No Boundaries: Tribal Jurisdiction Over Non-Indians' Off-Reservation Conduct That Threatens On-Reservation Tribal Water Resources, Wesley J. Furlong, Lori E. Blumenthal

Public Land & Resources Law Review

This Article begins by discussing Manoomin and Sauk-Suiattle, orienting the reader to how these complicated jurisdictional issues have been addressed by Tribal courts. Next, this Article sets forth the current framework under Montana and Merrion for determining the extent of Tribal civil jurisdiction over non-Indians. Next, this Article examines the caselaw establishing Tribal Nations’ inherent sovereign authority to exercise civil jurisdiction over non-Indian activities and conduct occurring on-reservation that threaten or affect Tribal water resources and rights. Finally, this Article examines the caselaw that lays the groundwork for extending Tribal Nations’ civil jurisdiction over non-Indian activities and conduct occurring off-reservation …

Treaty Justice: Charles Wilkinson's Homage To The Boldt Decision, Michael C. Blumm

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Charles Wilkinson, a beloved teacher, author, and advisor, gave his readers perhaps his most personal gift in Treaty Justice: The Northwest Tribes, the Boldt Decision, and the Recognition of Fishing Rights (U. Washington Press, 2024). Wilkinson finished the manuscript just a week before his unexpected death, at age 81, in 2023. The book is a blend of personal memoirs of countless encounters of people involved in the seminal Boldt decision–which revolutionized treaty fishing rights– and its aftermath, and part of legal history by an analyst who was acutely sensitive to the vagaries of both law and history. We are fortunate …

Abandoning The Iron Horse: Railroad Rights-Of-Way And The Implied Doctrine Of Reverter On Indian Reservations, Arthur B. Macomber

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Land title issues on Indian Reservations are notoriously but unnecessarily complex. Unsettled land titles and the resulting fragile land ownership status on Indian Reservations are well-known factors impeding productive land uses, the cure of environmental degradation, and Indian sovereignty, ownership, and control over sustainable land uses. Some lawsuits even question the existence of a Reservation itself. Land titles to many parcels on Indian Reservations have been split into thousands of owners. Using existing law and principles of equity, abandoned Reservation rights-of-way of many types do not have to sit unused and economically unproductive. Future lawsuits and other wasteful societal friction …

Powering Progress: How Ferc Order 2023'S Cluster Study Process Aims To Revolutionize Grid Interconnection, Lowell J. Chandler

Public Land & Resources Law Review

This Article analyzes Order 2023’s cornerstone reform: the replacement of the traditional first-come, first-served serial queue process with a more sophisticated first-ready, first-served cluster study approach. The Article also provides a basic introduction to utility regulation in the United States. While Order 2023’s change promises to revolutionize grid interconnection, the Article also considers whether additional reforms may be necessary to fully realize FERC’s vision of an efficient, equitable interconnection process.

Perizinan Usaha Wisata Kawasan Karst Gunung Sewu: Diskresi Penataan Ruang Dan Ancaman Lingkungan Hidup, Siti Rahma Novikasari, Aditya Khrisna Murti

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

The Gunung Sewu Karst Area is located in Gunungkidul, Wonogiri, and Pacitan Regencies. It has a unique geological formation so it was designated as a Global Geopark by the United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2015. However, the Gunungkidul Regional Government is targeting the regional economy condition by proposing to reduce the number of karst landscape area and granting tourism business permits. These actions had serious impacts on geological, hydrological and ecological conditions. Therefore, this study aims to examine: 1) How is the conformity between tourism business permits and spatial planning provisions for the karst area? 2) …

Living Heritage, Resilience And Ethically Informed Infrastructures In Malawi, Martha B. Lerski, Frank Puluputu Mwale

Publications and Research

Rooted in a rural community’s needs, this paper explores how historically, and ethically informed infrastructures can support community engagement towards identification, documentation, and dissemination of local, traditional, and indigenous knowledge relating to climate change. The paper examines climate adaptation and sustainability issues through the lenses of community organizing and Library & Information Science best practices. It draws on a growing body of literature identifying a role for expanded epistemological and subject discipline perspectives. While the impacts of climate on material culture are increasingly recognized, intangible, and biocultural heritage have not received as much attention. Living heritage traditions and knowledge systems …

A Tragedy Of Incommensurability: Indigenous Rights And The Limits Of Human Rights Law, Zeina Ali

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the tragedy of incommensurability between indigenous rights and international human rights law. Despite the emergence of frameworks like the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), indigenous calls for sovereignty remain fundamentally unintelligible within a liberal order structured to preserve settler-state legitimacy. Tracing the historical and theoretical evolution of indigenous advocacy, this study critiques the strategic shift from demands for self-determination to claims of cultural rights. It argues that this shift offers no real alternative: self-determination and cultural rights are functionally equivalent, as both are ultimately filtered through legal and political frameworks that cannot …