Environmental Law Commons^™

Indigenous Influence On The Rights Of Nature Movement, Vanessa Racehorse

Faculty Scholarship

The growing recognition of the rights of nature is a blend of both modern conservation efforts and principles reflected in traditional Indigenous stewardship that should be an essential component of the discourse around environmental justice. This article provides an overview of the laws that invoke the rights of nature that Indigenous perspectives and practices regarding environmental preservation have influenced. This discussion pays particular attention to the White Earth Band of Ojibwe's "Rights of Manoomin" law and Manoomin v. Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (White Earth Band of Ojibwe Tribal Ct. 2021), the first rights of nature case filed in a …

Pricing Solar Development Options, Denis Maguire

Michigan Law Review Online

Since the 1980s, each decade has been warmer than the last. The nine years from 2014 through 2022 were the nine warmest years on record. The results of these temperature trends are familiar at this point: Ice sheets are shrinking. Glaciers are retreating at an increasing rate. Sea levels are rising. Ocean acidification is intensifying. As climate change progresses, the Earth will experience worse flooding, harsher droughts, and more severe hurricanes. Yet, there is still time to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change— time to repair the roof.

Eco-Necrotourism And Public Land Management: Last Chance Tourism, Ecological Grief, And The World’S Disappearing Natural Wonders, Robin Kundis Craig, Katrina F. Kuh

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Last Chance Tourism. 500 Places to See Before They Disappear. 100 Places to Go Before They Disappear. As these (real) book titles attest, climate change, often in combination with loss of biodiversity, has created a new kind of ecotourism, which we term eco-necrotourism--the desire to see natural wonders and rare species before they are lost or transformed forever. As a scholarly topic, eco-necrotourism is a small facet of an emerging necessity for climate change law and policy: the need for planners, managers, lawmakers, and policy writers to consider human psychological responses to climate change and its impacts. However, those responses …

Itlos Advisory Opinion On Climate Change: Summary Of Briefs And Statements Submitted To The Tribunal, Maria Antonia Tigre, Korey Silverman-Roati

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

This report provides a summary of the briefs and statements submitted to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in response to the Co-Chairs of Commission of Small Island States (COSIS)’ request for an advisory opinion on climate change-related legal questions. The central issue before the ITLOS is whether State Parties to UNCLOS have specific obligations regarding the prevention, reduction, and control of marine environmental pollution stemming from climate change, as well as the protection and preservation of the marine environment concerning climate change impacts. While States and civil society organizations have put forward a variety of …

Environmental (In)Justice: Evaluating The Factors That Led To The Jackson Water Crisis & Proposing A Solution For Environmental Justice In Mississippi, Emily Brennan

MC Law Review

40,000. That is the number of residents that were left without potable water for nearly five weeks during Jackson, Mississippi’s February 2021 water crisis. An unusual cold front rolled through, freezing plant equipment, bursting water pipes, and causing many in Jackson to lose access to running water. This was not, however, the first time that Jackson residents had endured hardships with regard to their drinking water—it was just the first time that national attention turned to, and has seemed to remain on, Mississippi’s capital city. Those in Jackson are all too familiar with water pipes bursting, low water pressure, boil …

Island Musings: A Selective Bibliography Of Early Key West, Robin Schard

Articles

This bibliography identifes and describes 75 works that focus on Key West during its first 50 years (1821-71) as a U.S. possession. General, legal, and popular culture materials are included.

Table Of Contents (V. 48, No. 1)

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Circularity In Mineral And Renewable Energy Value Chains: Overview Of Technology, Policy, And Finance Aspects, Perrine Toledano, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Jack Arnold

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

The mineral-intensive global energy transition and the increasing material needs of a growing population will exacerbate mining’s footprint on the planet, under current linear economy conditions. Responsible primary production of minerals and metals needs to be combined with circular economy approaches. CCSI’s report, Circularity in Mineral and Renewable Energy Value Chains: Overview of Technology, Policy, and Finance Aspects, examines existing conditions as well as reforms needed to enable global circularity in the mineral value chains of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and wind turbines, zeroing in on four key materials: aluminum, copper products, silicon, and steel. The project was supported by …

Turning The Tide: How To Harness The Americas Partnership For Economic Prosperity To Deliver An Isds-Free Americas, Daniel Rangel, Lori Wallach, Ladan Mehranvar, Alvaro Santos, Mario Osorio

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

During the Summit of the Americas in June 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden announced the launch of negotiations for an Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP). The Biden administration hopes this initiative can rebuild relationships with countries in the region by increasing cooperation to address economic development and inequality, climate, and other challenges affecting the entire Western Hemisphere. To fulfill this vision and its associated goals, the participating countries must address the severe challenges posed by the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) regime and its escalating threats to the transition to a post-carbon society and the establishment of resilient public health …

Ghg Accounting For Low-Emissions Branded Steel And Aluminum Products, John Biberman, Perrine Toledano, Chloe Zhou

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Iron, steel, and aluminum products are major sources of GHG emissions, and these emissions have traditionally been hard to abate. As of 2020, the iron and steel and the aluminum industries accounted for 7% and 3% of global GHG emissions respectively. In recent years, demand has increased substantially for “green” iron, steel, and aluminum products which can allow purchasing companies to reduce their reported upstream scope 3 GHG emissions. In response to increased demand, companies in these industries have made an expanding array of green products available to customers.

“GHG Accounting for Low-emissions Branded Steel and Aluminum Products,” draws from …

The Legal Case For Equity In Local Climate Action Planning, Amy E. Turner

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Over the last half decade, local climate action plans have regularly come to incorporate considerations of racial and socioeconomic equity, recognizing the ways in which low-income communities and communities of color experience earlier and worse consequences from global warming, and these communities are also at risk of being harmed by policies meant to address climate change. Until now, however, the discourse on equity in climate action planning has largely pertained to policy; it acknowledges the disproportionate harm that certain communities experience as a result of climate change and policies to address climate change, and suggests policy tools that can address …

Attaining The Right To Environment Through Environmental Impact Assessment, Umair Saleem

Dissertations & Theses

The thesis discusses the interconnection between the right to environment and environmental impact assessment (EIA), elaborating their depth and collective potential to effectively address most – if not all – of the complex and interconnected environmental challenges.

Firstly, the thesis explores the evolution of the environmental laws from the year 1900 and provides a unifying synthesis of the diverse environmental components, obligations, rights, and principles within international, regional, and national environmental laws. Secondly, it identifies the right to environment as a unifying and holistic right that integrates these environmental concepts and encapsulates comprehensive environmental protection. Thirdly, it provides a comparison …

Constitutional Resilience, Shannon M. Roesler

Washington and Lee Law Review

Since the New Deal era, our system of constitutional governance has relied on expansive federal authority to regulate economic and social problems of national scale. Throughout the twentieth century, Congress passed ambitious federal statutes designed to address these problems. In doing so, it often enlisted states as regulatory partners—creating a system of shared governance that underpins major environmental statutes, such as the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. These governance structures remain important today as we seek to adapt our laws and institutions to the serious disruptions of climate change. But recent Supreme Court decisions challenge this long-established …

Regulating Co2 Emissions Post-West Virginia V. Environmental Protection Agency, Rebecca J. Davis, Justin Blount

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

In West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, the Supreme Court expressly adopted the major questions doctrine and used it to invalidate the Clean Power Plan, a rule intended to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. This opinion has been controversial and has left many commentators concerned that it may hamper the ability of administrative agencies to aggressively and flexibly regulate.

This Article analyzes this opinion and the impact it may have on ongoing efforts to regulate carbon dioxide emissions at the federal level. It then examines economic theory underpinning environmental regulation, developing technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, …

To Have And To Be: An International Human Right To Clean, Healthy, And Sustainable Environment, Deepa Badrinarayana

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

In July 2022, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 76/300 (“the Resolution”)—affirming a human right to clean, healthy, and sustainable environment (“environmental human rights”). The Resolution essentially affirms a linkage between environmental human rights and “other rights and existing international law,” and “calls upon States, international organizations, business enterprises and other relevant stakeholders to adopt policies, to enhance international cooperation, strengthen capacity-building and continue to share good practices,” to achieve environmental human rights.

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This Article offers a glass half-full perspective on the Resolution, with the caveat that the glass could rapidly become empty unless the right is internalized …

Fueling A Hydrogen Boom: Federal And State Policies For Promoting Green Hydrogen, Kayna Lantz, Luke Sower

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

“Green” hydrogen produced from renewable energy sources could play a valuable role in the energy transition. Among other things, green hydrogen’s potential as a source of carbon-free, long-term energy storage could help the nation address the intermittency-related challenges associated with growing reliance on wind and solar power. Green hydrogen also has promise as an energy-dense fuel for industries that are difficult to electrify, such as long-haul transportation and steel and fertilizer manufacturing. Recent federal actions have provided some initial government support for green hydrogen technologies, but significant policy gaps remain. States and the federal government could do much more to …

Disaster Districts: Mid-Decade Redistricting In The Face Of Climate Change, J. Gray Whitsett

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

This Note argues that judicial and legislative efforts to constrain redistricting should incorporate legal stopgaps to allow for mid-decade redistricting in the wake of disasters that result in significant population displacement. Part I reviews how climate change is exacerbating natural and manmade disasters and the potential for these disasters to cause population displacement, particularly in the context of urbanization. Part II provides an overview of the typical redistricting process and requirements for electoral districts. It also details the debate over mid-decade redistricting, including efforts to prevent it. Part III proposes preconditions for “emergency redistricting” that judges and legislators should consider …

Suffering In Search Of A Methodological Frame: Interdisciplinarity In The Context Of The Gendered Impact Of Climate Migration, Becky Jacobs

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

In this essay, the author places the gendered impact of climate migration within the methodological frame of scholars such as geographers Sylvia Winters and Doreen Massey, historian Achille Mbembe, philosopher Gilles Deleuze, philosopher and psychoanalyst Félix Guattari, and anthropologist Tim Ingold. The author discusses the importance of interdisciplinarity and describes the gender-specific risks related to climate displacement before delving into theory.

Preparing For The Flood: Virginia Local Governments' Stormwater Management Liability, James E. Davidson

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

This Note explains that modern interpretations of Virginia Code § 15.2-970 have made Virginia municipalities immune to tort suits arising from the negligent maintenance of stormwater systems. Due to the Virginia Supreme Court’s holdings in Livingston v. Virginia Department of Transportation and other inverse condemnation suits, localities may be found liable when their stormwater management decisions cause property damage. However, following the Court’s holding in AGCS Marine Insurance Co. v. Arlington County, which prevented inverse condemnation claims arising from municipal negligence, residents are still unlikely to find legal redress for negligent stormwater management that results in property damage. Therefore, this …

Towards Effective Governance Of Marine Geoengineering In West Africa: Aligning With Global And Regional Best Practices, Abdul Hafez Mahamah

LLM Theses

The impacts of climate change have compelled humanity to produce innovative ways of counteracting this phenomenon. Marine geoengineering technologies are regarded as an avenue to forestall climate change. However, these technologies pose a danger to the environment and threaten the survival of living organisms and humanity. The deployment of these technologies could exacerbate the adverse impacts that climate change has on the environment. Using doctrinal, legal history, and comparative legal analysis, this thesis studies how West Africa can ensure the effective governance of marine geoengineering activities in the subregion. The study examines the global and selected regional governance regimes and …