Land Use Law Commons^™

Land Deals And The Law: Grievances, Human Rights, And Investor Protections, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Lise Johnson, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Land-based investments can create significant grievances for local individuals or communities, and host governments seeking to address those grievances must navigate a complicated landscape of legal obligations and pragmatic considerations. This briefing note, funded by UK aid from the Department for International Development, focuses on practical solutions for governments confronting grievances that arise from large-scale investments in agricultural or forestry projects. It accompanies a more in depth report on similar issues, entitled "Land Deal Dilemmas: Grievances, Human rights, and Investor Protections."

The briefing note considers such solutions in the context of governments’ legal obligations, particularly those imposed by international investment …

Land Deal Dilemmas: Grievances, Human Rights, And Investor Protections, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Lise Johnson, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Land-based investments can create significant grievances for local individuals or communities, and host governments seeking to address those grievances must navigate a complicated landscape of legal obligations and pragmatic considerations. This report, funded by UK aid from the Department for International Development, focuses on practical solutions for governments confronting grievances that arise from large-scale investments in agricultural or forestry projects.

The report considers such solutions in the context of governments’ legal obligations, particularly those imposed by international investment law, international human rights law, and investor-state contracts. Understanding the implications of this diverse range of legal obligations is particularly important in …

Guide To Land Contracts: Agricultural Projects, International Senior Lawyers Project, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Agricultural investment contracts can be complex, with complicated provisions that are difficult to understand. This Guide provides explanations for a range of common provisions, and includes a Glossary of legal and technical terms. It assists non-lawyers in better understanding agricultural investment contracts, such as those available on the Open Land Contracts repository.

The Guide was prepared by International Senior Lawyers Project staff and volunteers in collaboration with the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment.

Transparency In Land-Based Investment: Key Questions And Next Steps, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Large-scale investments in agriculture and forestry are often shrouded in secrecy. In many cases, they are negotiated without the involvement of affected communities, approved through opaque decision-making procedures, and governed by legal agreements that are difficult both to access and to understand. This systemic lack of transparency impedes accountability and exacerbates ongoing disagreements about the real costs and benefits for investors, host countries, and their citizens.

Jointly authored by CCSI and the Open Contracting Partnership, this briefing note examines why contract disclosure and a contracting process that is open, accessible, and inclusive are important; what such transparency entails; and how …

Recommending Transparency In Land-Based Investment: A Summary Of Relevant Guidelines And Principles, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

An emerging consensus on the need for greater transparency in land-based investment is increasingly evident across various forums. This document consolidates recommendations regarding transparency featured in guidelines and principles published by international organizations, government agencies, and multilateral or multi-stakeholder groups. Viewed together, these recommendations offer insight on the evolving narrative on transparency in land-based investment, assist stakeholders in addressing the issue of transparency, and provide an informed starting point for further analysis.

Periodic Review In Natural Resource Contracts, Jacky Mandelbaum, Salli Anne Swartz, John Hauert

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Periodic contract review mechanisms, which are provisions in contracts that formally require parties to meet at particular intervals to review the terms of the contract, are mechanisms that may facilitate the process of negotiating contractual changes to accommodate changing circumstances over the term of extractive industries contracts. Through the review of existing extractive industries agreements, this article considers how such review mechanisms have been incorporated into existing contracts and the use of such mechanisms as a tool for maintaining good relationships between the parties. In addition, the article suggests a new approach to the drafting of these mechanisms by negotiating …

Emerging Practices In Community Development Agreements, Jennifer Loutit, Jacqueline Mandelbaum, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Community Development Agreements (CDAs) have the potential to facilitate the delivery of tangible benefits from large-scale investment projects, such as mines or forestry concessions, to affected persons and communities. To be effective, however, CDAs must be adapted to the local context, meaning that no single model agreement or process will be appropriate in every situation. Nonetheless, leading practices are emerging which can be required by governments, voluntarily adopted by companies, and demanded by communities. These practices are grounded in ensuring that all parties are sufficiently informed, capacitated, and prepared to engage in meaningful negotiations regarding how the investor’s operations should …

Location, Location, Mis-Location: How Local Land Use Restrictions Are Dulling Halfway Housing's Criminal Rehabilitation Potentia, Michael J. Mcgowan

Student Scholarship

Part I of this Article begins with a brief historical explanation of halfway houses as a model of criminal rehabilitation. Part II addresses why recidivism rates provide the most appropriate metric gauging halfway houses' success and how they apparently have failed to improve recidivism rates. Part III then delves into the body of scholarship that explains how an individual's likelihood of landing back behind bars is to some extent demonstrably tied to their location, meaning their surrounding cultural, economic, and criminogenic environment. Part IV discusses the sparse data on the sorts of neighborhoods where halfway houses ultimately end up and …

Thawing Out: The Role Of The Arctic Council Service In A Melting Arctic, Taylor J. Enos

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

With the changing natural and political climate of the Arctic, conflicts over resource extraction and navigation will become inevitable. Empowering an intergovernmental institution like the Arctic Council Service may be the only solution. This paper analyzes the importance and history of the Arctic as a political environment, which is prone to abuse in the very near future at the hands of Russia and the United States.

Climate Change Effects On Snow Conditions And The Human Rights Of Reindeer Herders, Stefan Kirchner

Pace Environmental Law Review

By ignoring the needs of indigenous livelihoods, traditional forms of land use that have long been sustainable, new forms of land use and the construction of infrastructure threaten the right of indigenous peoples to engage in traditional livelihoods. It is the aim of this article to analyze the rights of indigenous peoples in the context of primary and secondary effects of climate change. For the purposes of this paper, the term “primary effects” will be used to describe immediate effects of climate change. This includes temperatures which move around freezing instead of being solidly below freezing.

Primary effects of climate …

Come And “Take” It: Whooping Cranes, Texas Water Rights, Endangered Species Act Liability, And Reconciling Ecological Scientific Testimony Within The Context Of Proximate Causation, Brett A. Miller

Student Scholarship

Tension between science and the law is a pervading feature of Endangered Species Act (ESA) jurisprudence. Incorporating the scientific discipline of ecology within the legal landscape presents distinct challenges, particularly in comparison with more traditional laboratory sciences. Within the realm of Endangered Species Act liability, the intricacies of nature exacerbate already complicated links of causation, challenging the ability to prove violations of the “take” prohibition. Because uncertainties permeate scientists’ ability to understand complex ecosystem processes, courts should rely on the overarching practicality of common law principles when reviewing ecological testimony.

When evaluating claims that allege violations of the “take” prohibition, …

Resilience And Raisins: Partial Takings And Coastal Climate Change Adaptation, Joshua Ulan Galperin, Zaheer Tajani

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The increased need for government-driven coastal resilience projects will lead to a growing number of claims for “partial takings” of coastal property. Much attention has been paid to what actions constitute a partial taking, but there is less clarity about how to calculate just compensation for such takings, and when compensation should be offset by the value of benefits conferred to the property owner. While the U.S. Supreme Court has an analytically consistent line of cases on compensation for partial takings, it has repeatedly failed (most recently in Horne v. U.S. Department of Agriculture) to articulate a clear rule. The …

Emerging Practices In Community Development Agreements, Jennifer Loutit, Jacqueline Mandelbaum, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

A Community Development Agreement or CDA can be a vital mechanism for ensuring that local communities benefit from large-scale investment projects, such as mines or forestry concessions. In formalizing agreements between an investor and a project-affected community, CDAs set out how the benefits of an investment project will be shared with local communities. In some countries CDAs are required by domestic legislation; in others, they are entered into voluntarily. The most effective CDAs are also adapted to the local context, meaning that no single model agreement or process will be appropriate in every situation. Nonetheless, leading practices are emerging which …

Trends In Private Land Conservation: Increasing Complexity, Shifting Conservation Purposes And Allowable Private Land Uses, Jessica Owley, Adena R. Rissman

Journal Articles

The terrain of private-land conservation dealmaking is shifting. As the number of acres of private land protected for conservation increases, our understanding of what it means for a property to be "conserved" is shifting. We examined 269 conservation easements and conducted 73 interviews with land conservation organizations to investigate changes in private-land conservation in the United States. We hypothesized that since 2000, conservation easements have become more complex but less restrictive. Our analysis reveals shifts in what it means for private land to be "conserved." We found that conservation easements have indeed become more complex, with more purposes and terms …

Ahead Of The Curve: Promoting Land Tenure Security In Sub-Saharan Africa To Protect The Environment, Andrew R. Falk

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Second Chances For The Second City's Vacant Properties: An Analysis Of Chicago's Policy Approaches To Vacancy, Abandonment, & Blight, Elizabeth Butler

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Addressing the externalities of vacancy and blight is a major challenge for the Chicago metropolitan area. While neighborhoods on the South and West sides of Chicago struggle with blight, neglect, and abandonment, downtown Chicago and the northern neighborhoods and suburbs experience stronger market conditions. This crisis has amplified entrenched socioeconomic divisions and ultimately burdens the entire region by perpetuating a cycle of poverty, violence, and physical and social disorder that tarnish Chicago’s image.

This Note outlines Chicago’s vacant property challenge by discussing the history of urban decline in Chicago. It examines factors that led to a high level of vacant …

Newsroom: Goldstein On Militia Occupation, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Land Development & Commercial Real Estate Problems (Volume Ii): 2015-16, Morton G. Gross

Osgoode Course Casebooks

Course Number 5160

The Standing Rock Sioux Indians: An Inconvenience For Black Gold, Alina Yohannan

University of Baltimore Journal of Land and Development

The issue of the Native American (“Indian”) tribes’ rights to their lands started with the application of the European doctrine of discovery, continued with series of wars and population decimations, and finished with broken treaties and territorial occupations. After centuries of struggle for land and sovereignty, Indians still fight for their rights to the North American territories.

The lawsuit brought by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (“the Corps”) is the latest and most publicized in recent years. The Tribe’s main concerns are the passing of a major crude-oil pipeline (Dakota Access Pipeline, or …

Exciting Changes In Central Baltimore: Examining The Homewood Community Partners Initiative, Gillian Rathbone-Webber

University of Baltimore Journal of Land and Development

The Homewood Community Partners Initiative (HCPI) is one of the newest waves of development based in Baltimore.1 HCPI has a different approach to development than other economic development plans in Baltimore and, in comparison to some failed attempts in other areas of the City, it seems to be working. Baltimore has long suffered from blight, high rates of vacant buildings, and high crime. There have been many previous attempts to address and repair those issues with only some success. HCPI is attempting to mitigate all those issues by way of a community development agenda and a five-part plan.2 While the …