Ecofarming: A Realistic Vision For The Future Of Agriculture?,
2011
Stanford
Ecofarming: A Realistic Vision For The Future Of Agriculture?, Barton H. Thompson Jr.
UC Irvine Law Review
No abstract provided.
Electronic Contracts In Tanzania: An Appraisal Of The Legal Framework,
2011
St. Augustine University of Tanzania
Electronic Contracts In Tanzania: An Appraisal Of The Legal Framework, Daudi Mwita Nyamaka Mr.
Daudi Mwita Nyamaka Mr.
The concern of our study was to examine the legal basis for electronic contracts in Tanzania. The major problems that were being examined are; the ascertainment of e-contract terms and the other party in the contract with the focus to consent i.e. consensus ad idem requirements and capacity to contract. With the first problem, e-commerce involves e-contracts and the business community in Tanzania enters into contractual arrangements with external world via websites or email in which case the electronic environment is not suitable in Tanzania in terms of the laws and the technology. Messages sent via internet may be garbled …
Globalization And The Environment: Why All The Fuss?,
2011
Boston College Law School
Globalization And The Environment: Why All The Fuss?, David A. Wirth
David A. Wirth
The relationship between globalization and environmental policies presents more nuances than the popular paradigm of free trader versus self-serving protectionists, the familiar model of environmentalist battling greedy polluters, or the outmoded view of a progressive multilateral agenda juxtaposed against a parochial, inward-looking domestic one. This piece sets out a structural and analytical framework for addressing the major issues in the field -- including (1) unilateral trade-based measures to protect the environment; (2) science-based tests applied through trade agreements; (3) disciplines on foreign investment that may have a "chilling effect" on environmental regulation; and (4) the relationship between free trade agreements …
The Transatlantic Gmo Dispute Against The European Communities: Some Preliminary Thoughts,
2011
Boston College Law School
The Transatlantic Gmo Dispute Against The European Communities: Some Preliminary Thoughts, David A. Wirth
David A. Wirth
Any day now, a World Trade Organization panel is expected to rule in a dispute between the U.S. and the EU concerning market access for genetically-engineered foods and crops. This piece, written before the release of the WTO panel's report, analyzes novel systemic issues concerning the impact of WTO law on regulatory design, at both the national and international levels, that are raised by this dispute. These include (1) the application of WTO disciplines to regulatory schemes that require prior governmental approval to protect the environment and public health from newly-introduced products and substances; (2) the role of precaution as …
Legitimacy, Accountability, And Partnership: A Model For Advocacy On Third World Environmental Issues,
2011
Boston College Law School
Legitimacy, Accountability, And Partnership: A Model For Advocacy On Third World Environmental Issues, David A. Wirth
David A. Wirth
To date, there has been little effort to define the characteristics of responsible environmental reform efforts by private citizens and organizations in the United States on foreign environmental problems, such as the quality of foreign aid. Moreover, there have been virtually no attempts to identify a principled role for American lawyers in Third World environmental issues. This Essay will respond to these lacunae by articulating a new approach to advocacy based on a partnership model. In Part I, this Essay identifies the need for American public interest advocates to establish partnerships with directly affected groups on Third World environmental issues. …
Hazardous Substances And Activities,
2011
Boston College Law School
Hazardous Substances And Activities, David A. Wirth
David A. Wirth
This piece analyzes and critically evaluates the enormous number and variety of international instruments addressing the regulation of hazardous substances and activities, from consumer products to nuclear power plants. International authorities are categorized according to regulatory theory, ranging from hazard identification and testing to disposal. Other regulatory approaches include limitations on pollutant releases, prevention of and response to industrial accidents, and international trade in toxic chemicals and waste. Multilateral norms originating from global and regional institutions, UN specialized agencies, and non-UN organizations are analyzed. The piece addresses both "hard" (binding or conventional) and "soft" (nonbinding) instruments, correlating legal form with …
At War With The Environment,
2011
Boston College Law School
At War With The Environment, David A. Wirth
David A. Wirth
In this Article, Professor Wirth reviews the book National Defense and the Environment by Stephen Dycus, a recognized expert in both environmental and national security law. The emphasis of the book is on containing and remediating the environmental excesses of the American defense-industrial complex, with a domestic policy focus. While Professor Wirth considers Dycus’ work an intellectually rewarding and refreshing new entry into the ongoing environment-as-security colloquy, he does not consider the book to be accessible to a general audience given the book’s fundamentally legalistic nature.
Appeal No. 0832: Meridian Energy Company, Big Sky Energy, Inc. V. Division Of Oil & Gas Resources Management,
2011
Case Western Reserve University School of Law
Appeal No. 0832: Meridian Energy Company, Big Sky Energy, Inc. V. Division Of Oil & Gas Resources Management, Ohio Oil & Gas Commission
Ohio Oil & Gas Commission Decisions
Chief's Order 2011-01 (Schloss-Hans Well #1)
Keynote Essay: A Modern Political Tribalism In Natural Resources Management,
2011
Boston College Law School
Keynote Essay: A Modern Political Tribalism In Natural Resources Management, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
The first law of ecology holds that everything is connected to everything else. This conference addresses the challenges and dilemmas of resource management policy on America’s public lands, but it seems useful both for the purposes of the conference and in broader terms to note how resource management is connected to larger questions of global integrity and human governance. This essay explores a troubling fact of modern political life: As the problems of managing the economy and ecology of this nation become ever more complex, subtly-interrelated, pressured and demanding, our processes of legal and political governance might be expected to …
Coal Law From The Old World: A Perspective On Land Use And Environmental Regulation In The Coal Industries Of The United States, Great Britain, And West Germany,
2011
Boston College Law School
Coal Law From The Old World: A Perspective On Land Use And Environmental Regulation In The Coal Industries Of The United States, Great Britain, And West Germany, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
America’s reentry into the Coal Age has been one of the major consequences of the Mideast oil-producing nations’ discovery of their collective marketing power, and in this new emphasis on coal the United States is not alone. Like the United States, many industrialized nations with domestic coal reserves had allowed their coal industries to languish under the influence of low-priced, petroleum based energy economy and are now hastening to strengthen their coal production. Different nations approach the regulation of their resurgent coal industries in varying ways, however, and these differences can be instructive to American observers, particularly as they relate …
The Exxon Valdez Resurfaces In The Gulf Of Mexico ... And The Hazards Of “Megasystem Centripetal Di-Polarity”,
2011
Boston College Law School
The Exxon Valdez Resurfaces In The Gulf Of Mexico ... And The Hazards Of “Megasystem Centripetal Di-Polarity”, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
The 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon blowout spill in the Gulf of Mexico shocked the nation with the amount of oil and harm it unleashed upon the Gulf and its natural and human ecosystems. As details of the calamity became available, they revealed frustrating parallels to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in the Gulf of Alaska in terms of causation and impaired response capability. Similar systemic deficits characterized the actions of corporate managers and state and federal regulators in the oil industry of both Gulfs. In a “di-polar” system where industry and government regulators are supposed to counterbalance one another, …
The Snail Darter, The Tellico Dam, And Sustainable Democracy — Lessons For The Next President From A Classic Environmental Law Controversy.,
2011
Boston College Law School
The Snail Darter, The Tellico Dam, And Sustainable Democracy — Lessons For The Next President From A Classic Environmental Law Controversy., Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
This presentation was the product of an invitation to speak at a symposium for students and faculty from a variety of different non-law departments at the University of Tennessee, where in 1973 I had started what became a six-year legal campaign to divert the Tennessee Valley Authority from impounding the last flowing 33 miles of the Little Tennessee River behind TVA’s Tellico Dam.
Reflected In A River: Agency Accountability And The Tva Tellico Dam Case,
2011
Boston College Law School
Reflected In A River: Agency Accountability And The Tva Tellico Dam Case, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Legal history is usually written from one of two time perspectives: as a narrative of events and changing conditions over a span of years or as an extended exploration of one fertile moment in time. In examining the intriguing entity known as the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), this article draws upon that chronological history to some extent. To a greater extent, however, it focuses upon revealing moments in the last six years of the long-running battles over completion of the TVA’s Tellico dam, which finally flooded the last remaining stretch of the Little Tennessee River Valley in the spring of …
Law, Media, & Environmental Policy: A Fundamental Linkage In Sustainable Democratic Governance,
2011
Boston College Law School
Law, Media, & Environmental Policy: A Fundamental Linkage In Sustainable Democratic Governance, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
The functional linkages between law and media have long been signficant in shaping American democratic governance. Over the past thirty-five years, environmental analysis has similarly become essential to shaping international and domestic governmental policy. Environmentalism—focusing as it does on realistic interconnected accounting of the full potential negative consequences as well as benefits of proposed actions, policies, and programs, over the long term as well as the short term, with careful consideration of all realistic alternatives— provides a legal perspective important for societal sustainability. Because environmental values and norms are often in tension with established industrial interests that resist public interest …
The Takings Issue In A Natural Setting: Floodlines And The Police Power,
2011
Boston College Law School
The Takings Issue In A Natural Setting: Floodlines And The Police Power, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
No abstract provided.
Environmental Law In The Political Ecosystem - Coping With The Reality Of Politics,
2011
Boston College Law School
Environmental Law In The Political Ecosystem - Coping With The Reality Of Politics, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
In this Essay, the proposition the author draws from the narrative of the endangered species litigation is derivatively Aristotelian – that we must consciously, actively, and explicitly integrate an informed consideration of human politics into what we teach and do in environmental law. The proposition is not that we should steep ourselves in party politics, although there are interesting observations aplenty that could be made on the direct consequences that the two major parties (and occassionally their wistful smaller incarnations) have on the evolution of environmental law. The proposition offered here operates at two different levels: practical politics and political …
Facing A Time Of Counter-Revolution: The Kepone Incident And A Review Of First Principles,
2011
Boston College Law School
Facing A Time Of Counter-Revolution: The Kepone Incident And A Review Of First Principles, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
The Kepone contamination episode of 1966-75 was a milestone that focused an entire nation’s attention on environmental hazards and our need to do better in recognizing and avoiding them. We have learned a great deal from that unfortunate story. The evolution of American environmental law since the Kepone debacle has repeatedly used the incident as a touchstone in identifying environmental pollution’s causes, effects, and potential solutions. This essay offers four propositions, about two things that have changed, and two things that have not, in the years since Kepone, taking account of where we are, and seeking some points of consensus.
Developing The Marcellus Shale: Legal, Regulatory, And Infrastructure Challenges And Their Effect On Downstream Energy Markets,
2011
University at Buffalo School of Law
Developing The Marcellus Shale: Legal, Regulatory, And Infrastructure Challenges And Their Effect On Downstream Energy Markets, Aaron Stemplewicz
Buffalo Environmental Law Journal
The Marcellus Shale natural gas play is largely considered a "game changer" for the US. energy sector as recent technological breakthroughs in drilling techniques and technologies have made natural gas extraction from this massive play commercially viable. This note not only examines the primary driving forces behind the development of this pla, but also how the extent and pace iwith ihich it is developed will affect doinstream energy markets. In particular three categories of factors are evaluated: legal challenges, regulatory controls, and infrastructure development. Tiwo models of growth and their effect on downstream markets are then proposed and analyzed.
Scratching The Surface: Does New York's Public Trust Law Prevent Subsurface Access To Natural Gas Below Parkland In The Marcellus Shale?,
2011
Columbia Environmental Law Clinic
Scratching The Surface: Does New York's Public Trust Law Prevent Subsurface Access To Natural Gas Below Parkland In The Marcellus Shale?, Susan J. Kraham, Lisa K. Perfetto
Buffalo Environmental Law Journal
The origins of the public trust doctrine ma} be traced back to Roman laiw. The Institutes qf Justinian state: "By the lav of nature these things are common to all mankind - the air running water the sea, and consequently the shores of the sea. " The traditional scope of the public trust doctrine in the United States affirms the public right to use waters for navigation, fishing, and commerce. The precise expression of the doctrine varies from state to state because each state is responsible for applying the public trust doctrine within its borders. New York applies the doctrine …
Between Huntley And Salem: The Current State Of Municipal Authority In Pennsylvania To Affect Gas Drilling Through Zoning,
2011
Natural Resources Defense Council
Between Huntley And Salem: The Current State Of Municipal Authority In Pennsylvania To Affect Gas Drilling Through Zoning, Dan Raichel
Buffalo Environmental Law Journal
This article examines the scope of Pennsylvania is preemption of municipal authority to zone natural gas drilling activities in light of two relatively recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court decisions interpreting the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Act and its local ordinance preemption provision. Although these cases define outer boundaries of permissible municipal regulation along the spectrum uf/possible zoning controls - i.e. what types ofordinance provisions would be either definitively permitted or preempted - substantial questions remain as to what extent a municipality may use traditional zoning power to zone gas drilling activities. This paper explores those grey areas, and attempts to assess …
