International Environmental Law

Surveying Climate Change Law

In only 25 years, a dynamic new field of law has taken root.

Climate Change Law, the first volume of Elgar’s Encyclopedia of Environmental Law has just appeared.  There are a number of excellent edited collections about aspects of climate change law. What distinguishes this one is that breadth of the coverage, including both international and domestic aspects of carbon reduction and adaptation to climate change. The book confirms how quickly climate change …

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Can Women’s Land Rights Combat Climate Change?

Suggestive Links Between Gender Equity and Sustainability

I suppose that the holy grail of environmentalism, and environmental scholarship, is integrating equity concerns with global priorities. The environmental justice movement has sought to do this, sometimes with success and sometimes less so. Now Jennifer Duncan of Landesa, one of the most innovative think tanks focusing on land rights and the Global South, thinks …

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The Future of Environmental Law?

Thoughts from the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Hawai’i

I am writing this weekend from a sunny spot in the Pacific, from the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Honolulu. For the uninitiated, the IUCN—International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources—is a global union of governments and non-governmental organizations (including over 1300 member institutions, organizations, and countries worldwide) focused on the conservation of …

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A Darker Shade of Green

Jill Stein and her party call for a 40% cut in U.S. carbon emissions in the next four years.

Although the Green Party  doesn’t seem to be pulling a lot of voters at this point, it seems only fair to include them in the roundup of the parties’ environmental positions.  As you could infer from the name, the Green Party puts a very high priority on environmental quality. Interestingly, the current party platform is dated …

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Brexit Claims Its First Victim: The Environment

The new British government is turning sharply against environmental protection.

The Brexit vote elevated Theresa May to the Prime Minister’s office.  One of her first steps has been an attack on environmental protection. In what the Guardian called the “most radical shakeup in the shape of Whitehall for years.” She abolished the Department for Energy and Climate Change and moved its functions into the Department for Business, Energy …

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The Irony of a Developing Nation’s Climate Agenda

The challenge of developing and decarbonizing at the same time

Mexico has been busy. Or at least, its energy and environmental ministers have been. Over the last several years, Mexico has held its first auction for renewable energy contracts, opened its energy market to private competitors, and increased its renewable energy capacity by more than thirty times the level in 2008. At the same time, …

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Trump, Sanders Voters and Climate Change

If you need even one reason to vote for Clinton, climate change ought to suffice

I don’t pretend to understand the allure of Donald Trump.  I am an unabashed  supporter of Hillary Clinton.  I appreciate that many people I know and respect are Bernie Sanders supporters.  I am hoping that, once Clinton officially becomes the  Democratic candidate for President, Sanders supporters will work hard to elect Clinton as President, even …

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Want an Economy-Wide Cap on U.S. Climate Emissions? Consider This Corner of the Clean Air Act

New report on Section 115 of the Act suggests an interesting post-Paris approach

A largely-untapped provision of the Clean Air Act authorizes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to develop and implement an economy-wide, market-based program to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions and achieve the Obama Administration’s Paris Agreement pledge, according to a report released today by several coordinating law school centers, including the Emmett Institute at UCLA.  See …

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2016: The Year of Living Dangerously

2015 was a year of forward movement. Much of that could be in jeopardy this year.

We are at the start of a year of danger for environmental policy.  2015 saw many accomplishments in environmental law: the Administration issued the “waters of the United States” and Clean Power Plan regulations,  a Supreme Court ruling in favor of EPA’s cross-state air pollution rule, and the Paris Agreement on climate change.  Much of this progress is …

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Student Guest Blogger Terra Laughton: Perspectives on COP21

Terra Laughton, UCLA School of Law JD class of 2017, shares her perspective on attending the Paris climate negotiations

I am a second-year student at UCLA School of Law. I recently returned from two weeks in Paris attending COP21. My classmates and I had already boarded our plane at Charles De Gaulle when the Paris Agreement was officially adopted—we learned of the news upon landing in Los Angeles. While it would have been exhilarating …

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