Where the Twain Shall Meet: Standing and Remedy in Alaska Center for the Environment v. Browner

In 1994, the Ninth Circuit affirmed standing for citizens to sue to compel the EPA Administrator to undertake a statewide TMDL program. Although the citizens had standing for only some of the water-quality-limited waters in Alaska, the court held that the underlying cause of action was the EPA\u27s failure to initiate the TMDL process for Alaska. This Note proposes that the court improperly reasoned its way to the correct holding. Like the EPA, the court confused standing to sue with the ultimate scope of the remedy. This Note proposes a three-step analysis to consider issues of standing and remedy. The first step is to determine the scope of the underlying action by analyzing the legal duty that forms the basis for the claim. This scoping action is critical since it serves as the referent for the next two steps. The second step is to determine whether the plaintiff has standing with respect to the underlying action. If the court decides on the merits of the case that the plaintiff should prevail, the third step is to determine the appropriate remedy. In this step, the court starts with the underlying cause of action and incorporates other factors as appropriate. This three-step analysis decouples the standing and remedy analyses and should lead to better reasoned opinions. I. INTRODUCTION In Alaska Center for the Environment v. Browner (ACE III), 1 the Ninth Circuit distinguished between standing to sue and the ultimate scope of the remedy. The court affirmed standing for a group ..

Brief 6: Environmental Emergencies: Challenges and Lessons for International Environmental Governance

This brief examines the strengths and weaknesses of existing instruments and institutions and addresses the efforts to improve coordination among the international sectors of environmental emergency response. Potential operational, capacity-building, and legal options for strengthening prevailing mechanisms are identified and discussed, including the need for stronger political mandates, the need for a stronger framework to address fragmentation, and the need for procedures to support and facilitate environmental emergency responders. The lessons from this discourse can improve the field of environmental emergency response, while also informing advancements in broader context of international environmental governance

Legislative Representation and the Environment in African Constitutions

Many African nations are in the nascent stages of implementing constitutions. This article explores the development of those constitutions, the different forms of legislative representation, and the powers embodied in those constitutions to implement and enforce environmental laws

Factors Affecting Livelihood Re-Establishment of Climate Change Induced Transboundary Displaced Persons

Climate Change Induced Transboundary Displaced Persons (CCITDPs) are people who are forced to leave their own country permanently because of adverse effects of climate change such as submergence of homeland by sealevel rise. The type of displacement anticipated by climate change implications is analogous to forced displacement resulting from war, conflict within a country, development projects, industrial accidents, and natural disasters. This study aims to identify the unique aspects of CCITDPs. We developed suggestions regarding how CCITDPs may re-establish their livelihoods by themselves after relocation. People displaced by slow-onset sea-level rise have as many as two to three decades to plan for resettlement, which may let them prepare well for livelihood re-establishment after resettlement. Relocation of CCITDPs may take a few decades; therefore, CCITDPs may learn from those pioneers who moved to a new country first what their possible destination is like. Lack of a responsible body for climate change and the subsequent paucity of funds for relocating CCITDPs is a unique and major difficulty for CCITDPs. Some CCITDPs may view their forced migration as emancipation from conventional thought and old customs, or as a chance to secure a new job. It is desirable to show CCITDPs that their inevitable relocation may be an opportunity rather than a miserable fate

Addressing conflict through collective action in natural resource management

The food security crisis and international “land grabs” have drawn renewed attention to the role of natural resource competition in the livelihoods of the rural poor. While significant empirical research has focused on diagnosing the links between natural resource competition and (violent) conflict, much less has focused on the dynamics of whether and how resource competition can be transformed to strengthen social-ecological resilience and mitigate conflict. Focusing on this latter theme, this review synthesizes evidence from cases in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Building on an analytical framework designed to enable such comparative analysis, we present several propositions about the dynamics of conflict and collective action in natural resource management, and a series of recommendations for action. These propositions are: that collective action in natural resource management is influenced by the social-ecological and governance context, that natural resource management institutions affect the incentives for conflict or cooperation, and that the outcomes of these interactions influence future conflict risk, livelihoods, and resource sustainability. Action recommendations concern policies addressing resource tenure, conflict resolution mechanisms, and social inequalities, as well as strategies to strengthen collective action institutions in the natural resource sectors and to enable more equitable engagement by marginalized groups in dialogue and negotiation over resource access and use

Interlinkages: Governance for Sustainability Chapter 8

The Earth functions as a system: atmosphere, land, water, biodiversity and human society are all linked in a complex web of interactions and feedbacks. Environment and development challenges are interlinked across thematic, institutional and geographic boundaries through social and environmental processes. The state of knowledge on these interlinkages and implications for human well-being are highlighted in the following messages: Environmental change and development challenges are caused by the same sets of drivers. They include population change, economic processes, scientific and technological innovations, distribution patterns, and cultural, social, political and institutional processes