Redefining and Analyzing Development and the Role and Rule of Law

This article introduces a series of articles prepared in connection with an April 2015 conference jointly sponsored by the Law & Development Institute and the Payson Center for International Development at Tulane University Law School. The introduction first surveys the uncertain and chaotic terrain of current and competing definitions of development and then introduces the articles in this special volume, identifying common themes and differences. In the process, the introduction suggests, law and development studies present great promise to provide greater coherence to development studies and practice going ahead, providing the approach is pluralist and inclusive

Criminal Penalities for Creating a Toxic Environment: \u3ci\u3eMens Rea\u3c/i\u3e, Environmental Criminal Liability Standards, and the Neurotoxicity Hypothesis

Recent research in brain biochemistry examining the likely neurological effects of exposure to toxic contaminants continues to demand legal consideration. In this Article, Professor Crawford evaluates the possible consequences of recent neurobiological studies-labeled The Neurotoxicity Hypothesis by researchers-for lawyers and the legal system. After summarizing the research, Professor Crawford suggests that as this (or similar) neurobiological research gains increased scientific acceptance, it will be necessary to reduce dramatically the acceptable levels of these toxic elements that can be discharged into the environment. He then examines the implications of such a result for establishing criminal liability under federal environmental statutes, focusing on the criminal liability provisions of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act

Using Federal Property Rights Laws for Environmental Justice

The late Ralph Santiago Abascal, who worked for years out of California Rural Legal Services and became one of the most admired legal service attorneys of his generation, was co-counsel in a celebrated environmental justice victory, El Pueblo Para Aqua y Aire Limpio v. County of Kings. El Pueblo successfully blocked the proposed siting of a hazardous waste incinerator by holding that the project\u27s proponents had not translated the public review documents into Spanish in a majority monolingual Spanish-speaking community. Despite this victory, however, Abascal later observed, The handful of reported environmental justice cases that have raised civil rights claims have been litigated under the wrong theories. Instead of the difficult theory of Fourteenth Amendment equal protection, Abascal argued, lawyers seeking to achieve environmental justice should bring claims under federal statutes designed to insure equal property rights. In particular, he advocated bringing environmental justice claims under Tittle VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, commonly known as the Fair Housing Act ( FHA ). The FHA is, he suggested, the statute with perhaps the broadest reach in environmental justice cases. This essay will explore Abascal\u27s suggestion, looking in particular at both FHA claims and possible claims under 42 U.S.C. Section 1982. At the outset, it bears emphasizing that no reported cases have successfully advanced such claims in the environmental justice context. However, if carefully drawn, cases using these statutes could help achieve important environmental justice victories. There is another advantage to using these federal property rights statutes to achieve environmental justice. Specifically, the most likely success under these statutes will occur when the federal property rights claims are brought as part of a coordinated community development strategy. Too often, environmental issues such as the siting of noxious industrial uses are considered in isolation from other public interest goals. The federal property protection statutes provide one avenue to avoid such intellectual ghetto-ization, and thus make environmental claims an integral part of activists\u27 community organizing goals

Uproar at Dancing Rabbit Creek: Battling over Race, Class & the Environment

For the first five years of the 1990\u27s, Noxubee County, Mississippi experienced a deeply divisive battle over the proposed siting there of one of the nation\u27s biggest toxic waste dump and incineration facilities. Noxubee County, which is nearly 70% African-American, is also desperately poor. The fight over the proposed waste facility was in part a question of jobs versus environmental protection yet, as the selection below suggests, the waste fight was also influenced by long-standing animosities and social divisions-factors that, in my view, have been insufficiently appreciated by environmental justice activists and environmental lawyers alike

Analyzing Evidence of Environmental Justice: A Suggestion for Professor Been

This Article addresses the inherent prejudices in modern environmental policies and practices. Specifically, this Article discusses the continuing debate regarding the strength of the correlation between the location of hazardous waste facilities and an area\u27s minority population. Professor Crawford urges his contemporaries, particularly Professor Vicki Been, to expand their evidentiary fields to include statistics of an area\u27s standard of living in order to obtain an accurate analysis of the motives behind locating hazardous waste facilities in certain areas. The Article concludes with a case study of Noxubee County, Mississippi to demonstrate the effect of applying this expanded method of research