Current Issue
Volume 55 Issue 3 — May 2025
Checkout the latest cutting-edge law and policy articles from ELR below. New articles posted every month.
Comment(s)
The negotiations for the Global Plastics Treaty (GPT) that collapsed on December 2, 2024, were meant to be a step toward a plastics future informed by sustainable development principles. Given that no agreement has yet been reached, this Comment will discuss two broad issues that future GPT negotiating sessions must confront to produce an effective plastic life-cycle governance instrument. Part I reviews the fragmentation in current plastic waste-related governance instruments and institutions, and describes opportunities for the GPT to find synergies with those instruments. Part II discusses key sustainability issues—extended producer responsibility (EPR), circular waste management, and developed-developing world cooperation—that should drive a future agreement, and considers their interaction with the presently fragmented plastics governance system. Part III concludes.
PFAS exposure is emerging as a disability that veterans want covered by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). With claims relating to environmental exposure, it is often difficult to prove the disability is a result of service and not something else. However, there is another way to get service-connected disability coverage as a veteran: presumption of service connection. Part I of this Comment addresses how the military handles service-connected disabilities, specifically presumption of service connection with Agent Orange and, more recently, burn pits and water contamination at Camp Lejeune. Part II addresses the dangers of PFAS and how they often show up in military training settings, exposing servicemembers to higher levels. Part III argues that the VA should offer presumption of service connection for veterans and servicemembers facing the consequences of PFAS exposure by referencing presumption for similar issues. Part IV concludes.
Articles
An antitrust paradox lies at the heart of private-sector climate commitments. On the right, state attorneys general have warned that they may challenge these collaborations under antitrust laws. On the left, antitrust enforcers in the Biden Administration asserted that these actions will not receive preferential treatment even if they address societal ills that are not being addressed by governments. This Article asks what antitrust law is willing to consider: if prosocial goals are framed in terms of economic harms, should antitrust law view climate action as violating that standard? It argues that the avoided harms to the economy and consumers from emissions reductions can yield economically cognizable consumer welfare enhancement in the longer term, and that climate action thus is defensible under current antitrust doctrine.
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