This chapter examines how, over the course of nearly 20 years, the production and trade of three natural resources has contributed to the ongoing conflict in Somalia and could ultimately contribute to its resolution. While this use of bananas, charcoal, and fisheries has contributed to the Somali conflict, these resources also represent a potentially important source of nonconflict income that could help the country recover from crisis and, ultimately, strengthen the nascent peacebuilding process.

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) sets a global standard for transparency in the management of oil, gas, and mining revenues. In many resource-rich countries, especially those that are recovering from civil war, opacity and silence have created mistrust and suspicion. Citizens often assume that the government and the extractive companies are in cahoots to keep the wealth for themselves, and companies sometimes feel that governments and citizens are ganging up on them to reset the rules and renegotiate contracts.

In the wake of conflict, there is a risk that resource extraction will have destabilizing impacts by damaging the environment, preventing local people from accessing the

Corporate participation in peacebuilding can be vital, but measures have to be taken to prevent companies from aggravating conflicts. This chapter illustrates how private investments can promote peacebuilding by contributing to economic development, dialogue, and reconciliation. It describes the challenges that exist in attracting and realizing investments and suggests ways in which private investments can be managed to be constructive, rather than destructive, to peace.

In 2011, China began its Twelfth Five-Year Plan. The Plan includes both new and revised rules and goals for environmental protection and management. This annual review covers updates in climate change mitigation, environmental protection as it relates to economic and social development, new rules on the protection of water resources, solid and radioactive waste issues, and public participation goals.

The Clean Air Act (CAA) mandates that EPA regulate emissions of more than 180 commonly used industrial chemicals and compounds known as hazardous air pollutants
(HAPs). Unfortunately, EPA does not regulate or restrict emissions of these HAPs based on the health risks posed by ambient-air concentrations or actual exposures

Despite recent efforts by the U.S. Supreme Court to emphasize the “drastic and extraordinary” nature of injunctive relief, many lower federal courts continue to issue injunctions in cases alleging harm to the environment as if injunctive relief were the norm rather than the exception. Apparently reluctant to accept constraints on the exercise of equitable powers, a number of federal courts have interpreted and applied the governing legal standard as set out in the Supreme Court’s 2008 Winter

More robust planning and management is needed to confront new patterns of water use and increasingly extreme and less predictable climate-induced variations in water availability. Issues such as water allocation law, gaps in the array of water management objectives, and comparatively rigid and unresponsive operating rules for water  facilities are increasingly more significant. Neither the water law of most eastern states nor the existing water institutions are adequate to adapt to the challenges of less stable and potentially diminished water supply.

On February 28 and 29, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (D.C.) Circuit heard oral argument in a series of closely watched lawsuits challenging regulations issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from automobiles and manufacturing facilities under the Clean Air Act (CAA). Many observers consider the suite of GHG lawsuits, brought by industry groups and state petitioners, among the most significant in CAA and  administrative law in the last 30 years. This is because the D.C.

Because of the breadth of the Agency and its administrative responsibilities, locating useful information in a timely and effective manner can often be frustrating. In an effort to provide insight into this “green haze,” this Article is designed to provide the environmental legal practitioner with an annotated guide to EPA.gov, EPA’s public Internet portal.