Among certain academic circles, it has become common to assert that owners of private land take care of what they own. One encounters the claim most often in discussions about land-related environmental problems. Unowned lands, resources shared by many: these are the ones that are degraded, it is said, not lands that have a single owner vested with clear, secure rights. Private owners take care of what they own.
In a recent article in the Yale Law Journal, Profs. Thomas W. Merrill and Henry E. Smith express concerns about what they take to be the excessive abstraction of law-and-economics writing on private property. This scholarly discourse, they tell us, seems to have forgotten that property law has to do with things. It has become too focused on property as a bundle of legal entitlements and liabilities, overlooking the underlying res that a person might actually own.
Any analysis of U.S. progress toward meeting the goals of Agenda 21 must include a hard look at the political will and actions toward reforming our system of land use controls. Land development policies and decisions are inextricably intertwined with a significant number of items contained in Agenda 21, creating a perhaps unusual scenario requiring cross-disciplinary and interjurisdictional approaches to effectively implement strategies that will both promote and yield sustainable land development.
The court holds that it lacks jurisdiction to hear a citizen group's request for a preliminary injunction against the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to prevent further implementation of the early component removal plan for decommissioning the Yankee Rowe nuclear power plant and to enjoin t...
The court holds that a district court lacked jurisdiction over a parent corporation's challenge to a pending U.S. Nuclear Regualatory Commission (NRC) hearing to determine whether the company was liable for cleanup costs at the facility of its subsidiary, which is an NRC licensee. The NRC attempted ...
The Ninth Circuit held that the subcellular alteration of a plaintiff's deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), without pain or interference with bodily functions, is not a bodily injury within the meaning of the Price-Anderson Act. The Price-Anderson Act prohibits recovery for plaintiffs who have not suffered...
In denying a petition for review, the Tenth Circuit held that the NRC did not violate the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) or NEPA when it issued a license to a company to conduct in situ leach mining for uranium on four sites in northwest New Mexico. In issuing the license, NRC interpreted its regulations t...
The court holds that a band of Native Americans has the right to moor commercial fishing vessels at two municipally owned marinas on Lake Michigan. The court first holds that treaties signed in 1836 and 1855 provided for an easement of access to reach traditional fishing grounds, which includes the ...
Editors' Summary: Until recently, the regulation of chemical carcinogens and the regulation of radiological carcinogens developed independently. Different governmental agencies operating under different statutory directives were responsible for addressing the dangers from these carcinogens. As a result, different policies and practices were developed. This Article explores these differences and the record on resolving them. It first examines the history of federal regulation of chemical and radiological carcinogens and summarizes EPA's approach to risk assessments for them.
Editors' Summary: This Article addresses the effect of the U.S. Constitution's Takings Clause on the government's authority to protect environmental resources. An earlier Article, published in the May 1994 of ELR, analyzed bases for government regulation provided by limitations inherent in the property right itself. In contrast, this Article focuses on an emerging doctrine of sustainable use, rooted in background principles of nuisance law and the government's complementary police power.