United Kingdom Supreme Court Justice Robert Carnwath has urged the judiciary to develop ‘common laws of the environment’, which can operate within different legal frameworks, tailored where necessary towards specific constitutions or statutory codes. One such mechanism with the potential for repositioning environmental discourse in both common law and civil law jurisdictions is the doctrine of the public trust. Basing their arguments upon a heritage of civil law and common law, supporters of the public trust doctrine are currently testing its scope in United States federal courts via groundbreaking litigation aimed at forcing the federal government to uphold its duty to protect the atmosphere. This article considers whether common law judicial resourcefulness can transform a transatlantic hybrid of uncertain parentage into a powerful tool of environmental protection.
A oposição legislativa dos estados às reformas do sistema de saúde do Presidente Obama nos convida para uma atenção renovada sobre a dinâmica da partição de Poder e sobre a distribuição da soberania na Constituição Federal dos Estados Unidos. Entre 2010 e o início de 2016, 22 legislaturas de estados promulgaram leis e medidas desafiando ou excluindo-se das amplas reformas de saúde relacionadas com as disposições obrigatórias da Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Lei de Proteção ao Paciente e Cuidados Acessíveis - PPACA). Alguns acadêmicos têm visto esses projetos de lei como uma ressurgência da ‘doctrine of nullification’, desacreditada em razão de conexões históricas, especificamente com aquelas da secessão, Jim Crow e Resistência Massiva. Outros têm uma visão mais matizada e argumentam que as chamadas “Leis de Liberdade aos Cuidados de Saúde” foram pragmaticamente concebidas para desencadear desafios à PPACA que podem funcionar dentro da estrutura contemporânea da ortodoxia constitucional. O presente artigo analisa a linguagem das Leis de Liberdade aos Cuidados de Saúde e as compara com as resoluções da Resistência Massiva para inquirir se os estados assimilaram, a partir das lições do passado, o desenvolvimento de estratégias mais bem sucedidas para desafiar o escopo indesejado da lei e regulamentação federal.
Responding to climate change presents significant challenges on both international and domestic fronts. The current U.S. federal government disclaims a connection between climate change, and human activity, and embraces an environmental program that includes withdrawal from the Paris Climate Change Agreement at international level and retrenchment from regulation domestically. This Article comments on the rollback of Obama-era environmental regulations now taking place at federal level and locates these policies in the context of the domestic polarization and partisanship that now characterizes U.S. politics. It notes that environmental regulation divides the Republican and Democratic Parties but that the response of individual party members may be more nuanced, particularly amongst younger voters. The Article comments on state level initiatives to counteract the effects of climate change that have gathered bipartisan support but are now subject to partisan actions by the federal government designed to limit their effectiveness. The Article concludes with the observation that as the combination of an aging demographic and alignment with a declining fossil fuel industry shrinks the GOP traditional constituency, it is to be hoped that far-sighted politicians from both parties will embrace credibility on this issue as a key component of enhancing their own as well as the planet’s survival.
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