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Roy Balleste, The Consciousness of Astronautical Ethics, in Human Flourishing: The End of Law (W. Michael Reisman and Roza Pati eds., Brill|Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2023)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Robyn Powell, Including Disabled People in the Battle to Protect Abortion Rights: A Call-to-Action, 70 UCLA L. Rev. 774 (2023)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
The battle to protect abortion rights in the United States has not been this fierce in fifty years. From the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision to a precipitously growing number of states passing draconian laws that drastically limit—and in some states, entirely ban—access to safe and legal abortion services, reproductive freedom is under siege at every turn. The current assault on reproductive freedom has had devastating consequences for all people, but most acutely for historically marginalized communities, including people with disabilities. Critically, this attack most adversely affects people who live at the intersection of disability and other marginalized identities or statuses. Nonetheless, when disability is invoked in discourse concerning abortion, it is typically done to either support or oppose abortions based on fetal disability diagnoses. By framing disability and abortion only in the context of disability- selective abortions, activists, scholars, legal professionals, and policymakers fail to recognize that it is actual disabled people—not hypothetical fetuses with disability diagnoses—who are harmed by abortion restrictions. Indeed, disabled people disproportionately experience pervasive and persistent disadvantages that increase their need for abortion services. They also experience considerable structural, legal, and institutional barriers that already put access to safe and legal abortion out of reach for many.
In response, the Article proposes a blueprint to help activists, scholars, legal professionals, and policymakers as they imagine the next steps in the battle to protect abortion rights in a way that fully includes people with disabilities. First, the Article situates the current battle to protect abortion rights within the social and institutional contexts that propagate reproductive oppression of people with disabilities by examining how reproduction has been weaponized over time to subjugate disabled people as well as presenting contemporary examples of such injustices. Thereafter, it explores disabled people’s unique needs for abortion services and the myriad ways they are disproportionately and adversely affected by restrictions on abortion rights. Next, the Article presents disability reproductive justice, a jurisprudential and legislative framework, and its application to the fight for abortion rights. Finally, drawing from disability reproductive justice, the Article suggests normative and transformative legal and policy solutions for challenging the current assault on abortion rights and its impact on disabled people.
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Royal C. Gardner et al., Ramsar Convention Governance and Processes at the International Level, in Ramsar Wetlands: Values, Assessment, and Management (Peter A. Gell et al. eds., Elsevier, 2023)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
Various players participate in the governance of the Ramsar Convention. The Conference of the Parties (COP), which typically meets every 3 years, consists of the Convention’s Contracting Parties and holds ultimate decision-making authority. At each COP, Resolutions are adopted, providing instruction and guidance regarding the Convention’s implementation. Between COPs, the Standing Committee, consisting of Contracting Parties based on regional representation, exercises decision-making authority. The Convention’s Secretariat, which is located in Switzerland, provides administrative support, while the Scientific and Technical Review Panel is the Convention’s scientific advisory body. The Convention is further supported by International Organisation Partners, which are intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations. Ramsar operates largely through consensus and collaboration. Much of the Convention’s first 50 years focused on building institutional structures and developing technical guidance. Yet, as the Global Wetland Outlook indicates, the Contracting Parties have thus far failed to halt wetland loss and degradation.
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Royal C. Gardner et al., Ramsar at the National Level: Application and Incorporation into Domestic Law, in (Peter A. Gell et al. eds., Elsevier, 2023)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
A Contracting Party to the Ramsar Convention assumes certain obligations under international law: designation and conservation of wetlands of international importance (Ramsar Sites), wise use of all wetlands within its territory, and international cooperation regarding shared wetland resources, including species. Although it is a framework convention that lacks a formal enforcement mechanism, the Ramsar Convention influences domestic legal regimes in a number of ways. Its impact on domestic laws, policies, and practices for wetlands depends in part on whether a particular Party subscribes to a monist, dualist, or mixed approach to international law. In a monist system, Ramsar obligations, including those flowing from Resolutions agreed upon at the regular Conference of Parties, may apply directly within a domestic legal regime. Under a dualist approach, Ramsar obligations may require specific implementing legislation before they are effective within the domestic sphere.
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Darryl Wilson and Jesundusin Awoyeye, Keeping Current – Property, 37 Probate and Property 12 (2023)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Louis J. Virelli and Richard W. Murphy, Supreme Court News, 49 Administrative & Regulatory Law News 26 (2023)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Jaclyn Lopez, Diminished Access to Judicial Review Is an Unacceptable Consequence of EPA’s Delegation of Its Responsibilities to States, 53 Envtl. L. 571 (2023)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
The delegation of federal authority over national resources can, in theory, present conservation opportunities, but in fact has entrenched grave pitfalls. This Article explores a significant consequence of federal delegation that has received little serious consideration by courts, agencies, and scholarship: how the Environmental Protection Agency's delegation of federal bedrock environmental laws subverts Congress's intent to empower citizens to enforce these statutes when agencies will not. There are substantial differences between federal and state judicial review, specifically with respect to standing and fee shifting, which effectively limit which kinds of plaintiffs can challenge decisions that impact natural resources. This Article explores the regulatory
framework of delegation, and by focusing on the Environmental Protection Agency's recent delegation of 404 permitting to the state of Florida, provides a case study for how delegation can undermine Congress's intent to provide citizens access to judicial review. The analysis presented here, and the recommended remedies, may aid in identifying and addressing similar injustices in other state regulatory frameworks.
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S. Mazeika Patricio Sullivan and Royal C. Gardner, US Supreme Court Opinion Harms Watersheds, 381 Science 385 (2023)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Grant Christensen, Corporate Governance and Native Alaskan Corporations, in Routledge Handbook of Polar Law (Vibe Ulfbeck et al. eds., Routledge Press, 2023)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Robyn Powell, Supreme Court Unlocks New Path to Relief for Disabled Students (2023)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.