The world continues to step into space, but the rise of a commercial space tourism industry threatens our planet's climate.  The most recent research suggests that even a conservative estimate of the number of rocket launches possible in the coming years and decades will drastically affect the earth's climate.  Neither space law nor current environmental law respond sufficiently to the environmental threat posed by the nacent space tourism industry.  This Field Report discusses the threat and the United States' opportunity to problem-solve at the industry's birth, before the damage is done.

This Article examines the theoretical prospects surrounding the potential creation of an international criminal law of the environment.   So far, the development of international criminal law has not directly addressed the potential threats and dangers related to global crimes against the environment.  The tragedy of the commons related to the global environment suggests that, while all states collectively have an interest in protecting the environment from grave attacks, no state individually has a sufficiently large incentive to take on the responsibility.  The Article considers a number of arguments both for and against the international criminalization of environmental law.   The factors considered include:  the nature of the environment, the nature of international law, and the pros and cons surrounding criminalization.  The Article ultimately concludes that the emergence of an international criminal law of the environment would complement existing modes of regulation and affirm the international community’s interest in protecting the environment.  The Article then paints a picture of what an international criminal law of the environment might look like, including features such as double subsidiarity to both non-criminal and domestic law, and also a centralized synthesis of offenses that the international community considers the most threatening to the environment.  As institutions surrounding international criminal law strengthen and as the international community’s interest in protecting the environment increases, there is an ever-increasing likelihood of the creation of an international criminal law of the environment.

The Clean Development Mechanism ("CDM") awards tradable credits to emission reduction projects in developing countries.  Under the Kyoto Protocol, developed countries can use these credits to offset their own emissions.  To ensure the environmental integrity of these offsets, the CDM has accredited a group of private auditors, called Designated Operational Entities ("DOEs"), to validate and verify the emission reduction claims of CDM project developers.  This Article examines how DOEs have implemented their auditing mandate and the factors that have challenged this implementation.  More specifically, through the analysis of DOE reports and interviews with key CDM participants, the Article investigates: the rules and standards guiding DOE authority; the competence and capacity of DOEs to perform their auditing duties; and threats to DOE impartiality and independence. In doing so, the Article highlights the incentives and governance structures necessary for privatizing the quality control mechanism of an emission offset system.

This Note discusses the potential of carbon capture and sequestration ("CCS") to address climate change, as well as the challenge that liability poses for the widespread use of the technology.  The Note argues that some state constitution gift clauses prevent states from helping to mitigate this liability.  This may result in impaired competition between states vying to site CCS projects, and in developers choosing to site projects in states which can offer indemnification, rather than states in which the safest geologic conditions are present.  The Note then discusses alternative financing schemes states may be able to use, possible federal intervention, and the advantages of different balances between state and federal involvement.

Several state constitutions contain provisions that lay out an individual right to a healthy environment. These provisions can be difficult for state courts to define and apply. While these state constitutional provisions as written might be useful tools for protecting the environment, state courts have generally under-enforced the provisions, at least in part due to a lack of clear standards of interpretation. State constitutional rights to education and welfare present similar interpretative challenges. This Note analyzes the strategies that state courts have adopted in interpreting education and welfare rights and discusses the lessons they provide for future interpretation of environmental rights. 

On August 14, 2003, a handful of trees in eastern Ohio precipitated the largest unplanned power outage in United States history.  Although seemingly innocuous, inadequately managed vegetation near power lines is often cited as the primary cause of power outages in the United States, costing the national economy billions of dollars each year.  Despite the growing energy demands of 21st Century America and increasing federal and state pressure to improve utility vegetation management (“UVM”), utilities often find themselves embroiled in disputes with local property owners when trying to conduct appropriate but generally unpopular UVM. Because UVM usually takes place pursuant to an easement, also known as a utility right of way, the rights of the utility to conduct UVM on any given parcel are subject to a court’s assessment of the language for that parcel’s particular easement.   As many, if not most, easements date back well before the development of the most effective modern methods of vegetation management, they often may not contain language broad enough to permit those methods.  

In this Article, the author explores the scope and increasing relevance of our UVM problem both before and after the historic blackout of 2003, and proposes a unified approach for dealing with the legal obstacles to vegetation management.  Instead of a piecemeal easement approach, the author suggests that courts, public utility commissions, and legislatures should resolve property-owner/electric utility conflicts under the framework of the public nuisance doctrine and its associated doctrine for nuisance abatement.