Category Students

Entries 8 Total

Cities Launch Solutions to Global Environmental Problems

Mar 5, ’12

The NYU Environmental Law Journal, NYU Environmental Law Society, and the Furman Center for Real Estate and Public Policy cosponsored a symposium on “Localities in the Lead: The Path of Environmental Progress through New York City.” Introducing the event, Professor Katrina Wyman discussed what she described as a relatively new era of focusing on environmental policy at the municipal level. “Municipalities aren’t just taking an interest in traditionally local issues, like land use or brown field,” she said, “but also taking an interest in the preeminent global environmental issue of our time: climate change.”

New York City in particular has been extremely active in recent years in environmental policy, Wyman said, pointing to the PlaNYC initiative. Because of this, she said, the city serves as a good case study for thinking through the challenges involved in working through environmental policy at a municipal level.

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Student panel examines the health and environmental consequences of factory farms

Nov 4, ’11

The following account was written by Elizabeth Hallinan ’13, who was one of the organizers of the program, and then moderated the discussion.

On Tuesday, October 25th, NYU Law’s Student Animal Legal Defense Fund and the Environmental Law Society hosted a panel to discuss another crisis in the American food culture – the prevalence of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), colloquially known as factory farms.

As explained by Nebraska farmer Kevin Fulton of the sustainable Fulton Farms, CAFOs are not the mom-n-pop family farm pictured on your milk carton. CAFOs, as explained by the EPA, are “agricultural operations where animals are kept and raised in confined situations…which congregate animals, feed, manure and urine, dead animals, and production operations on a small land area.”

Panelist Mark Bittman, a columnist and long-time food writer for the New York Times, is worried about the environmental damage these operations can do. CAFOs are major polluters of both local toxins (for example when manure lagoons overflow into local waterways) as well as greenhouse gases from both the facilities and the animals themselves. Bittman has written extensively about the problems stemming from the over-consumption of meat in the U.S. On the panel, he claimed that meat is not as cheap as it seems to be. He pointed out that if we included the extensive environmental and health costs to society – what economists call “externalities” of the system – the price of a steak dinner is actually very expensive. According to Fulton, Americans used to spend far more money on food than on health insurance. Now that ratio is reversed.

As we have moved from family farms to factory farms, other unintended consequences have arisen. Jen Sorenson, a litigator with the Natural Resources Defense Council explained that 80% of all antibiotics in the US are fed to CAFO animals. These antibiotics are given subtherapeutically, meaning they are used not to improve animal health, but to enhance growth rate and improve feed efficiency. Unfortunately, as Bittman pointed out, this extraordinary overuse of antibiotics contributes to the growing prevalence of “superbugs” that are resistant to therapeutic use of these antibiotics when animals, and humans, need treatment.

As one audience member commented after the panel, the problem with discussing factory farming is that you pull the thread of one problem, and the entire system starts to unravel. Animal welfare, worker safety, labor rights, and many other issues are implicated in the mess of the CAFO system.

So what can we do? Bittman wishes we would cook more at home and rely less on the food industry to tell us what we should eat. Sorenson suggested that focusing on the human health concerns is the best tactic in litigation aimed at curbing CAFOs. Jon Lovvorn, an attorney at the Humane Society of the United States, has found nuisance law to be a fruitful litigation approach. And Fulton invited the entire audience to see a sustainable farm at work in Nebraska. Judging by the warm reception given to him, and all our speakers, by the audience that night, I might not be the only one to take him up on his offer.

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Students do Environmental Internships Abroad, and at Home

Sep 30, ’11

Each summer, the Guarini Summer Environmental Internship grants provides financial assistance to 10 NYU Law students. These students work for international and domestic NGOs and government agencies for the summer. Faculty help students to share and use their experiences and to develop training and networking opportunities that help them secure full-time positions in the field following graduation.

This summer, Relic Sun ’13, worked at the Environmental Law Project of the Natural Resources Defense Council – Beijing office. In addition to visiting and documenting severe local pollution sites with NRDC colleagues, she wrote the English version of NRDC’s cutting-edge policy report on enhancing the environmental public interest litigation system in China. The report, titled “Enhancing Environmental Protection through Judicial Means – Environmental Courts and Environmental Public Interest Litigation in China:  Current Circumstances, Challenges, and Recommendations” (通过司法手段推进环境保护 - 环保法庭与环境公益诉讼：现状、问题与建议) will be published this autumn.

Relic Sun (back row) and other NRDC fellows, along with NRDC staff and NGO members at a roundtable in Wuhan

Other students worked at the Sierra Club Environmental Law Program, Environmental Defense Fund, the NYC Law Department, Earthjustice – Northwest Office, Earthjustice – International Program, and the Department of Justice – Environment and Natural Resources Division – Appellate Section.

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Environmental Law LL.M Enters Second Year

Sep 30, ’11

This September, NYU Law welcomed its second class of Environmental Law LL.M.’s.  Like last year, there are ten students from around the world (five from South America, two from the US, and one each from Europe, Africa, and Oceania) participating in the program.

The Environmental Law LL.M. is designed to train the next generation of leaders in environmental and land use law by offering courses with leading environmental law academics and practitioners, clinical and internship opportunities. This is already happening for the first class of students that completed their LL.M. in May. For example, Vyoma Jha (LL.M. ’11) from India, was selected as a NYU International Finance and Development Fellow and is working on the Investment and Sustainable Development team of the International Institute of Sustainable Development (Geneva). A paper that Jha wrote as a part of her International Environmental Law Clinic placement with the Council on Energy, Environmental and Water, entitled ‘Cutting Both Ways?: Climate, Trade and the Consistency of India’s Domestic Policies’ has now been published as a working paper.

Students in the program take a core of environmental and land use courses, including the capstone Advanced Environmental Law Seminar, in which they write a thesis with close faculty mentoring. In addition, students can choose from a wide range of elective courses, allowing them the flexibility to pursue more specialized interests such as international environmental law, urban development, climate change law, and natural resources law.

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Environmental Law Society

Sep 28, ’11

The Environmental Law Society (ELS) is the student-run organization for all future environmental lawyers and all law students interested in environmental law. Throughout the year, the ELS runs educational events focused on environmental law. In October 2010, the ELS and the Environmental Law Journal hosted a symposium entitled “On Thin Ice: International Law and Environmental Protection in a Melting Arctic.” The symposium examined the promise and threat of an accessible Arctic and featured a keynote address by Peter Taksøe-Jensen, Danish ambassador to the U.S. and former U.N. Assistant Secretary General for Legal Affairs. Later in the year, the ELS and Guarini Center hosted a lunch-time discussion of possible paths forward for U.S. climate policy. As well, the ELS organized career panels and strengthened its mentoring program, in which 2Ls advise and support 1Ls pursuing environmental law.

ELS continued to arrange for students to conduct research with Islands First, an organization aimed at giving a voice to Pacific islands, which are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. It also instituted a new research collaboration with the Natural Resources Defense Council, providing students with the opportunity to help develop sustainable food policy.

The ELS also runs a series of outdoor events, including hiking, apple-picking, planting gardens at the law school and cleaning the Hudson River shore.

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Environmental Law Journal

Sep 28, ’11

The Environmental Law Journal recently completed a productive year, publishing three issues featuring articles on cost-benefit analysis, human rights and environmental regulation, emissions markets, and numerous other cutting-edge issues in environmental law.

Over the past two years, ELJ successfully implemented a plan to reduce its use of paper and other resources. Print editions of ELJ are still published, but the journal has now achieved a nearly paperless process for producing print-ready copy. In addition to these modifications to its own publishing process, ELJ will continue to work with other legal journals at NYU over the coming year to streamline their operations and reduce their environmental impact. This year ELJ will investigate the feasibility of reducing its ecological footprint even further by becoming an online-only publication.

In October 2010, ELJ, the Environmental Law Society, and NYU’s Journal of International Law and Politics co-hosted a symposium. Titled “On Thin Ice: International Law and Environmental Protection in a Melting Arctic,” the event brought together practitioners, academics and students to analyze pertinent issues surrounding Arctic governance. The journal is currently organizing a symposium scheduled for February 2012 on local environmental progress at the municipal level, co-sponsored with the Environmental Law Society.

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John Wood ’11 publishes article on major environmental case just as it reaches Supreme Court

Apr 29, ’11

When John Wood ’11 decided to follow the federal environmental case American Electric Power Co., Inc. v. Connecticut, he pursued it all the way. Not only did Wood publish his substantial writing requirement paper about the case in theEnvironmental Law Reporter, a top journal in the field, but he also traveled to Washington to witness the oral argument for himself, seeing the issues raised in his article play out at the Supreme Court level.

AEP v. Connecticut involves the allegation that utility companies generating power with coal are emitting levels of carbon dioxide that contribute to global warming, with resulting damage to human health and natural resources. Asserting common-law nuisance claims, Connecticut and five other states are seeking injunctions against a group of major companies first to cap and then to reduce those greenhouse gas emissions.

Wood’s article, “Easier Said Than Done: Displacing Public Nuisance When States Sue for Climate Change Damages,” discusses the separation-of-powers issues that arise when all three federal government branches grapple with climate change simultaneously. The research for the article was supervised by Adjunct Professor Michael Livermore ’06, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity.

“I took a risk in writing about AEP, because my analysis could have been preempted at any time by action on climate change from Congress or the executive branch,” said Wood. “However, in the interim, Congress failed to pass climate change legislation, and the executive branch and Congress fell into an intractable power struggle over the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. As I finalized my article, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to AEP.”

Wood attended the April 19 oral argument with Adjunct Professor Nancy Marks, the Natural Resources Defense Council senior attorney who co-teaches the Environmental Law Clinic that Wood is currently taking. He noted that the justices grappled with the distinction between preemption and displacement. Unlike the preemption of state law by federal law, displacement occurs when a federal statute knocks out the federal common law.

In his article, Wood analyzes various standards used to determine if displacement has occurred. He argues that there is a strong case to be made against displacing the federal common law when the plaintiffs are states. If the states lose public nuisance lawsuits, Wood asserts, they should lose on the merits rather than by having the courthouse doors barred to them at this preliminary stage in the litigation. He is crossing his fingers that a Supreme Court clerk will come across his article before the justices rule.

Wood came away from the argument with the sense that the plaintiffs had an uphill battle in swaying the justices. But whichever way the majority opinion goes, Wood is grateful to have been so close to the proceedings. “I am still blown away at how comprehensive and nuanced the justices’ understanding was of climate change and the regulatory apparatus of the EPA,” he said. “No matter how the case comes out, I hope it galvanizes an affirmative federal response to climate change. This was a highlight of my Law School experience that I will never forget.”

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On Thin Ice: International Law and Environmental Protection in a Melting Arctic

Oct 23, ’10

On October 22, NYU School of Law hosted the Sixteenth Annual Herbert Rubin and Justice Rose Luttan Rubin International Law Symposium, titled “On Thin Ice: International Law and Environmental Protection In a Melting Arctic.”

After introductory remarks by Herbert Rubin ’42, founder of Herzfeld & Rubin, and José Alvarez, who is Herbert and Rose Rubin Professor of International Law, the keynote lecture was delivered by Peter Taksøe-Jensen, the Danish ambassador to the United States and former United Nations assistant secretary general for legal affairs. Taksøe-Jensen described the current state of the Artic Ocean, and the potential for changes in access to the region. During summer months, Taksøe-Jensen said, more and more ice is melting each year. This is creating uncharted waters in the arctic region, allowing for potential new trade routes, tourism, and migration of marine life. One of the consequences is a new tension between the countries that border the Arctic as they plan for regulating this new area.

The first panel delved further into Taksøe-Jensen’s introduction, setting its sights on recent changes in the Arctic region and the responses of various nations to those changes. Moderator Peter Miljanich ’11, editor-in-chief of the Environmental Law Journal, paced the discussion, which featured: Betsy Baker, an assistant professor at Vermont Law School; Lisa Speer, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s International Oceans Program; and Ross Virginia, Myers Family Professor of Environmental Science at Dartmouth College. Panel two, moderated by NYU Journal of International Law and Politics Symposium Editor Margaret Graham ’11, discussed the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Professor Katrina Wyman moderated the third and final panel, which explored the domestic and international approaches to conserving the diverse and vulnerable marine ecosystems in the Arctic region from the increasing threats of overfishing, ship strikes, and pollution from new commercial activities.

Watch the opening keynote:

Watch the first panel:

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