Advancing the Sovereign Trust of Government to Safeguard the Environment for Present and Future Generations (Part I): Ecological Realism and the Need for a Paradigm Shift
Modern environmental law has proved a colossal failure, despite the good intentions and the hard work of many citizens, lawyers, and government officials. Notwithstanding the most extensive and complex set of legal mandates the world has ever known, government is driving runaway greenhouse gas emissions and resource depletion. Agencies use the discretion in their statutes to allow continuing damage to the atmosphere and other natural resources. At a time when society faces catastrophic climate heating and ecological collapse, leading thinkers should be setting their sights on a transformational environmental law principle. This Article is the first of two companion Articles that identify the public trust doctrine as the most fundamental legal mechanism available to ensure governmental protection of natural resources necessary for public welfare and survival. At the core of the doctrine is the principle that every sovereign government holds vital natural resources in “trust” for the public – i.e., present and future generations of citizen beneficiaries. This Article proposes a paradigm shift away from the current system of natural resource management, a system driven by political discretion, to one that is infused with public trust principles and policies across all branches of government and at all jurisdictional levels. Section II of this Article explains the necessity for an emergency response to arrest the hemorrhage of natural systems and stabilize climate by bringing down atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gas pollution. Section III explains the dysfunction of modern environmental law and the role of agencies in promoting natural damage. Section IV explores the depth of legal change needed to secure the resources essential to future survival and prosperity. Section V explains the role of government as trustee of natural resources. Section VI describes states and foreign nations as covenant trustees with respect to shared or transitory resources. Part II of this work presents the trust framework as it relates to the modern regime of statutory and administrative law.
The Role of State Wildlife Professionals Under the Public Trust Doctrine
ABSTRACT The Public Trust Doctrine (PTD) is considered the cornerstone of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. Effective application of the PTD requires a clear understanding of the doctrine and appropriate behavior by trustees, trust managers, and beneficiaries. Most PTD literature refers generically to the role of the government as the people's trustee, without addressing the differences between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government in the United States or recognizing the distinction between elected and appointed officials and career civil servants. Elected and appointed officials, especially in the legislative branch, have policy-level decision-making authority that makes them trustees of the people's wildlife under the PTD. In contrast, career professionals working for state wildlife agencies (SWA's) have ministerial duties as trust managers. The differences between the roles of trustees and trust managers are important. By focusing on their role as trust managers, while supporting and respecting the role of elected and appointed officials as trustees, SWA professionals can more effectively advance application of the PTD.
Stalemate: Causes and Consequences of Legislative Gridlock
The author concludes “workers need to articulate a new cultural perspective on the role of law and the nature of work. Especially, workers need leaders who can . . . breach the dual boundaries that legalism and the institutions of the legal complex impose on workers.” This leads me to raise the question whether American workers’ movement should contemplate being more explicitly political, as forming a Labor Party like many European countries? This will allow them to become an integral part of the political/legal system, and changes from within the system should prove to be more effective than scattered strikes against a single management. This, of course, goes far beyond my expertise. As an economist, I find the book interesting and a learning experience. Though this book may not be suitable for the general economics audience, I do plan to assign this as optional reading for my Labor Economics class. Speaking beyond my narrow profession, this book is targeted at the political science and sociology disciplines; a must read, in my opinion. I firmly believe it would be an important book for the law profession also. The author uses the Pittston Coal strike as the story line to explain to us the rationality (and the subjectiveness of such rationalities) of behavior on both sides during the strike. As any good scholar, the author documents the legal complexity and empirical complications of the workings of these laws such that an outsider (like myself) can grasp the legitimate political and economic preferences that these laws originate from and translate to society. Though the book is about a single strike, the author uses it as a classroom for teaching and learning, much like a biology teacher would use the corner of a garden to expose us to the complexity of life. In the style of a movie critic, I give this book a thumbs-up, and a 41 /2 star rating.