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 Endangered species act of 1973
employment, unemployment, production, real income, productivity, and prices in each economic report. The statute also set a goal of reducing unemployment to 4 percent by 1983 (compared to the 6.1 percent rate in 1978). Congress specified that the inflation rate be reduced to a level of no more than 3 percent by 1983 (in contrast to the 9 percent level in 1978). Finally, the Humphrey-Hawkins Act required the Federal Reserve Board to report to Congress twice a year on its monetary policies and to relate them to the goals of the act. Setting statutory goals, of course, is not the same as achieving them. There are no penalties, sanctions or remedies in the statute if the nation fails to meet the identified goals and targets.
The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice ten years on: Successes and future challenges under the Stockholm Programme. CEPS Paperbacks. June 2010
This book celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) by bringing together the views of key practitioners and policy-makers who have played an outstanding role in thinking about and shaping EU policies on freedom, security and justice. 
 
Ten years ago, the member states transferred competences to the EU for law and policy-making in the fields of immigration, asylum and border controls, and began the transfer process for criminal justice and policing. This decade of European cooperation on AFSJ policies has experienced very dynamic convergence, the enactment of a large body of European law and the setting-up of numerous EU agencies working in these domains. Such dynamism in policy-making has not been without challenges and vulnerabilities, however. As this collective volume shows, the main dilemmas that lie ahead relate to an effective (while more plural) institutional framework under the Treaty of Lisbon, stronger judicial scrutiny through a greater role for national courts and the Court of Justice in Luxembourg, better mechanisms for evaluating and monitoring the implementation of EU AFSJ law and a more solid fundamental rights strategy. The contributions in this volume address the progress achieved so far in these policy areas, identify the challenges for future European cooperation in the AFSJ and put forward possible paths for making more progress in the next generation of the EU’s AFSJ.