JASON J. CZARNEZKI

See full article here.

"The Agriculture Department has approved a label for meat and liquid egg products that includes a claim about the absence of genetically engineered products. It is the first time that the department, which regulates meat and poultry processing, has approved a non-G.M.O. label claim, which attests that meat certified by the Non-GMO Project came from animals that never ate feed containing genetically engineered ingredients like corn, soy and alfalfa."

Eric Posner is on fire. He writes a must-read Supreme Court Year in Review in slate.com and states:

"The conservative justices really are very, very conservative. I had up until now pooh-poohed liberal constitutional law professors and journalists who argued that the court had gone off the rails. Mea culpa."

H/T: Dan Markel

SCOTUSblog Opinions Recap: Giant Step for Gay Marriage

Dave Owen (Maine) has an interesting blog post entitled "A few initial thoughts on Windsor (and Massachusetts v. EPA)" which discusses the role of federalism and state legislatures in constitutional interpretation. Following reading his post, check out the posts entitled "DOMA and Federalism" and "Windsor and the states’ power to define federal constitutional rights: Does Kennedy revive Justice Harlan’s Theory of Rights?" posted today on PrawfsBlawg.

Progressives are not happy with the US Supreme Court today. The court declared parts of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional, and Congress likely won’t fix it. Eric Posner calls the decision "lame." In another case, real estate developers won big. More cases (DOMA, gay marriage) are on the horizon.

Well here’s an article that merits some commentary from Bill Henderson (Indiana). From the NYTimes article, Big Law’s Troubling Trajectory:

"It comes down to this: firm leaders know that regardless of how they treat young lawyers, numerous replacements wait for their turns in the increasingly fragile big-law barrel. Meanwhile, the profession’s existential crisis continues as intergenerational antagonisms fester. Except for the relatively few partners at the top, this can’t end well."

My former colleague Tseming Yang (Santa Clara) has posted: The Relationship between Domestic and International Environmental Law

The Abstract:

The connections between domestic and international law have proliferated in the last few decades as a directed result of the explosive growth of environmental treaties and other developments. Yet, most U.S. environmental lawyers remain relatively unaware even though these connections are increasingly affecting the practice of environmental law itself. Other parts of the book provide background on the specific substantive content of global environmental laws, both international as well as the environmental law systems of other countries. This chapter will address the relationship between the international and the domestic system, primarily the US. It will address three related question: 1) What is international environmental law?, 2) what is its relationship to U.S. domestic law?, and 3) how is international environmental law implemented and applied in the U.S.?

You decide:
Obama to Outline Ambitious Plan to Cut Greenhouse Gases
Promises about Cap and Trade on The Obameter

When I teach environmental law, I teach it through discussion of various regulatory methods that may (or may not) effectively regulate environmental farm. Examples include bans; informational regulation; education; infrastructure; mandates; standard-setting; and economic (dis)incentives. Well, while there are certainly environmental crimes, this would be a very serious approach: China warns it will execute serious polluters

Due the extreme air pollution in Mainland China, Hong Kong over the last 5 years has experienced increased air pollution and smog. My former student, in 2012, wrote about poor air quality in Hong Kong while she was doing her internship there with WWF. A year earlier, in 2011, I wrote about "Westerners and businessman moving their families from Hong Kong to Singapore due to the increasingly poor air quality in Hong Kong." But now it seems Singapore’s air quality is under the microscope, though in this case the poor air quality is due to fires in Indonesia. See these articles:
Singapore air pollution hits record high
Singapore’s record-breaking smog is so bad, birds are falling from the sky
Air quality at dangerous levels in Singapore and Malaysia

Since I’ve written before on this issue before, check out the NY Times blurb and decide for yourself: is this a small step of progress or a very weak public relations announcement?

With CO2 Cuts Tough, U.S. and China Pledge a Push on Another Greenhouse Gas – NYTimes.com
http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/dotearth/2013/06/08/with-co2-cuts-tough-u-s-and-china-pledge-a-push-on-another-greenhouse-gas/