Judges

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April 22, 2011

Oral Argument in AEP v. Conn.: The Common Law and Climate Change

Posted by Jason J. Czarnezki under Climate Change, Energy, Environment, Judges, Law, Supreme Court, Uncategorized
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I have been irresponsible (especially since I brought the case up in my class this week) in not blogging about AEP v. Conn. (here’s an earlier post), the case considers whether common law nuisance can be used to abate greenhouse gas emissions.  The case was argued before the US Supreme Court this week.  So here are some resources, from bloggers more timely than I, to get my readers up to speed.

The oral argument transcript can be found here.

SCOTUSblog’s case page and Argument Recap.

Commentary at Legal Planet here and here and here (my students will be interested in this last link related to nuisance and remedies).

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April 12, 2011

China & Environmental Courts

Posted by Jason J. Czarnezki under China, Environment, Judges, Law
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On behalf of the Vermont Law School’s US-China Partnership on Environmental Law, my colleague Jingjing Liu attended the International Symposium on Environmental Courts and Tribunals at Pace Law School on April 1, 2011, and participated on a Panel on the Environmental Courts in China.

She presented on the Chinese legal system and the development of specialized environmental court and shared the work that Vermont Law School is doing with the courts in China.  The other four panelists were my former colleague Tseming Yang, Professor Bob Percival, Senior Attorney Tim Epp from the Environmental Appeal Board of the USEPA, and Vivian Wang from NRDC.  Each of them shared their observations on whether China’s courts can play a similar role in advancing environmental law as the courts have done here in the U.S.

To watch the video of the panel, click here.  The panel on China and Environmental Courts begins at 02:05:00.

 

November 4, 2010

Should we Elect or Appoint Judges?

Posted by Jason J. Czarnezki under Judges, Law, Politics
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Three members of the Iowa Supreme Court lost re-election races on Tuesday.  Due to the hostility of modern politics (on both sides of the aisle), the significant increase in spending in judicial races, and the need for an independent judiciary that is not subject to political pressure or bias (or the appearance of bias) due to campaign contributions, I have been, for some time, in favor of  appointed state judiciaries.  In 2005, I wrote an article entitled A Call for Change: Improving Judicial Selection Methods.  The American Judicature Society also has an excellent website devoted to state judicial selection methods and relevant research that evaluates potential selection methods.