The Public Trust Doctrine in Environmental and Natural Resources Law

The Public Trust Doctrine in Environmental and Natural Resources Law
Author: Michael C. Blumm
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015
Genre: Conservation of natural resources
ISBN: 9781611637236

To view or download the 2019 Supplement to this book, click here. The public trust doctrine (PTD), an ancient anti-monopoly precept of property law inherited from Roman and civil law, exists in every United States jurisdiction and several international ones. The PTD, originally concerned with navigation and fishing, has emerged as an organizing principle for natural resources management in the twenty-first century, for it posits government trustees as stewards for both present and future generations. This casebook examines the role of the public trust doctrine in managing waterways, wetlands, water rights, wildlife, the atmosphere, and uplands like beaches and parks. The materials are suited for either an upper-division environmental or natural resources law course or a seminar. The second edition includes important new cases, including the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's landmark Robinson Township decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court's narrowing of the public trust doctrine in Rock Koshkonong, and several recent cases in the atmospheric trust litigation.

Lakefront

Lakefront
Author: Joseph D. Kearney
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 532
Release: 2021-05-15
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 150175467X

How did Chicago, a city known for commerce, come to have such a splendid public waterfront—its most treasured asset? Lakefront reveals a story of social, political, and legal conflict in which private and public rights have clashed repeatedly over time, only to produce, as a kind of miracle, a generally happy ending. Joseph D. Kearney and Thomas W. Merrill study the lakefront's evolution from the middle of the nineteenth century to the twenty-first. Their findings have significance for understanding not only Chicago's history but also the law's part in determining the future of significant urban resources such as waterfronts. The Chicago lakefront is where the American public trust doctrine, holding certain public resources off limits to private development, was born. This book describes the circumstances that gave rise to the doctrine and its fluctuating importance over time, and reveals how it was resurrected in the later twentieth century to become the primary principle for mediating clashes between public and private lakefront rights. Lakefront compares the effectiveness of the public trust idea to other property doctrines, and assesses the role of the law as compared with more institutional developments, such as the emergence of sanitary commissions and park districts, in securing the protection of the lakefront for public uses. By charting its history, Kearney and Merrill demonstrate that the lakefront's current status is in part a product of individuals and events unique to Chicago. But technological changes, and a transformation in social values in favor of recreational and preservationist uses, also have been critical. Throughout, the law, while also in a state of continual change, has played at least a supporting role.

Nature's Trust

Nature's Trust
Author: Mary Christina Wood
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 461
Release: 2014
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0521195136

This book exposes the dysfunction of environmental law and offers a transformative approach based on the public trust doctrine. An ancient and enduring principle, the public trust doctrine empowers citizens to protect their inalienable property rights to crucial resources. This book shows how a trust principle can apply from the local to global level to protect the planet.

Natural Resources Law

Natural Resources Law
Author: Eric T. Freyfogle
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015
Genre: Natural resources
ISBN: 9780314289124

Hardbound - New, hardbound print book.

Fiduciary Law and Responsible Investing

Fiduciary Law and Responsible Investing
Author: Benjamin J. Richardson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2013-08-21
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1135941068

This book is about fiduciary law’s influence on the financial economy’s environmental performance, focusing on how the law affects responsible investing and considering possible legal reforms to shift financial markets closer towards sustainability. Fiduciary law governs how trustees, fund managers or other custodians administer the investment portfolios owned by beneficiaries. Written for a diverse audience, not just legal scholars, the book examines in a multi-jurisdictional context an array of philosophical, institutional and economic issues that have shaped the movement for responsible investing and its legal framework. Fiduciary law has acquired greater influence in the financial economy in tandem with the extraordinary recent growth of institutional funds such as pension plans and insurance company portfolios. While the fiduciary prejudice against responsible investing has somewhat waned in recent years, owing mainly to reinterpretations of fiduciary and trust law, significant barriers remain. This book advances the notion of ‘nature’s trust’ to metaphorically signal how fiduciary responsibility should accommodate society’s dependence on long-term environmental well-being. Financial institutions, managing vast investment portfolios on behalf of millions of beneficiaries, should manage those investments with regard to the broader social interest in sustaining ecological health. Even for their own financial self-interest, investors over the long-term should benefit from maintaining nature’s capital. We should expect everyone to act in nature’s trust, from individual funds to market regulators. The ancient public trust doctrine could be refashioned for stimulating this change, and sovereign wealth funds should take the lead in pioneering best practices for environmentally responsible investing.

The Status of Public Trust Doctrine in India

The Status of Public Trust Doctrine in India
Author: Shefali Soni
Publisher:
Total Pages: 28
Release: 2020-04-29
Genre:
ISBN: 9783346204356

Academic Paper from the year 2020 in the subject Politics - Environmental Policy, course: BALLB, language: English, abstract: The public trust doctrine (PTD) is a legal concept with ancient roots, and it is increasingly being examined as a framework for modern conservation. At its core, the PTD is based on the idea that certain natural resources cannot be fairly or effectively managed by private owners. Rather, these resources should be held in trust by government, which must manage their consumptive use and protection on behalf of present and future citizens. Although historically the PTD applied to a limited set of natural resources such as shellfish beds and submerged lands, courts and legal scholars have expanded the definition of trust resources to include wildlife, oceans, and ecosystem services generally. The wide range of interpretations of the PTD is seen as both a weakness (because it leads to uncertainty in property ownership) and a strength (because it can adapt to accommodate emerging science about what it takes to protect ecosystems).