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The Need to Explore the Potential of Marine CDR with a One-Earth Strategy: A Guide for Policy-makers
Full text linkRapid, deep and sustained reductions in carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions are essential to achieve the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement of keeping the long-term global average surface temperature increase well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C . In addition, the 2021 IPCC Report explains that carbon dioxide removal (CDR) will be needed to offset residual CO₂ emissions from activities and sectors that are difficult to decarbonize by 2050. The objective of CDR is removal of atmospheric CO2 from residual emissions and its durable storage in reservoirs, which is an additional critical element towards achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and thereby ensure less than 2°C global warming.
The annual estimates of CDR required in 2030 and by 2050 are 3.6 Gt and 9.4 Gt, respectively, leaving a CDR gap of 1 Gt by 2030 and 6.8 Gt by 2050 relative to the expected CDR from conventional land-based methods of 2.6 Gt per year by 2030. How much of this gap can be filled sustainably by land-based CDR is unknown. Novel CDR methods include direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS), biochar, and various marine approaches. Although these novel methods currently account for \u3c0.1% of CDR worldwide, many are being tested through model simulations and small-scale pilot projects. The ocean plays a critical role in regulating Earth’s climate, and marine CDR (mCDR) offers substantial untapped opportunities that have so far been overlooked. Modeling indicates that several mCDR methods could scale to a billion tonnes annually, but their potential ecological side-effects are poorly known. Exploration of the potential of safe, durable and verifiable mCDR and its scalability within sustainability limits is urgently required, even though the process of testing, refining, verifying, and scaling mCDR will take at least a decade.
Time is short, and policymakers must therefore prioritize an ambitious timeline to deliver safe, sustainable, durable, and verifiable mCDR solutions that can potentially scale in parallel with land-based efforts, together with a regulatory framework for deployment
Law for the Rich
Full text linkWith top incomes and wealth reaching historic highs, scholars and politicians have proposed new taxes and novel legal rules aimed at reversing the emergence of the new Gilded Age. Yet while new taxes target the rich directly by imposing greater burdens only on those with incomes or wealth above multi-million-dollar thresholds, none of the proposed legal reforms do anything of the sort. There appears to be no interest in changing property law, corporate law, antitrust law, or labor law, among others, to have special, more burdensome rules applicable only to the rich. This Article asks: Why not? Why shy away from a separate law for the rich if one supports both progressive taxation and distributionally informed legal rules in general?
This puzzle, it turns out, is surprisingly difficult to solve. Neither political philosophy nor economic analysis nor practical design considerations offer a plausible answer. Looking for clues outside of legal theory suggests that a separate law for the rich would be widely viewed as unfair because it imposes burdens that are obvious, highly concentrated, and possibly contrary to one of the fundamental elements of law itself. Redistribution through legal rules, it turns out, is limited in a way that redistribution through the tax law is not. Law for the rich is not a solution to the emergence of the new Gilded Age. Reformers must look for other ways of achieving a more prosperous and more just society
The Common Law of Constitutional Conventions
Full text linkProfessor Jill Lepore’s Jorde Symposium lecture paints a rich portrait of state constitutional conventions as engines of democratization during the 1800s and issues a dire warning about the United States’ ongoing amendment drought. Citing their unfamiliarity, however, Lepore declines to consider federal constitutional conventions as a possible corrective. In this response Essay, I argue: first, that Lepore’s marginalization of Article V’s convention mechanism is in tension with her own historical and normative account; second, that while Lepore’s wariness of conventions is entirely understandable given the state of our politics — and entirely commonplace among progressives — it carries significant risks of its own; and third, that constitutional conventions are not as unfamiliar as they might seem and that our long experience with this institution at the state level supplies guidance as to how a federal convention might be made less frightening and more legitimate. If we wish to revive the Framers’ “philosophy of amendment” and reclaim popular control over fundamental law, we must figure out how to operationalize that philosophy through credible procedures. The common law of constitutional conventions is a vital resource for this task
Humanist Copyright
Full text linkThis exploration of the role of authorship in copyright law proceeds in three parts: historical, doctrinal, and predictive. First, I will review the development of author-focused property rights in the pre-copyright regimes of printing privileges and in early Anglo-American copyright law through the 1909 U.S. Copyright Act. Second, I will analyze the extent to which the present U.S. copyright law does (and does not) honor human authorship. Finally, I will consider the potential responses of copyright law to the claims of proprietary rights in AI-generated outputs. I will explain why the humanist orientation of U.S. copyright law validates the position of the Copyright Office and the courts that the output of an AI system will not be a “work of authorship” unless human participation has determinatively caused the creation of the output
Toward a Dynamic View of Corporate Purpose
Full text linkScholars debating the corporation’s role in society generally advance the view that there is only one desirable orientation for corporations and their management. Specifically, proponents of a stakeholder governance model contend that focusing management on a broad set of corporate constituents maximizes overall welfare, while advocates of a shareholder-centric directive counter that prioritizing shareholders creates social welfare by rendering the firm most profitable. This Article offers another view: It suggests that the welfare-maximizing purpose for corporations could change depending on external economic conditions, which both of these positions assume away. Specifically, shareholder primacy is likely to promote welfare in a first-best world, where the government regulates corporate externalities, ensures competitive markets, and responds to inequality. Once these assumptions are relaxed, however, the case for stakeholder governance improves.
The Article supports this theoretical insight with a detailed analysis of two historical periods in which the dominant view of corporate purpose in society changed dramatically. Specifically, it describes two corporate purpose “moments” of flux in the United States — one that occurred after the great stock market crash of 1929, and another following a period of economic stagflation in the 1970s — in which the pendulum swung from one governance model to the other, impacting scholarship, business practice, and law. These historical snapshots reveal that departures from a shareholder-oriented model have been preceded by extreme external economic conditions, consistent with the theoretical insight offered here. This analysis also sheds light on the present moment, in which inequality, corporate concentration, and environmental degradation have generated heated debates about the corporation’s role in society once again
The Bugbear of Indigenous \u3cem\u3eCommercial\u3c/em\u3e Fishing Rights on the Eastern Frontiers of Australia and the United States
Full text linkRestrictions on the commercial exercise of Indigenous fishing rights are plentiful across the U.S. and Australia. They have particular force and prevalence for Indigenous communities residing in the sites of the first colonies in both nations. This note exposes the common history underlying the diminished rights in these regions and argues the situation amounts to a critical environmental injustice. It follows that environmental justice advocates and scholars should embrace and advance the more encompassing iteration of Indigenous fishing rights urged by this note and support their restoration as a form of corrective justice for these communities
Bound: The Imaginative Surplus of Contractual Intent
Full text linkContract law is generally understood in terms of enforcement. The legal definition of a contract is a promise that the state will enforce. Individuals are empowered by contract law to create legal arrangements that the state will step in and enforce. And yet most contracts never make it to court.
This Article inverts the conventional focus on enforcement through a study of extralegal contracts. These are formal written agreements that parties call contracts but are not intended for legal enforcement. Examples of these extralegal contracts include no-suicide contracts and contracts for sexual slavery.
Examining extralegal contracts offers multiple insights. First, this analysis sheds new light on Lon Fuller’s classic functions of contractual formalities. Second, it reveals five novel functions of these formalities: diagnostic, expressive, constitutive, mapping, and experiential. Third, it shows the relevance of empirical work in behavioral science on the so-called Question Behavior Effect to our understanding of contracting behavior.
These insights from extralegal contracts are theoretically interesting in their own right and practically relevant to our understanding of legal contracts. The Article develops an account of strategic contracting behavior across legal contexts, drawing on the novel functions and Question Behavior Effect mechanisms, specifically dramatizing the impact through contract domains where enforcement is uncertain or unlikely, including preliminary agreements, surrogacy contracts, and demands for assurances
International Law: Norms, Actors, Process: A Problem-Oriented Approach
No full textWritten by three of the leading International Law scholars in the nation, International Law: Norms, Actors, Process: A Problem-Oriented Approach employs a unique problem-based approach to examining international issues. Using real-life case studies as teaching problems, the text explores the processes for making and applying international law with an interdisciplinary approach that goes beyond mere doctrinal explanation.
New to the Sixth Edition: New problems concerning the Chagos Islands dispute, the South-China Sea Dispute, Indigenous peoples, Western Sahara, Gaza, and International Financial Institutions Updates on key legal developments concerning human rights, climate change litigation, and trade and investment law New discussions of interdisciplinary and critical perspectives, in light of recent developments in the worldhttps://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/books/1390/thumbnail.jp
The Limits and Promise of Global Antitrust Law
Full text linkA large body of evidence suggests that open, competitive markets are a key driver of economic development. In recognition of this fact, many of the world’s leading economies not only adopted their own antitrust laws to promote competition, but they also urged developing countries around the world to do the same. This resulted in a remarkable proliferation of global antitrust law over the last several decades. Many studies have empirically examined the effect of this development, and, consistent with the hopes of policymakers, they have largely found that adopting antitrust laws produces positive economic outcomes.
In this Article, we reassess the relationship between countries’ antitrust laws and their economic growth. We improve on prior research by using more detailed data on countries’ antitrust regimes and deploying a research design that more accurately captures countries’ growth trajectories. This allows us to provide a more nuanced account of the relationship between antitrust law adoption and market outcomes.
Our results suggest that, on average, antitrust laws have had little to no impact on economic development. But we also find evidence suggesting that these laws have a positive effect on economic development in countries that have adopted antitrust laws out of a more genuine commitment to competition as opposed to following external pressures or incentives. Notably, we find that antitrust law is associated with increases in economic growth for countries that adopt antitrust laws without being required by a preferential trade agreement to do so. This suggests that domestic buy-in is critical for antitrust laws to foster economic growth. Our analysis thus reveals both the limits and the promise of antitrust law as a tool for economic development, helping us make sense of the past while guiding legislative reforms and enforcement efforts going forward
“Small” Voices, Big Wins: Analyzing Remedies in Children’s Climate Cases
No full textChildren’s climate litigation has emerged as a powerful tool to address the climate crisis, with young plaintiffs around the world taking governments and corporations to court to demand climate action. This Article examines successful cases — those in which relief sought by the applicants was fully or partially granted — across five continents, providing an “around the world” perspective on the evolution and impact of youth-led climate litigation. Focusing on landmark cases in Australia, Colombia, South Africa, South Korea, and the United States, this analysis highlights the arguments presented by young plaintiffs and the judicial reasoning that supported the relief granted. Through a comparative lens, the Article explores commonalities and differences in legal strategies and the framing of children’s rights and intergenerational justice. In particular, it compares the remedies ordered by courts, assessing the effectiveness of children’s climate litigation strategies. By showcasing these successes, the Article underscores the transformative potential of children’s climate litigation to advance legal protections for present and future generations, while also drawing lessons to inform future advocacy and judicial engagement on climate change