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Supporting Good Governance of Extractive Industries in Politically Hostile Settings: Rethinking Approaches and Strategies
Get PDFThis discussion paper is the product of a workshop entitled “Supporting Good Governance of Extractive Industries in Politically Hostile Settings: A View from Sub-Saharan Africa,” organized by the Oxford Martin School (OMS) Programme on African Governance and the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) and supporting research. The workshop brought together global and local researchers and practitioners with a wide range of experience with extractives governance, particularly, though not exclusively, in the sub-Saharan African region. The meeting built on prior research and discussions held as part of CCSI’s project on the Politics of Extractive Industries, dedicated to supporting the field of actors working to improve the governance of extractive industries (henceforth, the “GEI field”) in their efforts to think and work in more politically savvy ways. By sharing some initial insights from this work, we hope to contribute to broader conversations on how to improve practical approaches to supporting good governance and development in a range of political settings, including some of the most repressive and challenging
Scaling Investment in Renewable Energy Generation to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and 13 (Climate Action) and the Paris Agreement: Roadblocks and Drivers
Get PDFThe zero-carbon energy transition is the solution to the 2022 energy crisis and a fundamental part of the solution to the global climate crisis. Yet, there are relatively low levels of investment in renewable energy in developing countries, hindering their achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and contribution to the Paris Agreement goals.
In 2021, the Asia–Pacific region (excluding China) accounted for less than 8% of investments in energy transition technologies, Latin America and the Caribbean for less than 4%, and Africa and the Middle East for less than 2%. Annual investment in zero-carbon energy in developing economies other than China has stagnated since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015. To put the world on track to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, annual capital spending on zero-carbon energy in developing countries must increase by more than seven times, to more than USD 1 trillion, by the end of the 2020s.
There is therefore an urgent need to address the drivers of public and private finance for investment in renewable electricity generation, network infrastructure, and end-use sectors to meet the Paris Agreement and two complementary SDGs: ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all (SDG 7); and taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts (SDG 13).
This report sheds light on roadblocks to scaling up investments in renewables while distilling solutions from international experience and brings clarity to where international and national efforts should urgently be focused to address the deterrents of investment in renewables and enable zero-carbon energy security and prosperity
ERA Project OLC Letter
Get PDFThe Equal Rights Amendment Project at Columbia Law School (“ERA Project”) and the undersigned scholars submit this letter at the request of your office to provide legal analysis of the January 6, 2020 Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel Memorandum to the National Archives and Records Administration on the Equal Rights Amendment (“2020 OLC Memo”)
Parading the Horribles: The Risks of Expanding Religious Exemptions
Get PDFPeople of faith now have a constitutional right to practice their religion—even when doing so conflicts with a government law or policy — that is more rigorously protected than nearly any other right. Some states have passed bills that provide an even broader right to such “religious exemptions” from the law than provided under the U.S. Constitution. Other religious exemption bills have been introduced and await consideration
Before Equal Protection: The Fall of Cross-Dressing Bans and the Transgender Legal Movement
Get PDFScholars are still unsure why American cities passed cross-dressing bans over the closing decades of the nineteenth century. By the 1960s, cities in every region of the United States had cross-dressing regulations, from major metropolitan centers to small cities and towns. They were used to criminalize gender non-conformity in many forms – for feminists, countercultural hippies, cross-dressers (or “transvestites”), and people we would now consider transgender. Starting in the late 1960s, however, criminal defendants began to topple cross-dressing bans.
Scholars are still unsure why American cities passed cross-dressing bans over the closing decades of the nineteenth century. By the 1960s, cities in every region of the United States had cross-dressing regulations, from major metropolitan centers to small cities and towns. They were used to criminalize gender non-conformity in many forms - for feminists, countercultural hippies, cross-dressers (or “transvestites”), and people we would now consider transgender. Starting in the late 1960s, however, criminal defendants began to topple cross-dressing bans
Normative Powers
Get PDFThe chapter provides an analysis of normative powers as the ability to change a normative condition, and distinguishes and analyses several kinds of such powers. It distinguishes between wide normative powers possessed by any act that non-causally results in a normative change, and narrow normative powers, which are the main topic of the chapter. The most important theses of the chapter are: First, the distinction between basic normative powers and chained normative powers (the latter being powers created by the exercise of other powers) and second, defending the apparently surprising claim that people have narrow powers when and because there is undefeated value in their existence. The account explores the relations between the normative powers and the values which explain and justify their existence. It ends by showing the connection between the thesis that values depend on human nature and culture, and the dependence of normative powers on justifying reasons
The Rejected Threat of Corporate Vote Suppression: The Rise and Fall of the Anti-Activist Pill
Get PDFAs disciplinary takeovers are replaced by activist shareholder campaigns, managements may well want to turn to the “anti-activist pill” as shelter from the storm. The economic shock from the widespread shutdown to combat the Covid-19 pandemic produced dozens of so-called “crisis pills.” The defense of these pills as avoiding “disruption” and “distraction” of managements can be seen as a test run for broader use of poison pills to fend off shareholder activism. The Delaware courts, first Chancery and then the Supreme Court, rejected this managerial defense tactic in a way that clarifies the role of the poison pill in corporate governance. In the context of a hostile tender offer, the pill may be legitimated as protecting the statutory “two-step” for a merger: first, screening and negotiating by the board, followed by a shareholder vote on a proposed merger. Delaware’s board-centric model relies on another statutory mechanism — a director election contest — as the appropriate avenue for managerial accountability. Various elements of the poison pill — the cap on share ownership and a definition of “beneficial owner” that goes beyond “record owner” — have unfortunate side effects on election contests but are necessary to prevent unvetted shifts in control via tender offer or the gradual accumulation of stock (a “creeping tender offer”) either directly or with confederates. An anti-activist pill converts these side effects into its very mechanism, precisely to block a successful director election contest. An election contest is different from a tender offer in this critical respect: Success requires persuasion of a shareholder majority who will remain shareholders after the event. A low pill trigger reduces the activist’s economic incentives and can reduce its credibility; a capacious definition of beneficial ownership burdens its task of persuasion. The Delaware Courts’ reaffirmation of the legitimating role of the shareholder franchise is particularly important now, as the set of shareholder activists expands to include ESG activists who will use director election contests to propose broader conceptions of corporate purpose and shareholder value pursuit
Climate Science in Adaptation Litigation in the U.S.
Get PDFThe most prominent climate litigation to date has primarily focused on mitigation—reducing greenhouse gas emissions—but as climate impacts become more frequent, extreme, and intense, adaptation litigation will increase. Adaptation cases frequently rely on evidence drawn from scientific research into past and future climate change. This research oftentimes consists of one of two types of climate research: attribution studies of climate change to date, and future projections of climate change and its impacts.
Climate change attribution links human activity to climate change, especially changes in the statistics of extreme weather events. Increasingly, it is also beginning to be applied to impacts across sectors such as public health and agriculture development. As one example of climate change attribution, a recent study found that the Summer 2022 United Kingdom heat wave would have been extremely unlikely without human-induced climate change. Climate projections, by contrast, provide a range of plausible future changes in climate and impacts. The magnitude and range of these projections can vary dramatically based on how far into the future they are assessing climate change: predictions for near-term climate change are generally independent of future greenhouse gas emissions, whereas longer-term projections vary dramatically based on the magnitude of future greenhouse gas emissions. The IPCC has noted that “[m]ethods for projecting climate futures have matured since the 1950s and attribution studies since the 1980s,” concluding that “understanding of the principal features of the climate system is robust and well established.”
This paper examines climate adaptation litigation in two broad categories: (1) cases seeking adaptation measures; and (2) cases challenging planned or existing adaptation actions. For each, the paper describes the key features of the litigation, the role of climate science in the claims and defenses of the parties advocating for or defending adaptation action, and the arguments put forward to limit the role of climate science in the litigation. The paper concludes that climate science is a critical component of climate adaptation cases and that litigants should integrate the best available science into the cases they bring from the outset, but that key legal questions may prevent climate science from playing a determinative role in certain cases
Who Decides Where the Renewables Should Go?: A Response to Danielle Stokes’ \u3cem\u3eRenewable Energy Federalism\u3c/em\u3e
Get PDFOne of the central tasks in addressing the climate crisis is transitioning from an energy system based on fossil fuels to one that mainly uses renewable energy. In her article “Renewable Energy Federalism,” Professor Danielle Stokes has highlighted one of the key impediments to this transition — delays in state and local permitting of renewable energy facilities. She has proposed a new approach that would give more authority to the federal government. Stokes’ approach has much to commend it. However, I differ on some aspects.
I will begin by describing the magnitude of the problem — the amount of new renewable capacity that is needed for the United States to meet its climate objectives. Then I will describe the current system (if it can be called that) for deciding what renewable facilities are built where, and how Stokes would change that system. I will provide some historical perspective on how major projects have been sited, and the important role of private developers in energy generation projects. Finally, I will offer my views on which parts of Stokes’ proposal I would follow and which I would modify or discard
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No full textPhoto of John C. Coffee, Jr., Adolf A. Berle Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cutting_edge_podcast/1000/thumbnail.jp