3246 research outputs found
Sort by
Inadequate Demonstration: EPA’s Latest Effort to Force a Clean Energy Transition on the Power Sector Rests on Technologies That Have Not Been Adequately Demonstrated
Full text linkThe Environmental Protection Agency\u27s (EPA) proposed regulations of power plant carbon emissions under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act, which were proposed in May of 2023, raise a number of concerns. The proposed regulations target a transition in the U.S. power sector towards clean energy, relying heavily on Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) and green hydrogen technologies to achieve nearly net zero carbon emissions from existing fossil fuel power plants. These technologies, however, do not seem to satisfy the Section 111 requirement that the Best System of Emissions Reduction (BSER) be adequately demonstrated at the scale and for the purposes envisioned by the EPA. The critique highlights a discrepancy between the EPA\u27s proposed New Source Performance Standards and the statutory requirement that the BSER must be technically feasible and cost-effective. Concerns are raised about the potential for these regulations to unconstitutionally coerce state governments and to neglect the economic implications, including the potential rise in electricity costs and the environmental impact of shifting away from coal and natural gas. Additionally, the critique questions the EPA\u27s interpretation of Section 111 as it may extend the agency\u27s authority to significantly alter the American economy in the pursuit of addressing climate change. The warning is of a disorderly transition that might compromise the reliability and affordability of electricity supply, undermining efforts towards a sustainable low-carbon power sector transition
Conscientious Objection and Abortion: The Italian Pseudo-Exceptionalism
Full text linkThreats to abortion and reproductive rights are well-rooted in global discursive and strategic practices promoted by conservative and ‘pro-life’ movements and narratives. Starting from these premises, this essay will focus on abortion access in Italy and the barrier caused by conscientious objection among medical personnel, which appears indefensible in light of both international human rights regimes and philosophical-theoretical perspectives. The main questions explored here are the following: Is conscientious objection to abortion really based on Catholic moral teaching, which constitutes the conventional religious wisdom of the national societal fabric? How and to what extent are Catholic and conservative moral narratives and rules part of the nomos that has shaped and perhaps still shapes Italian abortion law and national political moves over the last few decades? To address these questions, this analysis will use historical arguments, aiming to identify, along with feminist and political perspectives, the viewpoint and role of the Catholic Church and its actors, particularly when the abortion law was passed. The essay will also rely on empirical evidence, which includes data and counter-data that highlight how conscientious objection affects third-party rights, outside a genuine democratic process. Additionally, this study will explore normative and political aspects, analyzing the debate on conscientious objection within domestic legal discourse and in comparison with the legal trends in other European legal systems. The goal is to bring to light the legitimization process of healthcare practices, which have effectively shifted the conscientious objection of medical personnel from being an ‘exception’ intended to protect dissenting minorities, becoming a general operational rule. This process has both upheld traditional moral constructions and perpetuated social mechanisms stigmatizing both women and non-objecting medical personnel
Entre La Espada y La Pared: Obstacles to U.S. Investment in Cuba
Full text linkInvesting in Cuba poses several obstacles to U.S. investors. Cuba’s new Law of Foreign Investment and new Constitution do not provide remedies or protections against the state’s takings of private property or imprisonment without charge. On the U.S. side, Title III of the Helms-Burton Act has made U.S. investors the most vulnerable to claims worth billions in damages under the Act
Markham’s Opus Remembering the Past—Watching It Repeat From the Great Recession to the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Financial History of the United States 2010–2020 (by Jerry W. Markham 2022)
Full text linkThis article discusses the impact and significance of Professor Jerry Markham\u27s financial history entitled From the Great Recession to Covid-19 Pandemic: A Financial History of the United States 2010-2020. The article describes how this volume 7 to his series on the financial history of the United States captures the significance of the financial events and tumult that occurred between 2010 and 2020
Italian Comparative: A Trait of the Legal System
Full text linkThe cultural environment of Italian academia was open to suggestions that came from other legal systems and shaped an eclectic legal culture. Italy is an hybrid system that took the code from France, the legal science from Germany, and has always been receptive of foreign suggestions. This cultural background may explain why the Italian legal curriculum requires a mandatory course of comparative law and why comparative law has been an important field of Italian legal research. At the same time, comparative law was characterized by an an important mark of antiformalism, necessary to swim through the times of Fascism and post Fascism. The article will highlight the main features of Italian comparative since its birth, and its connection with other fields of legal inquiry, such as critical legal studies, law and economics and harmonization of European law
Global Antitrust from the Global South: A Comparative Law Void
Full text linkThis paper discusses the attempts at creating an international antitrust regime from the perspective of the Global South. Today’s diffused competition laws, have arguably muted calls for an international antitrust regime. Given this diffusion, a global regime has indeed emerged. Within such a system, differentiated and selective antitrust enforcements are proposed as ways to achieve national public interest goals
Keeping the Perpetual in Florida\u27s Conservation Easements
Full text linkHundreds of millions of dollars are being invested in the protection of the Florida Wildlife Corridor and other environmentally sensitive lands. One of the primary tools being used to accomplish this protection is the perpetual conservation easement, which is touted to landowners and the public as providing a permanent guarantee that the subject lands will never be developed. There is a very real danger, however, that perpetual conservation easements in Florida may not, in fact, be perpetual, and the protections put in place today will vanish over time—along with the public funds invested therein—as government and nonprofit holders “release” the easements in the face of economic, political, and development pressures. Florida landowners may also find themselves unable to benefit from the subsidies offered through federal tax incentive and purchase programs due to an inability to qualify for those programs, which mandate that strict limits be placed on the release or extinguishment of conservation easements. This Article raises the alarm regarding the potential lack of durability of conservation easements in Florida, and explains the significant disconnect between what landowners and the public are being told about the permanence of conservation easements and the realities of existing law. This article also seeks to address these problems by recommending two steps that should be taken now to ensure that perpetual conservation easements in Florida will, in fact, be perpetual: (i) revise Florida law to place clear limits on the extinguishment or amendment of perpetual conservation easements, as has been done in several other states, and (ii) draft conservation easements to make clear that the grantor, the grantee, and their successors in interest are bound by the easement terms. With hundreds of landowners reportedly waiting to grant perpetual conservation easements to protect the Florida Wildlife Corridor, the time to act is now