3722 research outputs found
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Indigenous Women Book Display 2025 18
No full textClose up of book display created by Women of Color Collective in the law library October 2025 highlighting the book Unbroken by Angela Sterritt.https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/indigenous-women-2025-photos/1015/thumbnail.jp
The Role of International Law in Water Security: A Focus on Transboundary Groundwater
No full textHistorically, challenges to international water security have primarily been associated with transboundary surface waters. While water wars are rare, examples from practice and research show that there is a link between transboundary freshwater resources and international security, where disputes and conflicts related to the use, allocation, or protection of transboundary waters have seriously challenged water security. However, there are also examples of cooperation, namely over shared surface waters. While groundwater, especially in a transboundary context, has yet to be fully exploited around the world, the volume of water available to mankind from underground sources substantially exceeds the amount of water found in all of the freshwater lakes, rivers, and other surface water bodies. As the pressure on this vital source of freshwater increases, transboundary aquifers will also become the focus of water security challenges as they relate to their use, management, and conservation. The central hypothesis of this chapter is that development of international law applicable to transboundary groundwater resources can help improve global water security and prevent future conflicts. This chapter first describes the concept of water security and analyzes the link between freshwater resources and international security. It also provides examples of both water-related disputes and conflicts and successful cooperative mechanisms. The history of successful international agreements, though mostly related to surface waters, indicates that a preventative effect can be achieved especially if states conclude context-specific accords. Thus, the chapter argues that international water law can address challenges to water security and contribute to the mitigation of disputes and conflicts related to transboundary freshwater resources. More specifically, it maintains that this conclusion is similarly applicable to transboundary groundwater resources. Since international agreements addressing transboundary groundwater are generally rare, states should more intensively seek to conclude context-specific agreements on the management and allocation of shared groundwater to prevent future or mitigate already existing disputes and challenges to water security. In addition, international customary law applicable to transboundary groundwater needs to be explored in order to identify principles and trends in the law that can be used by nations for such agreements. International customary law can also fill legal gaps where states are reluctant to conclude international agreements
Science-Based Policy Recommendations for Managing Emerging Pollutants: Protecting Water Quality for the Health of People and the Environment
Get PDFEmerging water pollutants are a growing global concern due to their ubiquitous presence in water resources worldwide and their potential adverse effects on human health and ecosystems. Limited scientific understanding of sources of emerging pollutants’ emissions to water bodies and their pathways, behaviour, and fate in aquatic environments, as well as human health and ecological effects, is a significant hindrance in managing emerging water pollutants. With exceptions concerning PFAS/PFOS and microplastic beads, there are few regulations for emerging pollutants in national water and environmental policies, which results in a critical gap in safeguarding human health and aquatic ecosystems through effective prevention, reduction, and management strategies. This chapter presents a set of science-based policy recommendations for managing emerging water pollutants, particularly for the protection of aquatic ecosystems and groundwater resources, as well as through proper wastewater and waste management, including the circular economy approach and lifecyclemanagement of pollutants. Policy recommendations are also proposed for managing priority emerging pollutants such as microplastics, nanomaterials, and trace chemicals. The policy recommendations emanate from key policy-relevant findings of research studies and scientific discussions presented at the UNESCO-IWRA International Conference on “Emerging Pollutants: Protecting Water Quality for the Health of People and Ecosystems,” which took place online in January 2023, gathering over 170 state-of-the-art research studies on wide-ranging topics related to emerging water pollutants
Custom’s Pervasive Role in Law and the Boundaries of Positivism
Get PDFCustom is law’s foundation, modulator, and occasional antithesis. This Article explores that relationship, starting with varying insights from some of the few legal philosophers who have examined the custom/law dynamic. The heart of this Article provides examples showing custom’s many influences on the law, set in five functional areas: origin, application, interstitial, rule-source, and oppositional. Although the custom/law interplay spans human behavior, these examples come from law practice where custom is exposed. Many are routine, some are significant, and all show our reliance on behaviors and norms that are not positive law. The conclusion addresses but does not resolve some of the many questions inherent in this complexity. In a positive law democracy, should a court ever be obligated to rely on a free-standing custom in the absence of positive law? What if a long-standing custom is contrary to a desuetudinal statute or precedent? To the extent courts ought to heed custom in any setting, how is it assessed? The topic is vast and this Article’s point necessarily modest, merely illustrating the phenomenon of custom’s pervasive role in law
Bog-ged Down by Sackett: Strategies for Wetland Protection in Texas
Get PDFThe Clean Water Act (“CWA”) has been one of the most powerful tools for protecting the nation’s waterways since it was first passed in 1972. However, there has long been ambiguity over the scope of the authority it grants for the regulation of wetlands. In May 2023, the Supreme Court resolved this question in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency. The effect of Sackett will be to remove significant amounts of previously regulated wetlands from federal jurisdiction. Federal legislative responses are unlikely, and while there are federal programs that can help temporarily fill the gap and bring some wetlands back under federal jurisdiction, they cannot act with the same force and breadth as the CWA. This is likely to have a serious impact in the state of Texas, which has no wetland protection laws beyond the federal program. Accordingly, this Note argues that the many states—including Texas—currently lacking a wetland protection law should enact comprehensive wetland protection programs. To determine the contents of these programs, this Note analyzes successful programs in other states and makes recommendations for important elements of a new state program
Black History Month Book Display 01
No full textClose up of book display created by Black Law Students Association in the law library from February through March 2025https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/black-history-month-2025-photos/1003/thumbnail.jp
Water Reallocation in the West: Government and Markets
Get PDFWater is multifaceted: it is a human right, a production input, a sacred element, an investment asset, public property, and a fugitive resource. Its reallocation is inherently difficult because of its natural characteristics and its hybrid nature that combines public ownership with private rights. The future of the U.S. West necessitates the reallocation of water resources, even with potential new water supplies. As climate change intensifies, reallocation will take various forms—all involving government intervention to some degree, from eminent domain to competitive markets. For water markets to function effectively, they require robust institutional infrastructure to prevent issues like imperfect information and market abuse.
Water markets often spark controversy, particularly with the recent involvement of large financial actors in water rights transactions. Australia’s experience shows that an active water market, while not without challenges, can alleviate the costs of drought. This example also highlights the necessity of regulating markets to ensure fair competition as they grow more active and complex. While speculation poses a risk, the solution lies in regulating market practices rather than abandoning water markets. We cannot throw out the baby—water markets— with the bathwater—the unsavory market practices some may engage in
Foreword: The ‘Why’ & How’ of Artificial Intelligence in Legal Scholarship
Get PDFIn the course of publishing the 2024–25 Volume of the Texas A&M Journal of Property Law, we, the Editorial Board, were presented with the opportunity to publish a collection of articles drafted explicitly with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”). After some consideration, we made the decision to do so. The following is our endeavor to share with our peers and colleagues—who may soon find themselves in similar situations—what we have learned in this process and, separately, contribute some forward-looking standards that can be implemented in the arena of legal scholarship for the transparent signaling and taxonomizing of AI-assisted works
Pollution: The What of Biodiversity Loss
Get PDFThis Article examines the damage to biodiversity caused by anthropogenic pollution at all levels—to the biosphere, to ecosystems, to communities, to populations, and to individual organisms. It also analyzes pollution control laws across the globe and their efficacy in mitigating or preventing harm to biodiversity. The analysis covers all forms of pollution—air, water, and land—that threaten biodiversity, noting both improvements and ongoing challenges in different regions. The Article provides a comparative study of diverse jurisdictions, including North America, Europe, Oceania, and Asia. It scrutinizes pivotal legislation such as the United States’ Clean Air Act, the UK’s Environment Act, and the EU’s Clean Air Policy, evaluating their strengths and shortcomings. The examination extends to international agreements such as the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, assessing their role in promoting global cooperation to protect biodiversity. Drawing on this comparative analysis, the Article identifies effective practices and innovative strategies in pollution regulation. It advocates for more far-reaching and holistic approaches to pollution control, improved monitoring and enforcement mechanisms, and enhanced international coordination of standards. The potential of market-based instruments, of which there are emission trades and pollution taxes, is explored through the lens of various national experiences as well. This Article concludes by proposing novel international frameworks for comprehensive pollution management aimed at preventing harm to biodiversity. This framework aims to address emerging contaminants, integrate current scientific knowledge on pollution’s impacts, and establish mechanisms for technology sharing and capacity development across nations. By synthesizing global approaches to pollution control, this Article helps develop more effective, more equitable, and more sustainable strategies for biodiversity protection at all levels
The Antitrust–Copyright Interface in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence
Get PDFThe U.S. government\u27s antitrust actions against Big Tech have recently surged in response to the growing dominance of Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. In fall 2023, the Federal Trade Commission filed a controversial submission in response to the U.S. Copyright Office\u27s request for comments on artificial intelligence (AI) and copyright. This submission hinted at the agency\u27s eagerness to fully deploy its enforcement powers in the AI sector, including targeting AI developers that have used copyrighted works without authorization to train AI models.This article examines the changing interface of antitrust and copyright law in the age of generative AI. It argues that this interface faces new complications in two directions: technological and ideological. Technologically, the structural elements antitrust law aims to regulate are key to the success of AI developers. Ideologically, antitrust law is now confronted with a shift from the once dominating Chicago School to the Neo-Brandeisian School. The article then highlights the oft-overlooked copyright\u27s competition policy. It identifies several built-in procompetitive safeguards, such as fair use, the idea-expression dichotomy, the first sale doctrine, compulsory licenses, and the copyright misuse doctrine.The second half of this article makes the case against antitrust intervention at this nascent stage of AI development. It discusses how such intervention could stifle the growth of the AI sector, change longstanding antitrust principles, upset copyright\u27s internal balance and generate unintended global consequences. The article concludes with a five-pronged strategy for reconfiguring the antitrust–copyright interface and reducing the tensions between antitrust and copyright law