RSS 1.0Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum
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The Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum began in 1991 as an interdisciplinary magazine published annually. Since then, the Forum has grown into a traditional environmental law journal. DELPF has retained its interdisciplinary roots and presents scholarship that examines environmental issues by drawing on legal, scientific, economic, and public policy resources. DELPF's affiliations with the Nicholas School for the Environment, the Terry Sanford Institute for Public Policy, and the Law School render it uniquely positioned to adapt to the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of environmental law. DELPF is student-run publication, with staff members from the Law School, the Nicholas School for the Environment, and the Terry Sanford Institute for Public Policy. New journal members, both JD and non-JD, are selected based upon their writing skills, research ability, and interest in both DELPF and environmental policy. DELPF presents an annual symposium each fall that attracts top academics, practitioners, and policy makers from across the nation. Recent symposium topics have included The Future Environmental Agenda: Environmental Law & Policy Issues Facing the Next President and A Charged Atmosphere: The Future of U.S. Policy on Global Warming.
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The Globethics library contains articles of Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum as of vol. 1(1991) to current.
Recent Submissions
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Journal StaffDuke University School of Law, 2024-05-14
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Finding a Core of Sustainability in Directors' and Officers' Fiduciary DutiesDirectors and officers have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of a corporation and its shareholders. Yet corporations may be employing unsustainable, short-term business models that fail to properly account for financial and systemic risks that could harm the corporation in the long term. This paper asks whether there is, embedded within directors' fiduciary duties, a greater duty to consider "sustainability" (as this paper defines it). Specifically, this duty would require directors and officers to return corporations to the established shareholder wealth maximization ("SWM") norm of creating long-term shareholder value under Delaware law. This paper argues that directors' and officers' fiduciary duties under Delaware corporation law include a duty to implement a minimum "core" of sustainability—a "Sustainability Core." The Sustainability Core requires a fair and impartial consideration of all shareholders' investment horizons, including long-term investment horizons. The Sustainability Core also requires directors to implement and oversee a system for monitoring environmental, social, and governance ("ESG")-related risks and opportunities, as identified, monitored, and managed via thoughtful materiality assessments. These include ESG-related risks and opportunities which may foreseeably become financially material on long-term investment horizons. Moreover, failure to implement the Sustainability Core may give rise to liability for breaches of fiduciary duty. In these efforts, directors and officers retain significant discretion in how they choose to implement sustainability practices: many actions, decisions, and best practices enacted to implement or "mainstream" sustainability would fall within a "Sustainability Periphery." The Sustainability Periphery contains a wealth of best practices which interested activists and stakeholders may draw on to push sustainability further, by working to shape the Sustainability Core in a manner which improves transparency and accountability.
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Journal StaffDuke University School of Law, 2024-04-03
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Journal StaffDuke University School of Law, 2024-03-21
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We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat: The Importance of Increased Shark Conservation Across Countries, States, and the High SeasSharks serve invaluable roles as apex predators in the world's ocean ecosystems. However, the rise of the shark fin trade and incidental bycatch have drastically eliminated shark populations so that several species are close to extinction. Without substantial upgrades to existing international frameworks including CITES, CMS, and IPOA-Sharks, and regulatory bodies such as RFMOs, shark populations may pass beyond recovery. However, strengthening those regulations, along with expanding the U.S.'s role as a leader in shark conservation carries significant potential in protecting shark populations. Lastly, governments and conservation entities must substantially increase research and public awareness regarding the issue to ensure that there is the data and political will to serve as the foundation for the new age of shark conservation.
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Journal StaffDuke University School of Law, 2023-03-10
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Addressing Green Energy's "Resource Curse"Policy changes that encourage non-fossil fuel energy mean increased reliance on batteries and other technologies that must develop rapidly. This article focuses on batteries, noting that key inputs come from corrupt countries, so little of the benefits of exports flow to citizens, and many key finished mineral products come from China. The United States thereby becomes more reliant on autocratic regimes. Using cobalt as an example, this article looks at the nature of its production, the inability of the United States to shoulder its share of the environmental burden of mineral extraction and refining, and looks to previous examples of countries "cursed" with valuable resources desired by wealthy countries. It also hints as to how the "resource curse" problem may be addressed based on the mineral extraction history of the United States.