Download (Pace) co-coordinated/moderated the AALS Envir

PACE LAW SCHOOL
FACULTY SCHOLARSHIP AND ACTIVITIES
SPRING 2013
Elizabeth Burleson (Pace) co-coordinated/moderated the AALS Environmental Field trip/subconference. She is an expert contributor to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and
presented on behalf of United Nations Office of Legal Affairs & UNITAR on Doha Climate Negotiations
at the UN Headquarters. Other presentations included UConn, Rutgers, Idaho, and Lewis and Clark. She
was a National Science Foundation grant reviewer for Arctic Sustainability Cooperation Among
Indigenous Peoples and the Hydrocarbon Industry. Her chapter, “Climate Coordination Among States and
Civil Society,” is forthcoming in the OXFORD HANDBOOK OF INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE
CHANGE LAW, (Carlarne et al ed. 2013). Other publications include “Emerging Human Rights and
Environmental Law in the Context of Hydraulic Fracturing for Natural Gas,” _ CASE W. RES. L. REV. _
(forthcoming 2013); “Cooperative Federalism and Hydraulic Fracturing, A Human Right to a Clean
Environment” 22 CORNELL J. L. & PUBLIC POL’Y 289 (2012); “Dynamic Governance Innovation,” 24
GEO. INT’L ENVTL. L. REV. 477 (2013); “Climate Sustainability through Ethics, Economic, and
Environmental Coordination” 43 ELR 4 (2013) co-author; “Collective Climate Solution Generation and
Implementation,” 30 YALE J. REG. ONLINE 17 (2012); and “Field Notes from the Super-Storm Sandy
Catastrophe,” _ COLUM. J. ENVTL. L. FIELD REP. _ (2012).
David Cassuto (Pace) delivered two lectures, one on animal law, at the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the
city of Florianopolis, Brazil. In February, he appeared on the law panel at the All-Ivy Vegan Conference
at Yale University. He also published “The Evolution of the Brazilian Regulation of Ethanol and Possible
Lessons for the United States,” 30 WIS. INT’L L.J. _ (2013) (with Carolina Geiros) and “Hard, Soft &
Uncertain: The Guarani Aquifer and the Challenges of Transboundary Groundwater,” 24 COLO. NAT.
RESOURCES, ENERGY, & ENVTL. L.J. 1 (2013) (with Romulo S.R. Sampaio). In April, he moderated a
panel on “Understanding and Planning Future Water Needs” at Yale’s Fourth Annual YCEI Conference.
His article “The Importance of Information and Participation Principles in Environmental Law in Brazil,
the United States and Beyond” (with Romulo S. R. Sampaio) has been published in the REVIEW OF
EUROPEAN, COMPARATIVE & INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW. He also blogs regularly for
Animal Blawg and GreenLaw.
Karl Coplan (Pace) has continued to be a frequent contributor to Pace’s GreenLaw blog,
http://greenlaw.blogs.law.pace.edu, authoring “Our Infallible Supreme Court Punts on the Clean Water
Act Again” in January and “What this Week’s SCOTUS Arguments on Same Sex Marriage Have to Do
with Climate Change Law” in March. He and Professor Daniel Estrin (Pace) were named in the Law360
article “EPA Water Transfer Rule Too Lax on Permits, Enviros Say,” which makes note of the work of
the Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic and its contribution to the Catskill Mountains Chapter of Trout
Unlimited Inc., et al. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, currently in the U.S. District Court for the
Southern District of New York.
Lin Harmon (Pace) spoke on two panels at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference in
Eugene, Oregon in March: “The Future of Environmental Law and Lawyering” and “Environment 2050”
(with Environmental Law Institute President John Cruden). In April, she was invited to speak at the
United Nations General Assembly’s International Mother Earth Day conference on Ecuador's proposed
Universal Declaration on the Rights of Nature. This semester, she co-taught Pace’s United Nation’s
Environmental Diplomacy Externship course.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (Pace) published “We Need a Mercury Treaty with Teeth” in the Huffington
Post and the Guardian in January. In February, he was arrested in a protest of the Keystone XL Pipeline
outside of the Whitehouse. In March, he was named in the Times Union article “Sources: Cuomo Came
Close on Fracking Plan: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Tells AP That Governor Changed Course to Await Health
Study Results.” Kennedy is Chairman of the Board of Waterkeeper Alliance, having previously served as
its president. While co-directing the Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic, he serves as Chief Prosecuting
Attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper Fund and Senior Attorney for the Natural Resources Defense
Council, directing NRDC’s Estuary Enforcement Project.
Franz Litz (Pace) and his co-authors released their World Resources Institute report entitled “Can the
U.S. Get There From Here? Using Existing Federal Laws and State Action to Reduce Greenhouse Gas
Emissions” in February. He also appeared on an NRDC panel at the National Press Club in D.C. to
comment on their Clean Air Act proposal to reduce emissions from existing power plants in December
and was quoted in the related U.S. News article “Obama Should Cut Emissions without Congress, Group
Says.”
John R. Nolon (Pace) submitted an amicus brief with nine other law professors in December in the case
of Norse Energy v. Town of Dryden, a New York State hydrofracking case. He moderated a session on
“Large-Scale Redevelopment Projects” at the Environmental Law Section annual meeting during the New
York State Bar Association’s yearly conference. He presented his paper on “Certifying Sustainable
Communities” at the February 28th Fordham Law School Symposium on the 40th Anniversary of the
Urban Law Journal. On March 5th, he presented on the regulation of hydrofracking at the Yale Climate
and Energy Institute Symposium on Unconventional Energy Resources at Yale’s Greenburgh Conference
Center. Two of his articles have been accepted for publication in the 2012-13 volume of the ZONING
AND PLANNING LAW HANDBOOK (Thomson Reuters): “Land Use for Energy Conservation and
Sustainable Development: A New Path Towards Climate Change Mitigation,” 27 J. LAND USE & ENVTL
L. 295, and “Managing Climate Change Through Biological Sequestration: Open Space Law Redux” 31
STAN. ENVTL L. REV. 195 (2012). He also contributed “From Rushing to the Shore to Retreating from the
Sea” and “From One to Many American Dreams” to Pace’s Greenlaw blog,
http://greenlaw.blogs.law.pace.edu.
Richard Ottinger (Pace), Dean Emeritus of Pace Law School, serves as the Chair of the Energy Law and
Climate Change Specialty Group of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law; the Board of
Directors of the National Council for Science and the Environment; the Chair Emeritus of the Board of
Directors of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute; and Chair of the Board of the Legal
Environmental Assistance Foundation. In April, Pace Law School honored him by renaming their main
classroom building “Richard Ottinger Hall.”
Ann Powers (Pace) co-authored a chapter, “Introducing the Law of the Sea and the Legal Implications of
Rising Sea Levels,” in THREATENED ISLAND NATIONS: LEGAL IMPLICATIONS OF RISING
SEAS AND A CHANGING CLIMATE, edited by Prof. Michael Gerrard at Columbia Law School and
recently published by Cambridge University Press. She was a panelist at Yale Law School's New
Directions in Environmental Law conference where her panel, “What If Plans Were Law,” focused on the
intersection and potential conflicts between land use planning and environmental regulation. She was also
one of four ocean experts whose perspectives on Rio+20 were included in the most recent issue of the
Global Ocean Forum News; her essay was “Implications of Rio+20 for the Institutional Frameworks of
Oceans.” In April, she moderated the opening panel, entitled “Regional Ocean Planning in the MidAtlantic,” at Seton Hall Law School’s Regional Ocean Governance Symposium and and served as a
commentator at the wrap-up session. Nicholas Robinson (Pace) presented on the “Role of Environmental Courts and Tribunals and
Specialized Chambers in Courts for Environmental Matters” in the “New Delhi Dialogue on Role of
Courts & Tribunals in the Changing Global Order” via Skype in March. In April, he appeared on the
“Developments in International Environmental Compliance & Enforcement” panel (with Environmental
Law Institute President John Cruden) at the New York City Bar Association. He was honored to address a
Colloquium held in the Senate Chamber of Brazil, and televised nationally along with the Minister of the
Environment and the Director General of International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and
the newly confirmed Brazilian Ambassador to the UN. Professor Robinson was also interviewed
separately for a national broadcast in Brazil on environmental law.