By Emily Hush, J.D. Candidate 2018, Columbia Law School I want to extend my sincere thanks to Professor Michael B. Gerrard of Columbia Law School and Professor Matthew Scott of Lund University Faculty of Law for their invaluable assistance on this project. All errors are my own. I. Introduction The displacement of persons due to environmental disasters exacerbated by climate change has already begun. The flow will continue to increase throughout the course of this century. Despite this growing population of migrants, the world has no legal framework in place for their reception and protection. Sweden and Finland used to […]
Climate Change
3 posts
By Emily Hush, J.D. Candidate 2018, Columbia Law School It is no secret that the planet is warming and that humans had something to do with it. Over the last 150 years, the global average concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere has increased to unprecedented dangerous levels and it continues to rise. As the climate becomes warmer, the world faces ocean acidification, sea level rise, decreasing biodiversity, and more extreme weather events. Sustainable development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” is central to the international […]
Hannibal Travis Professor of Law, Florida International University College of Law Book Review: Climate Change and Genocide: Environmental Violence in the 21st Century, edited and with an introduction by Jurgen Zimmerer (Routledge, 2015). A remarkable confluence of events is refocusing our attention to the connection between violence and the environment. From the environmental precursors to the Arab Spring, to the worsening conflicts in Equatorial Africa and Nigeria, to the string of damaging tropical cyclones, to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, politicians and the press are talking about “the planet” again. A new book presents a typology of environmental […]