Constitutions and the Commons looks at a critical but little examined issue of the degree to which the federal constitution of a nation contributes toward or limits the ability of the national government to manage its natural resources (or commons). Furthermore it considers how far the...

Government attempts to protect ecosystems on private lands are often thwarted by Fifth Amendment takings claims demanding that “just compensation” be paid to the property owner. In the case of Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, the U.S. Supreme Court found that a state statute could...

The southern United States is witnessing an economic and population boom, and development sprawl is increasing in proportion. Southern state and local jurisdictions maintain some of the least stringent land use regulations in the context of preserving open space and natural resources (or,...

While climate change denial is pervasive throughout the United States, it is more acute in some regions than others. One such region is the Southeastern U.S., which is also an area projected to suffer the most direct harms from climate change over the near term. This article makes a modest —...

Land development belongs with climate change in the category of "super-wicked" environmental problems - that is, problems of extreme complexity that seem almost impossible to solve. Yet, to date, land development has not been granted that status in law and policy literature. Rather, scholars...

Important species are increasingly threatened on private lands and remain largely unregulated by federal and state laws. The gopher tortoise, present within six south-eastern states, is one such species. The tortoise is a keystone species, meaning that upon its existence numerous other species...

This brief essay assesses the key role that environmental conservation plays in achieving stability in housing markets. The essay reiterates the many calls for a shift away from metrics of economic growth — like Gross Domestic Product and New Home Starts — that are currently fundamentally at...

Peter Gerhart's "Property Law and Social Morality" provides a new lens through which to view the distribution of burdens and benefits of property ownership. Gerhart argues that property owners have a legally enforceable moral obligation to be other-regarding in their management of resources...

Isolated wetlands provide great ecological and economic value to the United States. While some states provide protection for isolated wetlands, a great many do not. These wetlands are also left outside the ambit of federal wetland regulatory protections under the Clean Water Act, with its murky...

Policy failures receive much attention from the public and from policy makers adjusting policy in response to failure. Yet, lessons learned from policy failures are necessarily ex post observations. Not only has the policy failed to achieve its purposes, but a great deal of political,...