The essence of a conservation easement as a static perpetual restriction is coming to a head with the understanding that the world is a changing place. This demonstration is nowhere more dramatic than in the context of global climate change. In response to this conflict, users of conservation...

Our chapter concerns how legal process can lead to efficient policies for fostering innovation and growth. Future innovation will depend at least as much on how laws are made as on a priori analyses of the optimal content of those laws. Of particular importance is whether U.S. choice of law and...

Modern scientific research and the exploitation of genetic resources and traditional knowledge may offer great benefits to humankind. How can the patent system help scientists, commercial enterprises and civil society at large to realize those benefits while safeguarding the rights and interests...

“Extreme” weather has become the new normal. What were previously considered to be inexplicable and unpredictable “acts of God” can no longer reasonably be said to be so. They are acts of man. The established doctrine of contractual impracticability rests on the notion that a party may...

The use of arbitration in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) enables foreign investors to sue host states for alleged breaches of international investment law. But the practise has grown increasingly controversial over the past decade, with respondent states refusing to pay damages, or...

By most accounts, the December 2012 Doha Round negotiations achieved little. The continued failure of member governments to reach consensus increases the risk of a catastrophic rise in global emissions. The current impasse is due in no small measure to the expressed concern of the United States...

This report and the model contract clauses that it contains are an effort to help companies provide legally effective and operationally likely human rights protections for workers in international supply chains. The report is the product of the Working Group to Draft Human Rights Protections in...

Domestic laws are the ideal legal instrument to regulate the mining sector’s contribution to climate change mitigation and adaptation. Even so, as a stop-gap-measure, governments may consider updating model mining development agreements (MMDAs) or negotiating climate­-related contractual...

Outer space ... shall be the province of all mankind. The historic launch by the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (“USSR”) of Sputnik I on October 4, 1957 signaled the beginning of the space race. The following years witnessed such seminal events as the placing of men in orbit and...

Under the notion of human rights due diligence (HRDD), firms are under a responsibility to account for the social and environmental impact connected to their operations across global value chains. This responsibility intersects with the sphere of operation of voluntary sustainability standards...