Environmental jurisprudence
Midgley article on Duties Concerning Islands
John Rawls Theory of Justice - a summary
Passmore - Man's Responsibility for Nature - mid 1970s Australian environmental philosophy - fascinating comments on climate change as a possible ethical challenge in the far future. See page 82:
"We know at least this much, however. Men will need the biosphere. And it is sometimes suggested that our present level of industrial activity is so heating up the atmosphere that large parts of the earth’s surface will – as a result of the melting of polar ice – eventually be rendered uninhabitable. So, it is concluded, we ought at once, for the sake of posterity, to reduce the level of that activity. The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution concluded that ‘such eventualities are not only remote: they are conjectural’. But this case serves as a sort of touchstone, an extreme example both in its uncertainty and in the disastrousness of the consequences it envisages, were they to eventuate."
Also discussion of Rawls p86 following.
Geoff Parks "Conservation. Extinction wave or healing tide?" Is conservation too much of a colonial idea imposed on the NZ landscape - and will not achieve its aims - in part because it ignores humans in the landscape?
Constitutional Law
Cabinet manual extracts - authoritative and quick summary of the NZ constitution.
Burrows article - Changing approaches to statutory interpretation - how the Interpretation Act 1999 s5 has altered our approach.
Entick v Carrington case (1765) - old case on the limits to rights of states to interfere with private citizens. Very interesting to revisit in light of modern day internet and privacy issues.
Common law
A quick introduction to common law concepts of importance to environmental law:
- Contract - how a contract comes into being
- Torts - including negligence and nuisance
- Persons - legal and natural persons.
- Land - property law basics
- Cambridge Water Co Ltd - chemical soaks in to underground water supply over many years - issue: does harm have to be foreseeable?
- Hunter v Canary Wharf - TV signal interference and dust issues - a good discussion of the limits of modern nuisance.
Shrimp case - key extracts - when is regulation permissible if it affects trading interests of other states?
Environmental law in NZ
Introduction to the RMA
DG Conservation v Wairoa District Council & very interesting article re environmental offsets - will they work?
Fisheries case
HSNO Act case
