Columbia Law Review -

Vol. 124 No. 6
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Environmental Law
CLR Forum

UNIFORM AND LOCALLY TAILORED EMISSIONS STANDARDS IN AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN AIR POLLUTION LAW: THE IMPACT OF HISTORICAL REGULATORY TRADITIONS

Noga Morag-Levine*

This Piece operates at the intersection of comparative environmental law and legal history. It introduces a novel distinction between two paradigms of technology-based pollution standards: the first, uniform across all places and environmental conditions, and the second, tailored to local environmental and economic circumstances. It then compares the air pollution regimes of the United States and the European Union with an eye to the relative place[...]

Immigration Law
Note

PROTECTING GOOD-FAITH COOPERATION AND INFORMATION: DEFERRAL OF REMOVAL PROCEEDINGS FOR SYMPATHETIC SNITCHES

Tanisha Gupta*

The criminal and immigration systems in the United States have increasingly overlapped, adversely affecting noncitizens even distantly involved in criminal activity. Individuals without legal status who have engaged significantly with a criminal organization can cooperate with law enforcement in exchange for formal immigration benefits. There are no formal protections, however, for individuals residing in the country without legal status who have[...]

Refugee Law
Note

A PATH TO CLIMATE ASYLUM UNDER U.S. LAW

Natalie Smith*

Clarifying the extent to which existing legal regimes afford protection to climate migrants must be part of an effective and coordinated response to climate change. This Note argues that climate refugees, a group which it narrowly defines as those who meet the requirements of the 1951 Refugee Convention because they have experienced climate change–induced harm amounting to persecution, should qualify for asylum under U.S. immigration law. To[...]

Disability Law
Article

THE STRUCTURAL DESEXUALIZATION OF DISABILITY

Natalie M. Chin*

Sexuality is integral to the human experience. Yet choices related to sexuality—sex, intimate relationships, marriage, pleasure, and childbearing—are often controlled for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Discourse on sexuality primarily focuses on acts of sexual violence against this community, emphasizing a victim–perpetrator binary. This binary view directs legal and policy efforts to ameliorate this sexual violence,[...]

Election Law
Essay

THE RIDDLE OF RACE-BASED REDISTRICTING

Travis Crum*

The Supreme Court has adopted divergent interpretations of the Equal Protection Clause as applied to race and redistricting. Vote dilution doctrine requires mapmakers to consider race to ensure that racial minorities are not packed or cracked. Congress, moreover, has embraced vote dilution doctrine in Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. By contrast, racial gerrymandering doctrine triggers strict scrutiny if mapmakers subordinate traditional redistricting[...]

Interpretation
Article

REASONS FOR INTERPRETATION

Francisco J. Urbina*

What kinds of reasons should matter in choosing an approach to constitutional or legal interpretation? Scholars offer different types of reasons for their theories of interpretation: conceptual, linguistic, normative, legal, institutional, and reasons based on theories of law. This Article argues that normative reasons, and only normative reasons, can justify interpretive choice. This is the “normative choice thesis.” This Article formulates[...]