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[A guest book review from Geoffrey Wandesforde-Smith:] In the newest addition to the Studies in American Politics series from Princeton University Press, David Vogel in California Greenin’: How the Golden State Became an Environmental Leader  (Princeton UP, 2018) asks how it is that California has had such success in protecting its environment and has become a world leader in making and implementing environmental policy and law. Vogel sketches boldly on a large canvas: This book describes what is in many respects a remarkable success story. It demonstrates how a state government has been able to overcome substantial obstacles and enact a wide range of regulations that have made measurable - though admittedly uneven – progress in protecting its environment and improving the quality of life of its residents. Although California has often seemed on the verge of ecological (as well as economic) catastrophe, it has proven remarkably resilient. The state’s ability to remain the most importan

Peter Reich recently posted an English-language abstract for his "Water Rights in the Mexican Supreme Court during the Postrevolutionary Era: 1918-1946" : This book chapter analyzes the Supreme Court of Mexico’s development of a “national waters” jurisprudence after the 1910-1920 Mexican Revolution through judicial review of amparo cases (challenges to official action). Although the Constitution of 1917 generally defined bodies of water within the country’s boundaries as property of the nation, the Court had to apply this provision to specific disputes between state or local bureaucrats and particular landholders for access control. Competition over springs, storm water, groundwater, drinking water, and infrastructure, as well as problems unique to communal resource ownership and petroleum exploitation, raised questions about how much the government could limit individual uses on behalf of the public. The author concludes that despite the dramatic ideological conflicts of the

Last June we held a conference at TAU Law to explore the history of commons thought:  The Tragedy of the Commons at 50: Context, Precedents, and Afterlife . I'm happy to report that the papers have now been published in the latest issue of Theoretical Inquiries in Law , edited by Carol Rose and myself,  available here . I'll post more on the individual articles later; in the meantime here's the table of contents (the issue also has a couple of additional unrelated articles not listed below): The Banality of the Commons: Efficiency Arguments Against Common Ownership Before Hardin Stuart Banner Before the Tragedy of the Commons: Early Modern Economic Considerations of the Public Use of Natural Resources Nathaniel Wolloch Commons and Environmental Regulation in History: The Water Commons Beyond Property and Sovereignty Alice Ingold Cold-War Commons: Tragedy, Critique, and the Future of the Illiberal Problem Space Monica Eppinger The “Commons” Discourse on Marine Fisheries Reso

“Roast Yard no. 2” in Copper Cliff (c. 1903), providing a good idea of the damage the heap roasting inflicted on the local environment (City of Greater Sudbury Heritage Images, Copper Cliff Museum Collection, CC0115) Mark Kuhlberg and Scott Miller recently published "'Protection to the Sulphur-Smoke Tort-feasors': The Tragedy of Pollution in Sudbury, Ontario, the World’s Nickel Capital, 1884–1927" in the Canadian Historical Review . First, the abstract: While there are many tales of mining companies polluting the Canadian communities in which they have operated, Sudbury’s early history stands out. It is arguably the most extreme example of an industry dictating to government how the latter dealt with the local pollution problem–in this case, sulphur dioxide emissions. The capstone achievement was the creation of an extrajudicial solution to the problem that permanently suspended the legal rights of residents seeking redress for their grievances. Moreover, the Ontario