Public Trust Doctrine
July 9
2021 - August 27
2021
8:00 pm - 9:00 pm EST
Online event
All attendees will receive a meeting invite
Free
Summary
In the modern era, legislation has been skewed away from protecting our commons toward serving private, corporate and bureaucratic interests. But a background principal in property law has an established historical record of protecting the environment. In this seminar, we propose an updated legal framework for the Public Trust Doctrine (PTD). We discuss how PDT could define and carry out the ecological obligations of sovereign government on behalf of its citizens to promote equality and sustainability in their use of natural and other resources.
Examines the origins of PTD from Rome, Byzantium, England and other places to the early United States.
Considers examples of how PTD is applied to air, atmosphere, oceans, beaches, rivers, riverbanks, lakes, wetlands, aquifers, forests, wildlife, soils and other natural resources.
Examines why government must promote the interests of its citizen as beneficiaries and ensure the sustained resource abundance necessary for society’s endurance.
Shows how a Trusteeship of small businesses, government utilities and cooperatives can share the control and management of critical natural assets.
Demonstrates how PTD is already under the umbrella of the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee against arbitrary deprivations of life, liberty and property.
Considers how the Progressive Era (1890s - 1920s) and the New Deal Era (1930s - 1950s) extended the application of PTD in the United States.
Describes ways of turning the commons (the shared resources in which each stakeholder has an equal interest) into an everyday perspective.
How the PDT framework provides a normative way of thinking and a strong set of legal footholds by which EDA can hold government officials accountable for managing our environment equitably and sustainably.
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
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