By Andrew Miller, Senior Articles Editor for the Ecology Law Quarterly
This post is part of the Environmental Law Review Syndicate. Please post any comments on the original, which can be found here.

In March of 2015, the Associated Press (AP) published AP Investigation: Slaves May Have Caught the Fish You Bought.[1] It was the first in a series of articles the AP would publish over the next eighteen months detailing the squalor and oppression faced daily by thousands of Southeast Asian fishermen.[2] What caught readers’ attention, however, was not merely the unmasking of abuse.[3] It was the reference to Safeway.[4] It was the reference to Wal-Mart.[5] It was the reference to Fancy Feast.[6] It was the allegation that American consumers were complicit in the exploitation of foreign workers, and it was the knowledge that there were photographs to prove it.[7]
 
To date, the AP’s investigative team has helped free more than 2000 slaves in Southeast Asian fisheries, and has even uncovered similar abuse on American-flagged vessels.[8] Nevertheless, it is evident that the AP’s reporting has only scratched the surface of a deeply entrenched issue.[9] While it is difficult to quantify the scale of labor abuse in fisheries, scholars and agencies agree that fishing industry workers comprise a substantial portion of the 20.9 million people trapped in forced labor worldwide.[10]

By Kacy Manahan, Lewis & Clark Law School
This post is part of the Environmental Law Review Syndicate. Please post any comments on the original, which can be found here.

The scope of the Clean Water Act’s jurisdiction has been controversial throughout the statute’s history. Reconciling the extent of Congress’ Commerce Clause authority with the reality of vast hydrological connections across the United States has been an unenviable task delegated to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the United States Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps). This post is a comprehensive, though certainly not exhaustive, examination of EPA’s and the Corps’ efforts to define the jurisdictional scope of the Clean Water Act. The issue is once again embroiled in litigation, and regulation is in the hands of an Administration seeking to depart substantially from prior policies. For that reason, I also discuss potential outcomes of the litigation and President Trump’s Executive Order.

By Sevren Gourley, former Editor-in-Chief
Virginia Environmental Law Journal
J.D. Candidate, University of Virginia School of Law, Class of 2017
This post is part of the Environmental Law Review Syndicate. 

Coastal municipalities are struggling to address the uncertain future risks created by sea level rise. Conventional models of ex ante protection and ex post relief are both too costly and often insufficient to mitigate the impacts of climate change. Sea level derivative instruments provide an alternative model for financing adaptation projects that would allow municipalities to transfer the risk of climactic uncertainty to parties willing and able to take a counter position. I propose two sea level derivative instruments—a sea level default swap and a nuisance flooding futures contract. These would reduce the risk that a given sea-level rise adaptation project will be either under or over protective while providing additional capital for project development. Due to the lack of a ready counterparty with obvious need to hedge, markets for these sea level derivatives may be susceptible to excessive speculation. However, trading would be subject to regulation by the Commodity Futures Exchange Commission—curbing speculation and facilitating a much needed funding adaptation for coastal municipalities.