Awakening a Sleeping Giant: Creating a Quasi-Private Cause of Action for Revoking Corporate Charters in Response to Environmental Violations

Individuals who wish to carry on a business as a corporation have been subject to procedures which have evolved from colonial American special chartering to the present day process of incorporating according to applicable state general incorporation statutes. Through the process of incorporation, corporate owners gain access to limited liability and the corporation is granted the judicial legal fiction of personhood, which guarantees a corporation many of the same constitutional rights individuals are entitled to under United States law. While the corporate entity does receive many benefits from its personhood status, it very often gains benefits above those of normal citizens. Although a corporation is held liable for all of its actions, corporations often violate federal and state environmental laws and continue to operate unscathed. Corporate liability for environmental violations, although extensive, does not harm many corporations as they are able to pass the totality of their overall costs on to the consumer. The power of the Attorney General of a state to revoke corporate charters, and thereby end the corporate life, may be the only effective deterrent for corporate polluters

«Enemies of human beings» : Josep Ferrater Mora on blood fiestas

Ferrater Mora maintained that «an enemy of animals is another way of being an enemy of human beings», and similarly many famous thinkers from Aquinas to Kant have held that cruelty to animals leads to cruelty to humans. But how precisely are we to understand this connection? This paper reviews the work of Brian Klug, Thomas I. White, Jonathan Edwards, and James Gustafson, and suggests that cruelty to animals should be rightly characterised as a «degradation» arising from multidimensional deficiency: (i) a failure of perception, resulting in (ii) an enfeebled intellect, and (iii) a contracted, shrivelled sensitivity. If true, animal abuse should be taken with greater seriousness by moralists, if only because there is an ineradicable human interest in curbing our degradation of animals. Indeed, there is now mounting medical, psychological, and statistical evidence of the link between animal cruelty and human anti-social behaviour.Ferrater Mora afirmava que ser «un enemic dels animals és una altra manera de ser un enemic dels éssers humans», així com molts pensadors il·lustres des de Tomàs d'Aquino fins a Kant han sostingut que la crueltat envers els animals condueix a la crueltat envers els humans. Però, com hem d'entendre exactament aquesta connexió? Aquest article examina l'obra de Brian Klug, Thomas I. White, Jonathan Edwards i James Gustafson, i suggereix que la crueltat envers els animals s'hauria de caracteritzar pròpiament com una «degradació » que emergeix d'una deficiència multidimensional: (i) un error de percepció, que produeix (ii) un intel·lecte feble, i (iii) una sensibilitat reduïda i esmorteïda. Si això fos cert, el maltractament dels animals hauria de ser considerat amb molta serietat pels moralistes, encara que només fos perquè hi ha un interès humà irrenunciable a posar fi a la nostra degradació dels animals. De fet, hi ha actualment una enorme evidència mèdica, psicològica i estadística del vincle entre la crueltat cap als animals i un comportament humà antisocial

‘The Powers That Be’: Mechanisms that Prevent us Recognising Animal Sentience

I propose to identify and illustrate what might be described as ‘the powers that be’ – four mechanisms that prevent us from recognising sentience in animals, and to indicate the challenges that should follow for future work in this field

The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Animal Ethi

ΔΕΝ ΔΙΑΤΙΘΕΤΑΙ ΠΕΡΙΛΗΨΗNO ABSTRAC

The Theological and Ethical Grounds against Keeping Elephants Captive

As set forth below, animal theology experts Dr. Andrew Linzey and Dr. Clair Linzey of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics believe that Petitioner Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc. (“NhRP”) has made a prima facie case that the elephants confined at Fresno Chaffee Zoo in Fresno, CA—Nolwazi, Amahle, and Mabu—are entitled to habeas corpus relief. Accordingly, we respectfully urge the Supreme Court of California to issue an order to show cause in this matter

Evaluation Of Risk And Possible Mitigation Schemes For Previously Unidentified Hazards

This report presents the results of arc track testing conducted to determine if such a transfer of power to un-energized wires is possible and/or likely during an arcing event, and to evaluate an array of protection schemes that may significantly reduce the possibility of such a transfer. The results of these experiments may be useful for determining the level of protection necessary to guard against spurious voltage and current being applied to safety critical circuits. It was not the purpose of these experiments to determine the probability of the initiation of an arc track event only if an initiation did occur could it cause the undesired event: an inadvertent thruster firing. The primary wire insulation used in the Orbiter is aromatic polyimide, or Kapton , a construction known to arc track under certain conditions [3]. Previous Boeing testing has shown that arc tracks can initiate in aromatic polyimide insulated 28 volts direct current (VDC) power circuits using more realistic techniques such as chafing with an aluminum blade (simulating the corner of an avionics box or lip of a wire tray), or vibration of an aluminum plate against a wire bundle [4]. Therefore, an arc initiation technique was chosen that provided a reliable and consistent technique of starting the arc and not a realistic simulation of a scenario on the vehicle. Once an arc is initiated, the current, power and propagation characteristics of the arc depend on the power source, wire gauge and insulation type, circuit protection and series resistance rather than type of initiation. The initiation method employed for these tests was applying an oil and graphite mixture to the ends of a powered twisted pair wire. The flight configuration of the heater circuits, the fuel/oxider (or ox) wire, and the RCS jet solenoid were modeled in the test configuration so that the behavior of these components during an arcing event could be studied. To determine if coil activation would occur with various protection wire schemes, 145 tests were conducted using various fuel/ox wire alternatives (shielded and unshielded) and/or different combinations of polytetrafuloroethylene (PTFE), Mystik tape and convoluted wraps to prevent unwanted coil activation. Test results were evaluated along with other pertinent data and information to develop a mitigation strategy for an inadvertent RCS firing. The SSP evaluated civilian aircraft wiring failures to search for aging trends in assessing the wire-short hazard. Appendix 2 applies Weibull statistical methods to the same data with a similar purpose

The Theological and Ethical Grounds against Keeping Elephants Captive

As set forth below, animal theology experts Dr. Andrew Linzey and Dr. Clair Linzey of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics believe that Petitioner Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc. (“NhRP”) has made a prima facie case that the elephants confined at Fresno Chaffee Zoo in Fresno, CA—Nolwazi, Amahle, and Mabu—are entitled to habeas corpus relief. Accordingly, we respectfully urge the Supreme Court of California to issue an order to show cause in this matter

A new dawn? The Roman Catholic Church and environmental issues

This is a PDF version of an article published in New Blackfriars© 1997. The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com.This article discusses the stance of the Roman Catholic Church on environmental issues and argues that the Church tends to stay on the fringe rather than get involved. Some of the ways in which Roman Catholic theologians have incorporated environmental issues into theological reflection is discussed, as are environmental challenges facing the Church in Britain (conservation, resources, biodiversity, animal welfare, biotechnology, cooperate/individual ethics, environmental justice, economics/policy development, and global issues)