Limits on International Environmental Violations: How Antitrust Law May Be a Blueprint for Future Claims of Foreign Environmental Violations

• Author: Courtney A. Neufeld
• Position: J.D., Georgetown University Law Center (expected 2022); M.A., Seattle University (2019); B.A., Western Washington University (2014)
• Pages: 1151-1165

Limits on International Environmental Violations:

How Antitrust Law May Be a Blueprint for Future

Claims of Foreign Environmental Violations

COURTNEY A. NEUFELD*

INTRODUCTION

Countries from across the world have come together to recognize the disparate

effects of climate change and the need to address such matters quickly.

1

The

United States has been praised for its implementation of the Clean Air Act.

2

However, despite the continued success of the Clean Air Act in lowering emis-

sions nationally,

3

this Note suggests the global response to climate change is cur-

rently ineffective, and that an effective global response requires that countries

do more than voluntarily agree to improve their country’s emissions. This Note

further suggests that without an extraterritorial statute to pursue environmental

violations globally, there will be no accountability for countries who have agreed

to implement measures to reduce their carbon footprint. Without a global jurisdic-

tional reach, emissions will continue to devastate our world and have irreversibly

damaging effects.

The Paris Agreement, an international treaty on climate change mitigation,

4

has been instrumental in beginning the conversation of addressing climate change

globally, but it has proven to be insufficient.

5

This Note discusses the need for

teeth behind the Paris Agreement, and suggests that the Sherman Act, which

addresses anticompetitive conduct,

6

may provide a blueprint for an extraterrito-

rial statute that can reach offshore emissions. While this Note does not provide

the precise mechanics for such a statute, it seeks to begin a conversation about

* J.D., Georgetown University Law Center (expected 2022); M.A., Seattle University (2019); B.A.,

Western Washington University (2014). © 2021, Courtney A. Neufeld.

1. See generally Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Dec.

12, 2015, T.I.A.S. No. 16-1104 [hereinafter Paris Agreement].

2. Daniel S. Greenbaum, The Clean Air Act: Substantial Success and the Challenges Ahead, 15 ANNALS OF

THE AM. THORACIC SOC’Y 296, 296 (2018). See also Environmental Protection Agency, Summary of the Clean

Air Act, EPA, https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-air-act, [https://perma.cc/6LJX-52P6]

(last visited Feb. 26, 2021) (defining the Clean Air Act as a “comprehensive federal law that regulates air

emissions from stationary and mobile sources”).

3. Greenbaum, supra note 2.

4. Paris Agreement, supra note 1, at art. 2.

5. Yann R. Du Pont & Malte Meinshausen, Warming Assessment of the Bottom-Up Paris Agreement

Emissions Pledges, 9 NATURE COMMUNICATIONS 1, 2 (2018).

6. See generally 15 U.S.C. §§ 1-2.

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