Exclusion and Property Rules in the Law of Nuisance

This Article offers a theory of nuisance law based on information costs. Like trespass, much of the law of nuisance relies on a strategy of exclusion in which rights are defined using low-cost signals like boundary crossings that are only indirectly tied to particular uses. Nuisance law also supplements and fine-tunes this Blackstonian package of entitlements by means of a governance strategy, which relies on signals more directly tailored to particular uses. The information-cost advantage of strategies close to the exclusion end of the spectrum helps explain why, despite repeated calls for more balancing, nuisance law focuses on who caused invasions of whose land. Also consistent with an exclusion strategy are the staying power of traditional nonreciprocal notions of causation and the virtual nonexistence in nuisance of Rule 4 liability rules, under which plaintiffs would be permitted to invoke the law to force the polluter either to abate or shut down upon payment of the polluter’s damages. Applying Hohfeldian analysis, the Article shows that the common law gives polluters at most a privilege to pollute and that Rule 4 does not refine the basic exclusion regime but rather undermines it. The general question becomes when to soften exclusion with governance and the Article concludes by arguing that, in situations such as oil and gas fields and Boomer-style pollution cases with numerous victims, only small judicial governance-style safety valves are necessary, especially if legislative and administrative solutions are forthcoming. More generally, the information-cost theory of nuisance brings the utilitarian and corrective justice approaches to nuisance closer together. Nuisance law is not a mess or mystery but does contain within it the inflection point between exclusion and governance.

Crossroads in Cambodia: The United Nations’ Responsibility to Withdraw Involvement from the Establishment of a Cambodian Tribunal to Prosecute the Khmer Rouge

For almost twenty-five years, the former leaders of the Khmer Rouge, responsible for the deaths of over 1.7 million of their fellow Cambodians, have enjoyed freedom absent domestic and international accountability for their actions. Since 1997, the United Nations and Cambodia have engaged in contentious negotiations for the establishment of a criminal tribunal to try the former leaders of the Khmer Rouge. In March 2003, the United Nations and Cambodia agreed on an internationally supported, yet Cambodian-controlled, tribunal to prosecute the former members of the Khmer Rouge for genocide and crimes against humanity that occurred between 1975 to 1979. The U.N. General Assembly is awaiting its expected ratification by the Cambodian National Assembly. While these developments appear to signal a shift toward international justice and domestic reconciliation, the presence of widely asymmetrical goals and intentions between the U.N. and the Cambodian government poses unfortunate risks both to the Cambodian people and to the international community. 

This Note will argue that the agreed-upon proposal will both fail to meet international standards of justice and prove to be a greater risk than complete withdrawal of international involvement. To this end, the Note will argue that the U.N. should either demand the establishment of an ad hoc international tribunal for Cambodia (with goals and structure similar to existing tribunals created for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda), or completely withdraw from any involvement in the adjudication of the Khmer Rouge crimes. Any alternative would compromise the best interests of the international community, the development and enforcement of international law, and the stability and rehabilitation of Cambodia.