Professor Richard Stewart needs several summer research assistants, full-time or part-time, to work on issues of climate law and policy and nuclear waste cleanup. See descriptions below. Please submit expression of interest with CV and grade transcript and any questions to Basilio Valdehuesa, valdehuesa@exchange.law.nyu.edu.
Nuclear waste law and policy. Legal and regulatory challenges presented by (1) solutions to the U.S. nuclear waste disposal crisis caused by Obama’s cancellation of Yucca Mountain, Nevada, nuclear waste repository, focusing on siting and regulating consolidated waste storage facilities and development of a new repository site; (2) Cleanup of massive contamination resulting from decades of nuclear weapons production activities at the Department of Energy’s Hanford, Washington site. General background information: www.CRESP.org.
Building Block Strategies for addressing climate change. Given serious lack of progress in reaching international agreement on greenhouse gas limitations, Prof. Stewart and several colleagues have generated ideas for institutional strategies for transnational bottom-up” initiatives involving a limited number of countries, business firms and NGOs. Many of these initiatives are driven primarily by objectives other than combating climate change, but achieve emissions reductions as a side to benefit. The objective is to develop institutional templates that will encourage wide adoption of such regimes to reduce emissions, build trust, and pave the way for a global climate agreement. Research assistants are needed to create and develop specific bottom-up regimes in for example energy efficiency, R&D and sustainable agricultural development, with attention to the economic, legal, and strategic institutional issues involved.