Exporting American Values: Tenth Amendment Principles and International Environmental Assistance

Abstract

This article provides a quasi-constitutional justification for foreign environmental assistance. Part II of the article briefly reviews the history of the Tenth Amendment and its resuscitation by the United States Supreme Court. Part III examines how the Tenth Amendment has been used in the domestic environmental context to invalidate certain regulatory regimes and how the federal government has structured environmental programs to avoid infringing on state sovereignty. Part IV considers the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act as a statutory manifestation of Tenth Amendment principles. Part V explores the nature of national sovereignty and its implications for global environmental challenges. Part V analogizes Tenth Amendment principles to techniques employed by the international community to address specific environmental problems such as stratospheric ozone depletion, climate change, and the loss of biological diversity. Part VI analyzes the United States' commitments to help fund financial mechanisms established by the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer, the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, and the Convention on Biological Diversity. Part VI also examines the extent to which the United States is complying with its financial responsibilities under these conventions.

Keywords: Tenth Amendment Principles, international environmental assistance, Unfunded Mandates Reforms Act, stratospheric ozone depletion, climate change, loss of biological diversity, Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer,