''Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife'', 504 U.S. 555 (1992), was a landmark Supreme Court of the United States decision, handed down on June 12, 1992, that heightened

standing Standing, also referred to as orthostasis, is a position in which the body is held in an ''erect'' ("orthostatic") position and supported only by the feet. Although seemingly static, the body rocks slightly back and forth from the ankle in the s ...

requirements under

Article III of the United States Constitution Article Three of the United States Constitution establishes the judicial branch of the U.S. federal government. Under Article Three, the judicial branch consists of the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as lower courts created by Congres ...

. It is "one of the most influential cases in modern environmental standing jurisprudence." Lily Henning of the ''Legal Times'' stated that: :In

his His or HIS may refer to: Computing * Hightech Information System, a Hong Kong graphics card company * Honeywell Information Systems * Hybrid intelligent system * Microsoft Host Integration Server Education * Hangzhou International School, ...

decision, hailed by the right and attacked by the left as well as by a broad swath of legal scholars, the Court made clear that plaintiffs must suffer a concrete, discernible injury—not a "conjectural or hypothetical one"—to be able to bring suit in federal court. It, in effect, made it more difficult for plaintiffs to challenge the actions of a government agency when the actions don't directly affect them. In ''Lujan'', the Court held that a group of

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

wildlife conservation and other

environmental organizations An environmental organization is an organization coming out of the conservation or environmental movements that seeks to protect, analyse or monitor the environment against misuse or degradation from human forces. In this sense the environme ...

lacked

to challenge regulations jointly issued by the U.S. Secretaries of the Interior and

Commerce Commerce is the large-scale organized system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions directly and indirectly related to the exchange (buying and selling) of goods and services among two or more parties within local, regional, nation ...

, regarding the geographic area to which a particular section of the

Endangered Species Act of 1973 The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA or "The Act"; 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq.) is the primary law in the United States for protecting imperiled species. Designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of ec ...

applied. The case arose over issues of US funding of development projects in Aswan, Egypt and

Mahaweli The Mahaweli River ( si, මහවැලි ගඟ, literally "Great Sandy River"; ta, மகாவலி ஆறு 'mahawali gangai'', is a long river, ranking as the longest river in Sri Lanka. It has a drainage basin of , the largest in the ...

, Sri Lanka that could harm endangered species in the affected areas. The government declared that the act did not apply to projects outside of the United States and Defenders of Wildlife sued.

Opinion

In Scalia's interpretation of Article III of the Constitution, plaintiffs must demonstrate that they have suffered an injury in fact, caused by the defendant, which a favorable court decision could redress, to meet the standing requirement to bring a case before the court. In his opinion for the majority,

Justice Scalia Antonin Gregory Scalia (; March 11, 1936 – February 13, 2016) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectua ...

stated that Defenders had failed to satisfy the “injury in fact” element. He wrote that the Court rejected the view that the citizen suit provision of the statute conferred upon “all persons an abstract, self-contained, non-instrumental ‘right’ to have the Executive observe the procedures required by law." Rather, he explained, an American citizen plaintiff must have suffered a tangible and particular harm. Additionally, in the portion of his opinion that garnered only plurality support, Justice Scalia determined that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate the redressability element. In his opinion concurring in part Justice Anthony Kennedy, joined by Justice David Souter, asserted that an airline ticket to the affected geographic areas with endangered species in question would have been enough to satisfy the imminent threat of future injury requirement. Justice John Paul Stevens concurred in the judgement as well, but disagreed with the Court's finding that Defenders lacked standing. Justice Stevens instead rested his opinion on a statutory construction of the Endangered Species Act.''Lujan'', 504 U.S. at 586.

References

External links

* *
Case Brief for Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife at Lawnix.com
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lujan V. Defenders Of Wildlife 1992 in the environment 1992 in United States case law United States Constitution Article Three case law United States standing case law United States environmental case law United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Rehnquist Court Egypt–United States relations Sri Lanka–United States relations

Opinion

See also

References

External links