The ''Columbia Journal of Environmental Law'' is a student-run

law review A law review or law journal is a scholarly journal or publication that focuses on legal issues. A law review is a type of legal periodical. Law reviews are a source of research, imbedded with analyzed and referenced legal topics; they also p ...

published at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

School of Law A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction. Law degrees Argentina In Argentina, l ...

. The journal primarily publishes articles, notes, and book reviews discussing environmental law and policy and related subjects.
Columbia Journal of Environmental Law: About
(Accessed August 20, 2015).

History

The journal was established in 1974 as an "outgrowth of the activities of the student Environmental Law Council" at Columbia Law School. In the introduction to the first edition of the journal, Columbia Law School Dean Michael I. Sovern stated that he hoped the journal would serve as "training grounds" to help environmental lawyers "learn their craft."Michael I. Sovern, ''A Welcome'', 1 1 (1974). Sovern also remarked that environmental scholarship had "passed the long, dark years when those concerned with the environment were considered kooks" and he assured readers that the journal would not be "recycled" like another "long-gone New York newspaper." In opening remarks for the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of the journal, a member of the journal's board of directors suggested that future authors would need to confront "second-generation environmental problems" that would be "more complex" than problems in the past.

Overview

The journal publishes scholarship relating to "a range of topics from

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life ...

to the

Securities and Exchange Commission The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...

, all concerning some aspect of environmental law and policy." In addition to its usual selection of articles, notes, and book reviews, the journal has also published articles relating to symposia hosted by the journal and Columbia Law School. However, in 2014, the journal began publishing an online issue dedicated to the journal's annual Climate Change Symposium.

Impact

In 2016,

Washington and Lee University , mottoeng = "Not Unmindful of the Future" , established = , type = Private liberal arts university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.092 billion (2021) , president = William C. Dudley , provost = Lena Hill , city = Lexington ...

's Law Journal Rankings placed the journal among the top five environmental, natural resources, and land use law journals with the highest

impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as ...

."Law Journals: Submission and Ranking, 2008-2015,"
Washington & Lee University (Accessed: September 25, 2016). Articles published in the journal have been cited by the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. Federal tribunals in the United States, federal court cases, and over Stat ...

as well as the

Second The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds ea ...

Third Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (disambiguation) * Third Avenue (disambiguation) * Hi ...

, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth,

Ninth In music, a ninth is a compound interval consisting of an octave plus a second. Like the second, the interval of a ninth is classified as a dissonance in common practice tonality. Since a ninth is an octave larger than a second, its ...

, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals. Many

state supreme court In the United States, a state supreme court (known by other names in some states) is the highest court in the state judiciary of a U.S. state. On matters of state law, the judgment of a state supreme court is considered final and binding in b ...

s have also cited articles from the journal. Articles also appear in many legal treatises, including ''

American Jurisprudence ''American Jurisprudence'' (second edition is cited as Am. Jur. 2d) is an encyclopedia of the United States law, published by West. It was originated by Lawyers Cooperative Publishing, which was subsequently acquired by the Thomson Corporation. The ...

'',

American Law Reports In American law, the ''American Law Reports'' are a resource used by American lawyers to find a variety of sources relating to specific legal rules, doctrines, or principles. It has been published since 1919, originally by Lawyers Cooperative Pub ...

, and the

Restatement of Torts In American jurisprudence, the ''Restatements of the Law'' are a set of treatises on legal subjects that seek to inform judges and lawyers about general principles of common law. There are now four series of ''Restatements'', all published by the ...

(Third).

Abstracting and indexing

The journal is abstracted or indexed in

HeinOnline HeinOnline (HOL) is a commercial internet database service launched in 2000 by William S. Hein & Co., Inc. (WSH Co), a Buffalo, New York publisher specializing in legal materials. The company began in Buffalo, New York, in 1961 and is currently b ...

LexisNexis LexisNexis is a part of the RELX corporation that sells data analytics products and various databases that are accessed through online portals, including portals for computer-assisted legal research (CALR), newspaper search, and consumer info ...

Westlaw Westlaw is an online legal research service and proprietary database for lawyers and legal professionals available in over 60 countries. Information resources on Westlaw include more than 40,000 databases of case law, state and federal statu ...

,
Journal Finder: Columbia Journal of Environmental Law
and the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seatt ...

's Current Index to Legal Periodicals. Tables of contents are also available through Infotrieve and

Ingenta Ingenta is a provider of content services for the publishing industry, based in Oxford in the United Kingdom. Customers include both academic and trade publishers as well as information providers. Ingenta plc is listed on the Alternative Inves ...

, and the journal posts some past issues on its website.
Archived Issues

References

External links