Errol E. Meidinger
Professor and Vice Dean for Research and Faculty Development
B.A., University of North Dakota, 1974
M.A., Northwestern University, 1977
J.D., Northwestern University, 1979
Ph.D., Northwestern University, 1987
University at Buffalo Law School
The State University of New York
719 O'Brian
Hall, North Campus
Buffalo, NY 14260-1100
Phone:(716) 645-6692
Faculty Assistant:
Mary Voglmayr, 622 O'Brian Hall, Phone: (716) 645-5984
Biography:
Errol Meidinger teaches Environmental Law, International Environmental Law, International Trade and Environment, Property, and Administrative Law, enhancing his teaching with research in each area. Much of his current research focuses on efforts to use 'supra-governmental' regulatory systems, such as environmental certification and fair labor standards programs, to improve the social and environmental performance of business organizations. He is also writing on the subjects of 'soft law,' global regulation, and recent efforts to change the implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act.
His earlier scholarship examined topics such as the changing roles of scientists in environmental policy making, the legal and organizational dimensions of ecosystem management, the changing nature of federal-state relationships in environmental regulation, the privatization of regulatory enforcement, the use of market mechanisms in pollution regulation, the 'public use' requirement in eminent domain, and the social and political consequences of rapid energy development.
Professor Meidinger also serves as Vice Dean for Research and Faculty Development, working to enhance the Law School's support for scholarship and its dissemination as well as the overall development of our faculty. He previously served as the founding Director of the UB Environment & Society Institute (linking more than 200 faculty members from approximately 40 departments at UB and elsewhere) and Interim Director of the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy (also linking scholars from around the university and beyond).
Professor Meidinger is an Honorary Professor at the University of Freiburg, Germany, where he served as a Fulbright Professor in 1999-2000. During 2006-2007 he was the Distinguished Environmental Law Scholar at Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon. In prior years he was also a visiting professor at the University of Washington and Syracuse University.
Selected Publications:
Books
Confronting Sustainability: Forest Certification in Developing and Transitioning Countries (with Benjamin Cashore, Fred Gale and Deanna Newsom, co-editors) (Yale Forestry Press, 2006)
Social and Political Implications of Forest Certification (with Christopher Elliott and Gerhard Oesten, co-editors) (Remagen-Oberwinter, Germany: Forstbuch Verlag, 2003)
Articles and Chapters
Property Law for Development Policy and Institutional Theory: Problems of Structure, Choice, and Change in The Mystery of Capital and the New Philosophy of Social Reality (David Mark, Barry Smith, and Isaac Ehrlich, editors) (2008) [SSRN]
Competitive Supra-Governmental Regulation: How Could It Be Democratic? Chicago Journal of International Law 8(2): 513-534 (2008) [SSRN]
Multi-Interest Self-Governance through Global Product Certification Chains in Responsible Business: Self-Governance in Transnational Economic Transactions (Olaf Dilling, Martin Herberg, and Gerd Winter, editors) (Oxford: Hart, 2008)
Beyond Westphalia: Competitive Legalization in Emerging Transnational Regulatory Systems, Law and Legalization in Tranational Relations (Christian Brütsch and Dirk Lehmkuhl, editors) (London and New York: Routledge, 2007)
Forest Certification in Developing and Transitioning Countries: Part of a Sustainable Future? Environment 48(9): 6-25 (2006)
The Administrative Law of Global Private/Public Regulation: the Case of Forestry, EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, 17(1):47-87 (2006)
Law and Constitutionalism in the Mirror of Non- Governmental Standards in TRANSNATIONAL GOVERNANCE AND CONSTITUTIONALISM (Christian Joerges, Inger-Johanne Sand, Gunther Teubner, editors) (Oxford: Hart, 2004) (189-198)
The New Environmental Law: Forest Certification, BUFFALO ENVIRONMENTAL LAW JOURNAL vol.10: 211-300 (2003)
Private Environmental Certification Systems and U.S Environmental Law: Closer than You May Think, ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REPORTER vol. 31: 10162-10179 (February 2001)
