Environmental case law and legal precedents
The subject refers to a prospective gold-mining project in the Western Shoshone sacred site of the Cortez Mining District, situated in Lander County, Nevada, near Mt. Tenabo. With gold mining an important industry since 1950, in Lander County, and the identification of two new gold sources near the existing Cortez Mine, Cortez proposed an elaborate 850 acre additional mining facility, which would involve Cyanide heap-leach processing and de-watering of ground water to prevent the mines from getting flooded. The total additional acreage concerned were 6,571 acres of public land and 221 acres belonging to Cortez
Institutions and International Relations Question
In her essay on the barriers to cooperation that limit effective communication between state actors within the international arena, Jennifer Sterling-Folker posits that three primary types of barriers to cooperation exist in the realm of international relations: Domestic, Structural, and Cognitive. According to Sterling-Folker, the domestic political climate within a pair of seemingly willing allies may preclude them from engaging in productive diplomatic negotiations, such as when impending national elections cause national policymaking to refocus on internal affairs. Structural barriers include the lack of common ground between communist and capitalist economies, and the gulf in understanding which separates dictatorships and democracies. Cognitive barriers are those which arise from ideological motivations, such as theocracies refusing to communicate with competing religions, or secular states scoffing at the religious norms of their neighbors. The liberal concept of interdependence, or providing a clear incentive to cooperate through the construction of complex institutions, is also discussed by Sterling-Folker, who observes that barriers to communication within world politics is due to the fact that nations invariably develop as autonomous entities with unique political, social, and economic structures.