Jason Robison

Jason Anthony Robison

S.J.D. Candidate

Fellow, Water Security Initiative

jrobison@sjd.law.harvard.edu

Dissertation

“Water as Property:  The Law of the River in the Colorado River Basin”

Colloquially called the “Law of the River,” an elaborate body of laws governs the allocation of water from the Colorado River and its tributaries within and adjacent to the Colorado River Basin in the U.S. Southwest.  Encompassed within the domain where this water flows and is used are portions of seven western states; two Mexican states; major urban centers like Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and San Diego; expansive agricultural areas like Imperial Valley; and numerous Indian and federal lands, including the Navajo Nation and Grand Canyon National Park.  All told, more than thirty-million people rely on this water for their lives and livelihoods, illustrating the definitional character of the Colorado River and the Law of the River to this region of the world.  Proceeding from this vantage point, my dissertation examines the composition of the water allocation scheme established by the Law of the River, approaching this subject from analytical and normative angles.  In addition to providing an integrated model accounting for the disparate parts of the Law of the River as a common regime, the dissertation draws attention to salient legal and policy issues facing this regime in contemporary times, and also to varied normative conceptions of U.S. society embedded in the terms of the regime in its current form (e.g., contrasting ideas about federalism, federal- and state-tribal relations, and environmentalism).  The dissertation likewise offers food for thought about the future evolution of the Law of the River, including potential legal and policy measures that should be considered in ongoing discourse about Colorado River governance.  

Fields of Research and Supervisors

• Property Theory with Professor Joseph Singer, Harvard Law School, Overall Faculty Supervisor
• Water Law with Professor John Leshy, UC Hastings College of Law, and Professor Richard Lazarus, Harvard Law School
• Environmental History in the American West with Professor Rachel St. John, History Department, Harvard University

Additional Research Interests

• Environmental & Natural Resources Law
• Land Use Law
• Property Law
• American Indian Law
• U.S. Legal History

Education

• Harvard Law School, S.J.D. Candidate 2009-Present
• Harvard Law School, LLM Program 2008-2009
• University of Oregon School of Law, J.D. 2006
• University of Utah, B.S. 2003

Appointments and Fellowships

• Harvard University, Water Security Initiative, 2011-2013, Dissertation Fellow
• University of Colorado Law School, Colorado River Governance Initiative, 2010-2012, Visiting Fellow
• Harvard University, Water Security Initiative, 2011-2012, Research Fellow
• Harvard Law School, 2010-2011, Summer Academic Fellow
• Harvard Kennedy School of Government, 2010-2011, Teaching Fellow
• Harvard College, Environmental Science & Public Policy Program, 2009-2010, Teaching Fellow
• Harvard Law School, Environmental Law & Policy Clinic, 2008-2009, Research Fellow
• University of Utah, American West Center, 2002-2003, Research Fellow

Representative Publications

• Jason A. Robison & Lawrence J. MacDonnell, Never the Twain Shall Meet:  Reckoning Arizona v. California and the Colorado River Compact, 3 ARIZ. J. ENVTL. L. & POL’Y (forthcoming 2013)
• Jason A. Robison & Douglas S. Kenney, Equity & the Colorado River Compact, 42 ENVTL. L. (forthcoming 2012), http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2137761
• Jason Robison et al., Forging Ahead in the Era of Limits:  The Evolution of Interstate Water Policy in the Colorado River Basin, Colorado River Basin Background Paper prepared for Water Federalism Conference, Harvard University, April 19-21, 2012, http://watersecurityinitiative.seas.harvard.edu/conference-papers-and-presentations
• Jason A. Robison, A Compact in and of Itself, Book Review of NORRIS HUNDLEY, JR., WATER AND THE WEST:  THE COLORADO RIVER COMPACT AND THE POLITICS OF WATER IN THE AMERICAN WEST (2d ed 2009), H-Net (September 2010), http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=30572
• Jason A. Robison, Shaping Oregon Climate Policy in Light of the Kyoto Protocol, 21(1) J. ENVTL. L. & LITIG. 207 (2006), http://law.uoregon.edu/org/jell/docs/211/OEL106.pdf

Additional Information

• Languages: English, Spanish

Page last updated: September 11, 2012