Rachael Salcido
Professor Rachael E. Salcido is the inaugural Stephen C. McCaffrey Endowed Professor of Law at the 黑料不打烊, McGeorge School of Law. She is an insightful scholar of domestic, comparative, and international environmental and natural resources law, with particular expertise in ocean and coastal law, ecosystem restoration, and environmental justice. Her scholarship explores how law can more effectively conserve and restore thriving natural environments that support all life on Earth.
Professor Salcido鈥檚 articles have appeared in leading law journals, including Utah Law Review, Environmental Law, UCLA Journal of Environmental Law & Policy, Tulane Law Review, and Ecology Law Quarterly. Her recent works address pressing contemporary issues such as Banning Plastic (2024), Plastic Activism and the Clean Water Act (2022), and Retooling Environmental Justice (2021). She is also a co-author of one of the leading property law casebooks, Property: A Contemporary Approach (6th ed., 2024), and The Law of Hazardous Wastes and Toxic Substances in a Nutshell (3rd ed., 2018).
Professor Salcido is the founding director of McGeorge鈥檚 Water and Environmental Law Concentration, where she mentors students and connects them with careers in environmental, energy, and natural resources law. Her teaching includes courses in Environmental Law, Natural Resources, Ocean and Coastal Law, Climate Change Law and Policy, and Property.
An engaged leader in the profession, Professor Salcido recently served as President of the Foundation for Natural Resources and Energy Law (formerly the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation) from 2022 to 2023, following prior service as Treasurer and Vice President. She currently serves on the Foundation鈥檚 Diversity and Inclusion Committee (2023鈥�2026) and on the Board of Directors of the Putah Creek Council, a local nonprofit dedicated to habitat restoration and watershed health.
Her recent presentations include panels at the American Society of Comparative Law (2024), the California Lawyers Association Environmental Law Conference (2023), and the LatCrit Biennial Conference (2023), focusing on themes of climate justice, racial capitalism, and just transitions in Latin America.
Professor Salcido believes that environmental concerns are not ancillary to development but central to the promotion of thriving, equitable communities. She views the practice of environmental law as uniquely positioned to bridge justice, sustainability, and human dignity in a rapidly changing world.
BA, JD, University of California, Davis
Representative Scholarship and Activities
International Environmental Law
Rethinking Environmental Impact Assessment in Guatemalan Mining, in From Extraction to Emancipation: Development Reimagined (American Bar Association 2018)
Through the Looking Glass: Using Trade Agreements to Enforce Environmental Law, 32 Nat. Res. & Envt. 36 (2017) (with Karrigan B枚rk)
Global Issues in Environmental Law (with Stephen C. McCaffrey) (Thompson West 2009)
Climate Change and Renewable Energy
Rationing Environmental Law in a Time of Climate Change, , 46 Loyola U. Chi. L. J. 617 (2015)
Big Talk and Little Action on Renewable Energy, 49 J. Marshall L. Rev. 571 (2015) (invited symposium article)
Siting Offshore Hydrokinetic Energy Projects: A Comparative Look at Wave Energy Regulation in the Pacific Northwest, 5 G.G.U. Envtl. L. J. 108 (2011)
Rough Seas Ahead: Confronting Challenges to get Wave Energy to the Grid, 39 Envtl. L. 1073 (2009)
Ocean Governance and Offshore Development
Offshore Federalism and Ocean Industrialization, 82 Tulane L. Rev. 1355 (2008)
Establishing a Legal Research Agenda for Ocean Energy, 63 Marine Policy 124 (2016) (with Glen Wright, et. al)
Using International Property Law as a Lever to Evolve Toward Integrative Ocean Governance, 47 U. Pacific L. Rev. 253 (2016) (contribution to symposium)
U.S. National Report on the Law Applicable on the Outer Continental Shelf and in the Exclusive Economic Zone, 18th, 58 AM. J. Comp. L. 407 (2010)
Enduring Optimism: Examining the Rig-to-Reef Bargain, 32 Ecology L. Q. 863 (2005)
Ecosystem Restoration and Faux Nature
Ditching Our Innocence: The Clean Water Act in the Age of the Anthropocene, 46 Environmental Law 415 (2016) (invited symposium article, with Karrigan B枚rk)
The Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge: On a Rocky Road to Creating a Community Asset, 47 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1401 (2014) (publication resulting from LatCrit Denver Study Space project)
The Tension Between Transparency and Public Appeasement in the Formulation of Wildfire Management Strategies and the use of Wildfire as a Restoration Tool, 1 Tex. Wesleyan J. Real Prop. L. 69 (2013) (invited symposium article)
The Success and Continued Challenges of the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area: A Grassroots Restoration, 39 Ecology L. Q. 101 (2012)
Environmental Justice
Reviving the Environmental Justice Agenda, 91 Chi.-Kent. L. Rev. 115 (2016)
