This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
 |
This article documents a current court case. Information may change rapidly as the case progresses. |
 |
| Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
||||||
| Argued October 8, 2008 Decided November 12, 2008 |
||||||
|
||||||
| Holding | ||||||
| Military preparedness outweighs environmental concerns, as Navy needs to train its crews to detect modern, silent submarines, and it cannot be forced to turn off its sonar when whales are spotted nearby. | ||||||
| Court membership | ||||||
| Chief Justice: John G. Roberts Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito |
||||||
| Case opinions | ||||||
| Majority by: Roberts Joined by: Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito Concurrence/dissent by: Breyer Joined by: Stevens Dissent by: Ginsburg Joined by: Souter |
Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, was a case heard before the United States Supreme Court on October 8, 2008 concerning the United States Navy ability to use sonar during drills causing possible harm to whales and other marine mammals.1
In balancing military preparedness against environmental concerns, the majority came down solidly on the side of national security. Chief Justice Roberts wrote in his opinion, “the most serious possible injury would be harm to an unknown number of marine mammals that they study and observe.” By contrast, he continued, “forcing the Navy to deploy an inadequately trained antisubmarine force jeopardizes the safety of the fleet.”2
Environmentalists contend that the sonar has a possible deafening effect on the whales. They said studies conducted around the world have shown the piercing underwater sounds cause whales to flee in panic or to dive too deeply. Whales have been found beached in Greece, the Canary Islands and in the Bahamas after sonar was used in the area, and necropsies showed signs of internal bleeding near the ears.3
References
- ^ Markon, Jerry; Eilperin, Juliet (2008-10-09). "NOAA, Court Focus On Marine Mammals: Ship Speed Limited; Sonar Use Debated", Washington Post.
- ^ Liptak, Adam (2008-11-12). “Supreme Court Rules for Navy in Sonar Case”, The New York Times.
- ^ Savage, David G.; Weiss, Kenneth R. (2008-11-12). “Ruling unlikely to quell sonar storm”, Los Angeles Times.
External links
This article related to the Supreme Court of the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 13 November 2008, at 08:46.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.