The effect of a US Supreme Court ruling on President Donald Trump's $400 million White House ballroom is now reaching legal challenges to his other building projects in Washington DC. At the same time, a case over a California ski resort abandoned in the 1970s and another over Nile crocodiles in Egypt have sparked fresh debate about the right to sue on "aesthetic" grounds.

Under the idea of aesthetic standing, a person who loses the chance to see or enjoy a view, a structure or an endangered animal because of a project may, in certain circumstances, go to court. But the plaintiff must prove that the project causes them direct and real harm.

In the mid-1960s, the Walt Disney Company decided to build a huge $35 million ski resort in Mineral King Valley, a remote and scenic area next to Sequoia National Park in California. Hotels, swimming pools, parking and a major road were planned. In 1969 the environmental group Sierra Club sued the US Forest Service and the government over the commercial project.

When the case reached the US Supreme Court in 1972, the justices ruled 4-3 that the Sierra Club had no legal standing to sue. Even if the project harmed the area's beauty or environment, the court said, the plaintiffs had not shown how the club or any of its members would be directly and personally harmed.

Though it lost in court, the Sierra Club built broad public opposition, and the strong campaign eventually forced Disney to abandon the project. In 1978 the US Congress added Mineral King Valley to the national park, protecting it permanently.

In a landmark 1992 Supreme Court case, environmentalists argued that US-backed development projects in the Nile basin in Egypt were harming the habitat of endangered Nile crocodiles. The court ruled that merely raising the prospect of environmental or aesthetic harm does not create standing; plaintiffs must prove they suffer direct and real harm.

When President Trump recently planned a new event ballroom, monuments and other infrastructure in Washington DC, historic preservationists and environmentalists sued, claiming aesthetic and environmental harm. In ruling in favour of the construction, the Supreme Court drew on the legal reasoning of the Nile crocodile case.

That has prompted debate among the Chief Justice and other justices: if someone can claim a legal right was infringed because they could not see Nile crocodiles in distant Egypt, should ordinary people in Washington not have the right to sue over changes to historic buildings or natural views?

Last week, over the objections of Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's three liberal justices, five conservative justices denied a historic preservation group the chance to sue against the ballroom on aesthetic grounds. The Trump administration soon began using the ruling to seek an end to pending lawsuits against other construction projects in Washington.

Trump's lawyers say the projects' critics have failed to prove "real and specific harm". The Supreme Court also said that mere annoyance, disagreement or dislike cannot count as sufficient harm to sue.

Monday's ruling, given on an emergency application, has limited value as precedent. But Pepperdine University professor Robert Pushaw believes it signals the future position of the five conservative justices. In his view, in a later case the court could scrap the idea of aesthetic harm or limit it in environmental law cases, making it harder for people alleging violations of the law to prove standing.

The Trump administration has also cited the ruling in cases over a proposed 250-foot arch on the bank of the Potomac River, the renovation of a public golf course in Washington and the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial's Reflecting Pool. Historic preservation experts, however, say the path to challenge has not been closed completely.

In his dissent, Chief Justice Roberts referred to the two old cases and asked: if wanting to see crocodiles can count as an interest worth suing over, why not wanting to see the White House?

Nicholas Sansone, the lead lawyer in the ballroom case, and George Washington University professor Sara Bronin believe the new ruling makes challenges harder but not impossible. In their view, plaintiffs will need to show more clearly how the projects harm them or could harm them.

Original source cited: CNN.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.