This book explores topics in contemporary debates over environmental quality, economic growth and sustainable development.

Examining the law, regulation and governance of natural resources, this timely work addresses the conflicts and contradictions arising at the intersection between international economic law, sustainable development and other areas of international law, most notably human rights law and environmental law. Bringing together a collection of legal and policy expertise from a range of academic and practitioner perspectives, this book will appeal to scholars of law, political science, international relations, political economy and development studies.

The past twenty-five years have seen a significant evolution in environmental policy, with new environmental legislation and substantive amendments to earlier laws, significant advances in environmental science, and changes in the treatment of science (and scientific uncertainty) by the courts. This book offers a detailed discussion of the important issues in environmental law, policy, and economics, tracing their development over the past few decades through an examination of environmental law cases and commentaries by leading scholars. The authors focus on pollution, addressing both pollution control and prevention, but also emphasize the evaluation, design, and use of the law to stimulate technical change and industrial transformation, arguing that there is a need to address broader issues of sustainable development. Environmental Law, Policy, and Economics,which grew out of courses taught by the authors at MIT, treats the traditional topics covered in most classes in environmental law and policy, including common law and administrative law concepts and the primary federal legislation. But it goes beyond these to address topics not often found in a single volume: the information-based obligations of industry, enforcement of environmental law, market-based and voluntary alternatives to traditional regulation, risk assessment, environmental economics, and technological innovation and diffusion. Countering arguments found in other texts that government should play a reduced role in environmental protection, this book argues that clear, stringent legal requirements--coupled with flexible means for meeting them--and meaningful stakeholder participation are necessary for bringing about environmental improvements and technologicial transformations.

This anthology discusses important issues surrounding environmental law and economics and provides an in-depth analysis of its use in legislation, regulation and legal adjudication from a neoclassical and behavioural law and economics perspective. Environmental issues raise a vast range of legal questions: to what extent is it justifiable to rely on markets and continued technological innovation, especially as it relates to present exploitation of scarce resources? Or is it necessary for the state to intervene? Regulatory instruments are available to create and maintain a more sustainable society: command and control regulations, restraints, Pigovian taxes, emission certificates, nudging policies, etc. If regulation in a certain legal field is necessary, which policies and methods will most effectively spur sustainable consumption and production in order to protect the environment while mitigating any potential negative impact on economic development? Since the related problems are often caused by scarcity of resources, economic analysis of law can offer remarkable insights for their resolution. Part I underlines the foundations of environmental law and economics. Part II analyses the effectiveness of economic instruments and regulations in environmental law. Part III is dedicated to the problems of climate change. Finally, Part IV focuses on tort and criminal law. The twenty-one chapters in this volume deliver insights into the multifaceted debate surrounding the use of economic instruments in environmental regulation in Europe.

This book provides a comparative analysis of environmental regulation in multi-jurisdictional legal and political systems, focusing on the United States, the European Union, and the international community. Each of these systems must deal with environmental interdependencies that cross local borders. Some transjurisdictional environmental problems are global, including stratospheric ozone depletion, climate change and the loss of biodiversity. Other environmental problems, however, are localized in their effect on health and the environment: for example, municipal waste disposal, many forms of pollution and resource development, and drinking water quality. These varying jurisdictional and environmental circumstances pose the central question of how responsibility for addressing different environmental problems should be allocated among the different levels of decision making and implementation in a multi-jurisdictional system.

This book offers a cutting-edge scholarly discussion of judicial and legal methods to reconcile national and international economic, social and environmental law for sustainable development. A diverse anthology of perspectives from developed and developing countries, the book contains contributions from judges, international lawyers and other experts with a wealth of experience in the emerging field of sustainable development law. It presents negotiators, scholars and jurists with a lively, thought-provoking and highly current discussion of international legal debates related to sustainable development. The final part discusses future developments in sustainable development law, based on the results of three recent international processes. Sustainable Justice weaves a diverse and intriguing collection, reflecting a vigorous yet practical international legal debate of crucial importance to our common future.