In this timely book, Walter E. Block uses classical liberal theory to defend private property rights. Looking at how free enterprise, capitalism and libertarianism are cornerstones of economically prosperous civilizations, Block highlights why private property rights are crucial. Discussing philosophy, libertarian property rights theory, reparations and other property rights issues, this volume is of interest to academics, students, journalists and all those interested in this integral aspect of political economic philosophy.

In Reinventing American Jurisprudence: Law through the Lens of Value, George David Miller and Laura Brown unfurl an original approach to value and an imaginative landscape in philosophy of law. Value essentialism identifies value formations such as a sacred cow and scapegoat tandem and the intensification of “oughtness” as it approaches sacred zenith values. Readers learn how Occam’s razor has been responsible for the death of many ideas; how the celebrated Other gains nuance as near and remote; and where a spectral assessment of probability and necessity leads. Analyses of Supreme Court cases grow out in different and exciting directions. Buck was not about eugenics, but another iteration of the value of efficiency and Yo Wick was decided less on law and more on a justice’s finding humanity in Chinese laundry mat proprietors. Lochner involved not an ideological binary but three distinct value schemes. “Separate but equal” was refined as parallelism and exploitative tangents. In Brown, the Fourteenth Amendment took a significant subjective turn. In Heller, the communitarian position of stopping violence before it began could be contrasted with the individualistic position of waiting until you see the whites of their eyes in your bedroom. Citizens United was distilled into the question: was the First Amendment designed to maximize participation or maximize democracy?

Through a combination of theoretical and empirical approaches, this book explores the role of international environmental law in protecting and conserving plants. Underpinning every ecosystem on the planet, plants provide the most basic requirements: food, shelter and clear air. Yet the world’s plants are in trouble; a fifth of all plant species are at risk of extinction, with thousands more in perpetual decline. In a unique study of international environmental law, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the challenges and restrictions associated with protecting and conserving plants. Through analysing the relationship between conservation law and conservation practice, the book debates whether the two work symbiotically, or if the law poses more of a hindrance than a help. Further discussion of the law’s response to some of the major threats facing plants, notably climate change, international trade and invasive species, grounds the book in conservation literature. Using case studies on key plant biomes to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the law in practice, the book also includes previously unpublished results of an original empirical study into the correlations between the IUCN Red List and lists of endangered/protected species in international instruments. To conclude, the book looks to the future, considering broader reforms to the law to support the work of conservation practitioners and reshape humanity’s relationships with nature. The book will be of interest to scholars and students working in the field of international environmental law and those interested more broadly in conservation and ecological governance frameworks.

This book examines the reintroduction and recovery of the wolf in the Northern Rocky Mountains. The wolf was driven to brink of extinction through conscious government policy. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 provided the means for wolf’s return, which began in the Carter administration and continues in the Obama administration. The battle over the wolf is part of a larger struggle over the management of public lands, generating public law litigation. Interest groups brought suit in federal courts, challenging the Department of Interior’s implementation of policy. The federal courts were required to interpret the statutory mandates and review Interior’s decisions to insure statutory compliance. The analysis of this public law litigation demonstrates that the federal courts correctly interpreted the statutory mandates and properly supported and checked Interior’s decisions. This book focuses on the controversial role of the courts in the resolution of public policy conflicts. Judicial skeptics argue that the courts should not get involved in complex public policy disputes as Judges lack the expertise and information to make informed decisions. Judicial proponents, by contrast, argue that judicial involvement is necessary so Federal courts can oversee federal agencies, which are under conflicting pressure from interest groups, the President, Congress, and their own internal dynamics. This book supports the conclusions of judicial proponents and points out that the federal courts have been instrumental in the return and recovery of the wolf to the Northern Rocky Mountains.

The Nagoya-Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, adopted on 15 October 2010 in Nagoya, Japan, provides an international liability regime for biodiversity damage caused by living modified organisms (LMOs). Its adoption marks a significant development in the legal design for international environmental liability regimes, as it incorporates for the first time in global treaties an administrative approach to liability. This book examines the Supplementary Protocol from both practitioner and academic perspectives. In its three parts the book explores the historical development, legal significances, and future implementation of the core provisions of the Supplementary Protocol, focusing specifically on its incorporation of an administrative approach to liability for biodiversity damage and its relation to civil liability. Contributors to the volume include Co-Chairs of the negotiating group and the negotiators and advisors from some of the key negotiating Parties, offering valuable insights into the difficult-to-read provisions of the Supplementary Protocol. The book demonstrates the significant changes in the political configuration of environmental treaty negotiations which have come about in the twenty-first century, and argues that the liability approach of the Supplementary Protocol has important implications for future development of international liability regimes under international environmental law.