Book Review: After Sustainability: An Interdisciplinary Look at Environmental Law and Policy
| Published date | 01 June 1998 |
| Author | Benjamin Davy |
| Date | 01 June 1998 |
| DOI | 10.22145/flr.26.2.9 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
BOOK
REVIEW
AFTER SUSTAINABILITY:
AN
INTERDISCIPLINARY
LOOK
AT
ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
AND
POLICY
A
review
of
R
Ramsay
and
G C Rowe (with
two
chapters
by
J S Jones),
Environmental
Law
and Policy in Australia: Text andMaterials (Butterworths 1995).
LXII
and
858 pages. ISBN 0409 30682
7.
$98.00.
Benjamin
Davy*
SUSTAINABILITY -THE ENVIRONMENTAL FLAVOUR
OF
THE
NINETIES
By
December 1997,
upon
the international community's inability to reach asuccessful
agreement
at
the Kyoto meeting on global climate change, "sustainable development",
the
wonderful
umbrella
term
for environmental policy
and
law
in the 1990s,
had
lost
much
of its magic. "Sustainable development" was invented to bridge the differences
between
the industrialised
and
developing nations
at
the 1992 United Nations
Conference
on
Environment
and
Development (UNCED)
at
Rio
de
Janeiro. It
was
meant
to give governments
allover
the
world
aflexible
yet
reliable foundation to
design
and
implement environmental policies
that
would
efficiently
prevent
environmental degradation
and
distribute fairly the benefits
and
burdens
of
environmental protection.
The concept of sustainable development stimulated alarge
number
of impressive
efforts to change the direction of environmental policies from over-protective to
economically
and
socially feasible. Although there is little consensus
on
the precise
meaning
of "sustainability", some of the commonly accepted elements include the
importance of the developmental
and
environmental needs of present
and
future
generations, the precautionary principle, the reduction
and
elimination of
unsustainable patterns of production,
and
the
need
to integrate environmental
Acting
Chair
of
Land
Policy
and
Land
Management,
School
of
Planning,
University
of
Dortmund,
Germany.
Magister
iuris
(1980)
and
Doctor
iuris
(1980),
Law
School of
the
University
of Vienna, Austria.
"Universitatsdozent
fur
Verfassungs-
und
Verwaltungs-
recht" (1991),
Law
School
of
the
University
of
Vienna, Austria.
Joseph
A
Schumpeter
Fellow
(1994-1995),
Harvard
Law
School,
Cambridge
Massachusetts. Visiting Fellow
(1996)
Australian
Centre
for
Environmental
Law, Faculty
of
Law,
Australian
National
University
(Canberra).
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