Book Review: Environmental Protection: European Law and Governance
| Author | Moritz Hartmann |
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1023263X1101800308 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Book Reviews
18 MJ 3 (2011) 345
Joanne Scott (ed.), Environmental Prote ction: European Law and Gover nance, Oxford
University Press 2009, 225 p., hardback, £ 50.
And if the problem of climate change is ser iously addressed,
the ultimate strategy will be ba sed on incentives,
not on command-and-control.1
§1. INTRODUCING REGULATORY MULTIPOLARITY:
EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE
With regard to its evolutionary legal development, the EU ’s multi-level fra mework of
environmental a nd climate regulat ion faces a varie ty of contemporary ch allenges.
Alongside the complexities related to scientic evidence for environmenta l protection, the
conict between normative hierarchy and heterarchy as well as the trade-o between legal
harmonization and reg ulatory decentralization requi res adjusted legal arrangements on
a global sca le. Moreover, t he pluralistic admin istration in the supply of g lobal common
goods combined with the reluctance of Member States toward s Community methods
needs integrated governance mech anisms, ‘where many elements are capable of making
mutual adjust ments for ordering t heir relationships wit h one another w ithin a genera l
system (…)’2 of normative order.
Not on ly the multitude of top-down approaches in envi ronmental regu lation has
largely been contested. e European C ommission’s understanding of it s hybrid role
in the process of dec ision-mak ing has also been subject to c oncerns within a number of
domestic administ rative bodies.
Additionally, the design of modern statehood that once correlated with its territorial,
civil and political space ‘metamorphosed ’ into a sovereign entity of europeanized and
globalized character providing legiti macy to supranational instit utions.3 e process of
structur al adaptation to new frames of transnat ional regul ation, therefore, coincides with
the emergence of a multitude of non-state actors aim ing for the integrat ion into dierent
political fora of decision- and norm-making. Es pecially, the severe management of
climate change regul ation exceeds the limited scope of sovereign states and accounts for
cooperation on a global scale. Considering t hat the eects of climate change have spread
across continents, countr ies and communities, state and non-state authorities are asked
1 R.H. aler and C.R. Sunstein, Nudge: Improving Deci sions About He alth, Wealth, an d Happin ess
(Penguin Book s, New York 2009), p. 188.
2 V. Ostrom, ‘Polycentricity—Part 1’, in M. McGinnis (ed.), In Polycentricit y and Local Public Economies,
(University of Mich igan Press, Ann Ar bor 1999), p. 52–74, at 57.
3 See N. Walker, ‘EU Constitut ionalism and New Governa nce’, in G. de Búrca and J. Scott, Law and New
Governance in the EU and the US (Ox ford University Press, Oxford 2006), p. 17, referring to the ‘post-
state polity s uch as the EU’; see also S . Sassen, Territory, Author ity, Rights (Princeton Un iversity Press,
Princeton 20 06), p. 185.
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