Enforcing Pollution Control Regulation: Strengthening Sanctions and Improving Deterrence by Carolyn Abbot
| Author | Liz Fisher |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2010.00841_2.x |
| Published date | 01 January 2011 |
| Date | 01 January 2011 |
values becomes increasingly acute; concerns about both the control of govern-
ment and governmental e¡ectiveness are likely to acquire re-enforced impor-
tance. To administrative lawyers eager to engage in this broader vision of the
administ rative law project, Lawand Administrationremains the essential handbook.
RobertThomas
n
Carolyn Abbot, Enforcing Pollution Control Regulation: Strengthening
Sanctions and Improving Deterrence
,Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2009, 268 pp,
hb d40.00.
A feature of book reviews in academic law, as once noted by Allen, is that their
speed and relative slightness result in reviewers exposing their ‘intellectual re£exes’
(F. Allen,‘In Praise of Book Reviews’ (1981) 79 Michigan LawReview 557, 562). On
the one hand, that is their great virtue ^ book reviews are the closest thing that
legal academics have to a corpus of ‘informal essays’ (Allen,559) and a perusal of
them is a very e¡ective way to get insight intothe disciplinary dynamics of a par-
ticular legal area. Book reviews also reveal the veryhuman aspect of the academic
enterprise ^ we are not that di¡erent from other writers after all. On the other
hand, those ‘intellectual re£exes’are not always bene¢cial ^ the instinctive nature
of a re£ex acti ng as a barrier to more thoughtful e ngagement.
I say all these things because reading Carolyn Abbot’s Enforcing Pollution Control
Regulation resulted in my having a small intellectual crisis about the nature of
book reviewing due tomy own,rather unhelpful,intellectual re£exes.To say this,
I know sounds deeply self-indulgent but, as I will explain below, it is worth stat-
ing in all fairness toAbbot. But before discussing those re£exes it is important to
understand Abbot’s book.
Enforcing Pollution Control Regulation is a profoundly competent book which I
wouldrecommendtoanystudentorpolicymakertoreadintryingtogettheir
head round the enforcement of pollution law. It provides a simple but robust
intellectual framework for thinking about how to achieve compliance through
enforcement in the realm of pollution regulation. It considers these issues in a
range of di¡erent jurisdictions ^ England andWales,Victoria, New SouthWales
and the Federal contextin Australia, and Ontario and the Federal level in Canada.
Her main argument is that in an area where there are few prosecutions, the focus
needs to be onwhat will act as a‘credibledeterrent’.Thinki ngabout that notonly
requires thinkingabout the deterrent e¡ect of the criminalprocess but also alter-
native enforcement mechanisms and the way in which regulators will ‘progress’
through them as part of getting polluters to comply. Her argument is presented
clearlyand succinctly.
The book can broadly be divided into three di¡erent steps of analysis. In the
¢rst stage, Abbot presents her theoretical analysis and theliterature on the general
n
School of Law,University of Manchester
Reviews
156 r2011The Authors. The Modern Law Review r2011The Modern Law Review Limited.
(2011) 74(1) 150^170
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