Juan Pablo Scarfi, The Hidden History of International Law in the Americas: Empire and Legal Networks, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, 280 pp, hb £64.00.
| Published date | 01 September 2018 |
| Date | 01 September 2018 |
| Author | I. Van Hulle |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12373 |
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REVIEWS
Eloise Scotford,Environmental Principles and the Evolution of Environ-
mental Law, Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2017, 320 pp, hb £60.00.
These are uncertain times for UK environmental law. As an academic dis-
cipline and a field of legal practice, environmental law is already renowned
for its complexity and dynamism, and Brexit looks set to make things more
complicated still. Despite assurances of legal continuity in the short-term, it is
anyone’s guess what the extended future holds. For the time being, at least, the
UK’s intended withdrawal from the EU raises more questions than it answers.
One major issue, which has been put out to consultation, is the prospective
role of general environmental principles. These principles – such as ‘sustainable
development’, the ‘precautionary principle’ and the ‘polluter pays principle’ –
are so embedded in EU environmental regulation that it is difficult to envis-
age the UK operating without them (not least because many principles will
continue to have relevance under international law). A crucial but unresolved
question is how environmental principles will live on – to what ends and by
what means – in the post-Brexit era. This question alone reveals a level of legal
complexity that until recently seemed unfathomable. It is during these times
of flux that clear analytical insight provides a most welcome tonic.
Eloise Scotford’s Environmental Principles and the Evolution of Environmental Law
offers exactly that – a much-needed dose of incisive scholarship on an issue of
suddenly intractable proportions. To be clear, the book does not address Brexit,
having been written before the Referendum and with a wider focus; however
it develops a conceptual framework for questions we now find ourselves asking
about the purpose and status of environmental principles in future UK law
and policy. The work is timely, but also has a timeless quality. It provides a
meticulous and scholarly examination of a topic that pre-exists and will outlive
the politics of the day. Scotford’s scholarship here is exemplary, no matter the
context.
Context, it turns out, is a prominent theme in the book and this helps to
explain the motivation for Scotford’s key arguments. Although a great deal has
been written on environmental principles, research in this field has a tendency,
says Scotford, to over-generalise by separating the detail from the context in
which it was observed. This can lead to speculative, unsubstantiated conclusions
about the nature and function of environmental principles, which overlook the
messiness of diverse legal and policy systems. In Scotford’s words, ‘there is
no get ting away f rom the d etai l when t rying to u nder stand the l egal ro les of
environmental principles’ (3). The trouble is that principles like sustainable
development have no single or obvious meaning, so can only be properly
understood if situated in context. Because they ‘look very different, despite
similar names, in different jurisdictions’ (5), more careful attention needs to
be paid to their institutional, jurisdictional and legal settings. It is no good
C2018 The Author.The Moder n Law Review C2018 The Modern Law Review Limited. (2018) 81(5) MLR 920–928
Published by John Wiley& Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
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