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LeRoy C Paddock, Robert L Glicksman and Nicholas S Bryner (eds), Decision-Making in Environmental Law

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Author
Published date01 September 2017
Date01 September 2017
Pages455-456
DOI10.3366/elr.2017.0444

This is the second volume in the Elgar Encyclopedia of Environmental Law (general editor Michael Faure) and reviewing an encyclopaedia is not easy. It was not written as a single work and is not intended to be consumed as such, and reviewers are probably among the few readers who feel an obligation to look at every chapter (at least quickly). Across such broad coverage, one's own levels of interest and knowledge vary and affect the impression that is made and no brief assessment can do justice to the wealth of material included. Nevertheless, if forced to sum up my conclusion it would be that this is a very useful book. Although to say that of some volumes would be damning with faint praise, for an encyclopaedia it is a statement of its true success.

There are thirty-five chapters packed into the 460 pages of substantive text in the book and they cover a wide range of topics, brought together under the title Decision Making in Environmental Law, but actually offering an overview of many aspects of environmental regulation. The team of forty-three contributors and editors brings together many leading environmental law experts, predominantly from the United States of America (“US”), but with half a dozen others, from the UK, the rest of Europe, Israel and Brazil. The less successful chapters are shaped too strongly by a national focus, with both the structure and detail reflecting the concerns in one jurisdiction; the many more very successful ones adopt a truly international perspective, develop enlightening comparisons or make good use of national examples to illustrate more widely applicable analyses.

The structure of the book gives authors only about a dozen pages to say something valuable about very large topics, and all achieve this. The most useful section to me as a teacher of environmental law is probably Part three, headed “Goals and Control Strategies” but actually offering masterly overviews of different approaches to environmental regulation, including goal-setting, market-based controls, emissions trading, environmental plans and permits and typology of regulation by private entities. These provide exactly what is needed to set the scene and context before more detailed issues can be examined and are an excellent starting point for understanding the fundamentals of different legal approaches and the range of regulatory mechanisms available. Similarly strong overviews are offered by the subsequent parts, on “Environmental and Regulatory Review”...

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