Review Editors' Introduction

Abstract

We are pleased to introduce an addition to the familiar environmental law book review format called the ‘review article’. We would also like to welcome Steven Vaughan’s founding contribution. Vaughan has used the space of an article-length review to compare and contrast two books on a specialist subject area (chemicals regulation). However, it is not so much the number of books under review that defines the format, as the use of a more generous word limit to reflect on specific works of secondary literature in a deeper manner than is often feasible within the constraints of a ‘classic’ book review. Part of the spirit of this innovation is the wish to accommodate the changing character of environmental law scholarship as the discipline matures. One aspect of this is the increasing variety of perspectives that the current literature offers, and the consequential interest in and delicacy of framing the scholarly analysis. There is also—at least for a UK audience—the Research Excellence Framework (REF) to take into account. For fairly obvious reasons, it difficult for a concise book review to satisfy the REF criteria of originality, rigour and significance. However, there are greater possibilities with an article-length review.