Contemporary Environmental Law Research Articles

Derecho, naturaleza y ciencia ficción: la cuestión ecológica en "Hacedor de estrellas" de Olaf Stapledon

What can a science fiction novel from the early 20th century offer to contemporary environmental law? This essay develops a series of reflections on the contributions of the novel Star Maker, by Olaf Stapleton (1937), published in 1937, to rethink and redesign the legal instruments directed to environment or nature protection. The paper approaches different topics from the novel in relation to reflections of legal- theoretical nature, related to ecology: the overcoming of anthropocentrism, the critique of industrialization and the debates on development, the concepts of harmony, diversity, interrelation, interdependence and complementarity and the recognition of rights to non- human entities. The contrast between excerpts from Star Maker and the theoretical perspectives that link law and nature makes it possible to visualize the potential that the work offers to articulate and rethink law in the context of the ecological crisis and global climate emergency.

Environmental Law Clinics in Collaboration with Environmental NGOs in China

The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of an innovative curriculum design on environmental education in China, specifically with regard to an Environmental Law Clinic (ELC) course, to be run in co-operation with environmental NGOs (ENGOs). Adopting a qualitative case study method, our researchers investigated the effect of this innovative curriculum, including the quantity of student environmental knowledge, the level of the sense of student environmental responsibility, and the ability of students to solve environmental disputes. We also investigated each participant’s attitudes toward this innovative design. Our researchers employed various methods to analyze the student questionnaires, and to simulate consultation records and interview records. The results of our study show that an ELC (in co-operation with ENGOs) would be innovative and indispensable in the field of contemporary environmental law education. In fact, our design largely solves the problems faced by China’s ELC education. The innovative curriculum we have designed is beneficial to the sustainable development of society, because it not only improves a student’s practical ability, necessary knowledge, and the skills to deal with cases, but the curriculum also increases a student’s sense of environmental responsibility. However, to promote the wide-range practice and sustainable development of this curriculum in China, sound and multilevel support systems and measures are required.

Canons of environmental law: pollution of churches and the regulation of the medieval ‘environment’

The canon law rules addressing ‘Church Pollution’ provide a long-standing example of social regulation. A survey of historical material, and secondary sources, identifies a sophisticated set of precepts that developed over centuries. This development included application to one of the most important events in medieval England: the murder of Thomas Becket. Perhaps more importantly, the regime was widely used and thus of great significance to the ordinary citizens of the Middle Ages. Though largely historical, more recent examples of employment can also be found. When viewed through a contemporary lens, there are some connections that can be made with modern concepts of ‘pollution’ and contemporary environmental law and policy, such as that relating to contaminated land. While the relationships should not be overplayed, that analysis suggests a social and cultural heritage that has been drawn upon, whether consciously or not. When attempting to view matters from the perspective of medieval society, so conceptualising the ‘environment’ to include consideration and protection of the spiritual environment, further associations can be found. The differences in focus for the regulatory endeavours reflect differing fears, values and priorities. They also identify how these factors influence our definition and regulation of ‘pollution’.

Princípios de Preservação Ambiental a Partir do Antigo Testamento da Bíblia Sagrada

O artigo apresenta o diálogo entre o Direito Ambiental e os textos bíblicos do antigo testamento da Bíblia Hebraica. Ousa-se propor novos princípios ambientais ou reformular alguns princípios nessa área, com fundamento na Bíblia Sagrada, na esperança de que possam contribuir com o Direito Ambiental contemporâneo. Os recursos naturais estão amplamente elencados nas escrituras sagradas e devem ser preservados para as presentes e futuras gerações. É irrefutável que o tema proposto é de suma importância. O presente artigo é proveniente de uma pesquisa do tipo bibliográfica e qualitativa, na área do Direito Ambiental e das Ciências da Religião. Definiu-se pelo seguinte problema: As dimensões ambientais dos textos bíblicos podem contribuir para a formação de princípios no âmbito do Direito Ambiental hodierno?Palavras-Chaves: Princípios. Direito Ambiental. Escrituras Sagradas. Meio Ambiente.

Jurisdictional Mismatch in Environmental Federalism

Jurisdictional mismatch plagues contemporary environmental law and policy. The division of authority and responsibility for environmental protection between the federal and state governments lacks any cohesive rationale or justification. The federal government regulates in many areas where there is no clear analytical basis for federal involvement. At the same time, the federal government is relatively absent where a stronger federal presence could be justified. Conversely, states are precluded, discouraged or otherwise inhibited from adopting environmental protections where state efforts would be worthwhile. At the same time, state intervention seeps into areas where a dominant federal role would be more defensible. This jurisdictional mismatch produces sub-optimal levels of environmental protection, wastes regulatory resources, discourages innovation, and inhibits the adoption and evolution of more effective environmental protection measures. Environmental protections would be more successful were responsibility divided between the federal and state governments in a more justifiable manner. To address the current mismatch, the federal government should reorient its efforts toward those areas in which the federal government possesses an institutional advantage, due to economies of scale, or where state and local governments are incapable of addressing environmental problems, such as where there are substantial interstate spillovers.

The Emerging Practice of Global Environmental Law

AbstractSince the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, ecological pressures on our planet have grown more acute. Yet, modern environmental law has also continued to evolve and spread within international as well as among national legal systems. With the paths of international and national environmental law becoming increasingly intertwined over the years, international environmental legal norms and principles are now penetrating deeper into national legal systems, and environmental treaties are increasingly incorporating or referencing national legal norms and practices. The shifting legal landscape is also changing contemporary environmental law practice, creating greater needs for domestic environmental lawyers to be informed by international law and vice versa. This essay describes how domestic environmental law practice is increasingly informed by international legal norms, while the effective practice of international environmental law more and more requires enhanced awareness, and even understanding, of national environmental regulatory and governance systems. It illustrates these trends with the historical role and work of the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of General Counsel.

Environmental law as a scientific and educational discipline

In this work, basic characteristics of environmental law as a scientific and educational discipline were presented. In the first part, author pointed out the dilemmas which exist in domestic, as well as in foreign literature, regarding its name, notion and legal nature. It is about a new, integrative branch of law, which unifies legal institutes of several traditional branches, but at the same time contains specific normative solutions. In that context, basic (differential) principles on which contemporary environmental law is based, and which make it distinguishable from other segments of legal system, were presented. In the second part, author pointed out the problems existing in legal education domain, both in countries of European continental, and in Anglo-American legal tradition.

Editor's Foreword

Laws dealing with different aspects of the environment have often developed at different times and with distinct philosophical approaches—so much so that it is sometimes questionable whether environmental law can be said to be a truly coherent discipline. In The Progression Towards Ecological Quality Standards , William Howarth of the University of Kent attempts to seek greater synthesis in two key areas of contemporary environmental law—pollution control and nature protection. Using water as his common medium, he shows how UK pollution law, heavily influenced by European Community law, is currently driven by the need to attain environmental quality objectives based on precisely formulated environmental standards. He argues that nature protection law dealing with the water environment now needs to see a similar development in the use of ecological quality standards as a core legal mechanism. The Water Framework Directive has indeed made use of such standards, but Professor Howarth, though...

Environmental Law at the Turn of the Century: A Reportorial Fragment of Contemporary History

Contemporary environmental law, focused on biodiversity protection and restoration, is proving especially contentious since it affects virtually all areas, public and private, developed and pristine, unlike an earlier time when some areas were set aside for protection, but elsewhere development was given virtually free rein. The new, broader needs of the biodiversity era have spawned a new style of public control, much more centered on collaborative, contract-like efforts to achieve restoration of natural functions within the developed worlds of agriculture, industry, and urban life. Three exemplary efforts to achieve compliance with the Endangered Species Act in the setting of heavily used rivers in the arid West are illustrative of the new style of environmental management, with all its promise and its problems.

Law and ethics in the trade and environment debate: tuna, dolphins and turtles

Resolving ethical conflicts is a key challenge in contemporary environmental law and policy. The tuna-dolphin disputes provide a key example of the issues at stake, yet an examination of the legislative background which led to the GATT panel decisions suggest that too little attention was paid by legislators and decision-makers to identifying and pursuing clear lines of ethical argument. Discovery of ethical viewpoints with legal or political discourse is often problematic, but as the tuna-dolphin debates developed the explicitness of ethical values was progressively diluted by formalistic legal argument which tended to disguise or compromise key underlying principles at work. A crucial issue at the heart of the debates was that of ranking the needs and desires of competing species, but the ethical approaches necessary to handle such an exercise are complex and varied. National law-making, international trade policy and competing ethical theories cannot easily be subsumed within the simple model of competition between trade and environment. No coherent policy response to the types of challenge posed by international trade rules is possible unless the underlying ethical approaches are made explicit, and their contradictions and similarities carefully explored and understood.

Legal Philosophy of Contemporary Environmental Law

Legal Philosophy of Contemporary Environmental Law