Law and the Environment

"Law and the Environment: A Multi-disciplinary Reader" brings together for the first time, some of the most important original work on environmental policy by scientists, ecologists, philosophers, historians, economists, and legal scholars. Each of the book's four parts provides a different focus on the nature and scope of environmental problems, and attempts to use public policy to address these concerns. Part I examines how ecology, economics, and ethics analyze environmental problems and why they support collective action to respond to them. Part II examines the history and present state of environmental law, from early attempts to engage the government to the current debate over the effectiveness of environmental policy. Part III explores the process by which environmental law gets translated into regulatory policy. Part IV considers the future of environmental law at a time when international environmental concerns have become a major force in global diplomacy and international trade agreements. In drawing together a wide variety of perspectives on these issues, Robert V. Percival and Dorothy C. Alevizatos offer a comprehensive examination of how society has responded to the difficult challenges posed by environmental problems. The selections provide a rich introduction to the complexities of environmental policy disputes. Author note: Robert V. Percival is Professor of Law, Robert Stanton Scholar and Director of the Environmental Law Program of the University of Maryland School of Law. He is the principal author of Environmental Regulation: Law, Science, and Policy, and numerous articles on law and the environment. Dorothy C. Alevizatos is an environmental lawyer with a Baltimore law firm. She has an M.S. in conservation biology from the University of Maryland.