Comparative and Global Environmental Law and Policy

Written by leading scholars and experts with extensive practice and teaching experience in the field, Comparative and Global Environmental Law and Policy offers a student-friendly approach to the study of a rapidly evolving and important area of law. Its multi-jurisdictional selection of judicial opinions and legal materials introduces students to the worldwide reach of environmental law. Through its substance, the book familiarizes students not only with governing and emerging legal principles but also demonstrates how legal norms are applied to specific issues and contexts, illustrating how law-on-the-books becomes law-in-action. Student understanding is reinforced by problem exercises and discussion questions.

Professors and students will benefit from:



A multi-jurisdictional selection of environmental law cases and regulatory materials from across the world, with many cases from the developing world and emerging economies.

Separate chapters on rapidly evolving and critical topics such as rights of nature, sustainability, corporations and private environmental governance, human rights and the environment, and climate change.

Presentation of basic background principles of environmental law, institutions, and governance and their operation in international, national and subnational systems, including indigenous governance systems.

Emphasis across the book on issues of institutions and governance as well as enforcement and effectiveness.

Judicial opinions providing an authoritative articulation of how legal principles are applied in various systems.

Numerous problem exercises and discussion questions to introduce topics and reinforce concepts and materials.

Integrated perspective on the relationship of international and transnational environmental law, national environmental law, environmental norms and principles in other settings such as in private environmental governance, and governance institutions.