1st Edition
Environmental Law Across Cultures Comparisons for Legal Practice
This book provides a practical, functional comparison among various institutions, tools, implementation practices and norms in environmental law across legal cultures.
This is a new approach that focuses on the act of comparison, looking at legal practice, from the ground up, including the perspective of citizens. Most literature on comparative environmental law either focuses on a two-way comparison of state jurisdictions or simply juxtaposes environmental features of two or more state jurisdictions without engaging in any analysis of the comparison. However, this book treats legal cultures as the objects of comparison as it provides practical comparisons among various institutions, tools and norms in environmental law. The arrangement and organisation of the material reverses the more traditional presentation of comparative environmental law as a series of countries within which separate descriptions are respectively presented. In this book the reader is presented with environmental legal themes, with examples and case studies drawn from various cultures that are compared in order to help understand the theme. Case studies draw on the authors’ experiences in a range of legal cultures, including in Australia, Brazil, China, Chile, Ethiopia, Germany, India, Nigeria, Slovakia, and the USA. The comparative nature of the book allows domestic professionals to develop skills to enable them to understand and advocate broader contexts for clients, and helps students become more aware of specific legal systems while questioning why their own system functions (or does not function) as it does.
The book is aimed at advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of environmental law as well as researchers and practitioners.
Foreword by M.C. Mehta
Part I Comparison
1. Why Compare? The Biological, Cognitive and Social Functions of Comparison for the Human
Kirk W. Junker
2. A Taxonomy of Comparison: The Accessus ad auctores
Kirk W. Junker
Part II Institutions and Bodies of Environmental Legislation, Implementation and Dispute Resolution
3. Locating Environmental Law Functions Among Legislative, Judicial and Implementation Bodies
Marek Prityi, Ana Miola, Yuan Ye, Ryan Kraski and Saskia Münster
4. Resolution of Environmental Disputes
Vanessa Johnston, Tsegai Berhane Ghebretekle, Ryan Kraski, Jorge Ignacio García Nielsen, Ana Miola and Mrinalini Shinde
Part III Norms and Tools of Environmental Legislation, Implementation and Dispute Resolution
5. Constitutional Provisions
Ryan Kraski, Marek Prityi and Saskia Münster
6. The Interface Between Law and Politics
Tsegai Gebretekle and Marek Prityi
Part IV Persons Subject to Environmental Legislation, Implementation and Dispute Resolution
7. Public Participation
Mrinalini Shinde, Tsegai Berhane Ghebretekle and Kirk W. Junker
8. Economic Choices Enabled by Environmental Law
Sacha Kathuria
9. Environmental Impact Assessment Systems
Dennis Agelebe, Marek Prityi and Jorge Ignacio García Nielsen
10. Environmental Crime and Enforcement
Mrinalini Shinde
Conclusions Across Cultures
Kirk W. Junker
Biography
Kirk W. Junker is Professor of Law, Director of the Environmental Law Center, and Director of the International Master of Environmental Sciences Programme, Faculty of Law, University of Cologne, Germany.
"Offering an excellent range of environmental analyses, this book is a timely comparative tool to understand evolving environmental good governance. Practitioners, students, and a wide range of readers will find it an important contribution to gaining a deeper grasp of complex environmental legal themes." — Elizabeth Burleson, Co-Editor, Comparative Environmental Law and Regulation
"Whether a student, a lecturer, practising attorney, an expert, or indeed just someone with a genuine interest you will find this text a profound study in comparative environmental law. This book goes way beyond comparing written norms and differences in practices, to include in its focus the fact that law in every societal circumstance is born of a concrete culture and its contents is therefore a consequent of the same." — Dr. Richard A. Byron-Cox, International Law Specialist, Diplomat & Expert on Sustainable Development, United Nations
"This book is a refreshing and much-needed contribution to the area of comparative environmental law. The uniqueness of this book lies in its ability to effectively combine academic rigor and depth with learning from the practice of environmental law in different cultures. This is a must-have for anybody working or researching environmental law in diverse legal and political contexts." — Arpitha Kodiveri, Hans Kelsen Fellow at the European University Institute's Department of Law
