Rule of Law for Nature: New Dimensions and Ideas in Environmental Law, edited by Christina Voigt

摘要

Rapid growth in the development of environmental law has not rid the planet of the immense environmental challenges that confront it today. The optimism that prevailed at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit has been replaced by the pessimism and division that marked the Rio+20 conference. Whereas the 1992 Rio Earth Summit seemed to foreshadow an exciting new era for the development of international environmental law, the years that followed brought considerable disappointment to environmentalists who struggled at Rio+20 simply to prevent the erosion of previous gains. At this critical juncture, Rule of Law for Nature presents a group of 34 distinguished environmental law scholars from 13 countries who offer their visions for the future of environmental law. In a collection of 21 provocative essays, edited by Christina Voigt, the authors call for re-imaging law to make it nature-centred, rather than human-centred. Not all of the essays are clear on precisely what this means or how it can be achieved, but the book offers a wealth of ideas that should spawn a lively dialogue concerning how to reshape the field. The exciting array of proposals offered by the authors mirror the current 'kaleidoscopic' state of the environmental law field.