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Risk, Uncertainty And Precaution: Lessons From The History Of Us Environmental Law, Robert V. Percival
Risk, Uncertainty And Precaution: Lessons From The History Of Us Environmental Law, Robert V. Percival
Robert Percival
Globalization and expanding world trade are creating new pressures to harmonize environmental standards. Countries increasingly are borrowing legal and regulatory policy innovations from one another, moving toward greater harmonization of regulatory policies. Regulatory policy generally seeks to prevent harm before it occurs, but the reality is that it usually has been more reactive than precautionary, responding only after harm has become manifest. As regulators seek to improve their responses to new and emerging environmental risks, it is useful to consider what lessons can be learned from past experience with regulatory policy. This chapter reviews controversies over regulatory policy through the …
Looking Backward, Looking Forward: The Next 40 Years Of Environmental Law, Robert V. Percival
Looking Backward, Looking Forward: The Next 40 Years Of Environmental Law, Robert V. Percival
Robert Percival
The only certainty concerning predictions for the future of the environment is that most of them are likely to be wrong. This is illustrated by the fate of past predictions, such as those contained in Paul Ehrlich's Populations Bomb, Gregg Easterbrook's A Moment on the Earth, and Bjørn Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist. While it is difficult to guess at the future of the environment, predictions concerning environmental law are even more hazardous because they turn in large part on the future of politics. After reviewing current political gridlock over environmental concerns, this Article considers contemporary forecasts of the fate of …