問題を解決する魔法の杖のように思われがちな環境法ですが、環境問題は法規制によって解決したり防いだりできるほど単純な話ではありません。本書は利権や社会・政治的対立、環境に対する知識の限界などにどう対応しているのかを論じながら、環境法の特徴を概観します。国家、権力、法の役割、環境改善の必要性や、環境問題における正義などの議論を通じ、法は問題の対処に必要不可欠でありながら、論争と切り離すことができないものであることがわかるでしょう。
 

• Discusses the nature and practice of environmental law, and explores the role of lawmakers, courts, and regulators
• Analyses why environmental law is both a fundamental and controversial area of law, and how it operates within societies
• Encompasses a range of different jurisdictions, considering examples from many different countries

 
Environmental law is the law concerned with environmental problems. It is a vast area of law that operates from the local to the global, involving a range of different legal and regulatory techniques. In theory, environmental protection is a no brainer. Few people would actively argue for pollution or environmental destruction. Ensuring a clean environment is ethically desirable, and also sensible from a purely self-interested perspective. Yet, in practice, environmental law is a messy and complex business fraught with conflict. Whilst environmental law is often characterized in overly simplistic terms, with a law being seen as be a magic wand that solves an environmental problem, the reality is that creating and maintaining a body of laws to address and avoid problems is not easy, and involves legislators, courts, regulators and communities. 

This Very Short Introduction provides an overview of the main features of environmental law, and discusses how environmental law deals with multiple interests, socio-political conflicts, and the limits of knowledge about the environment. Showing how interdependent societies across the world have developed robust and legitimate bodies of law to address environmental problems, Elizabeth Fisher discusses some of the major issues involved in environmental law's: nation statehood, power, the reframing role of law, the need to ensure real environmental improvements, and environmental justice. As Fisher explains, environmental law is, and will always be, necessary but inherently controversial.