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Environmental Law
Pergamon
Atmospheric Environment Vol. 30, No. 14, p. 2651, 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain
1352-2310(95) 00480-7
BOOK REVIEW Environmental Law, by Richard Burnett-Hall et al. Sweet and Maxwell, 1995. 1124 pp., plus glossary, appendices and index. ISBN 0-421 47090-9. This is as up-to-date a compendium on environmental law as one can find. It is written by a leading barrister with colleagues in the U.K. Environmental Law Association, and covers all aspects of pollution, environmental protection and environmental administrative law in England and Wales, together with a substantial comparative chapter on Scotland. Planning is given less attention, because it is a topic covered elsewhere in equal detail by Malcolm Grant (1994). There is a chapter, written by Ian Gatenby, on the basic principles of the planning system, including the all important cluster of planning guidance notes. The latter are also scattered in the text, for example in the section on nature conservation, written by George Black. Each major paragraph is labelled with a chapter number and sequential paragraph number, so it is easy to locate any detail with reference to the very comprehensive index. This is designed to be a lawyer's compendium, the kind of document found in any planning and environmental law chambers. The text is illuminative, easy to read, well laid out and fully cited. There is a serious effort to bring in European environmental law, the law of risk, environmental assessment and eco-labelling, as well as the more conventional
treatment on air, water, land drainage, waste, integrated pollution control, chemicals, pesticides, genetically modified organisms, radioactive substances, hazardous operations, noise, and litter. In addition to all this, there are excellent chapters on the evolution of environmental law, with its roots in nuisance and public interest property rights. There are also up-to-date reviews on criminal and civil liability, access to information, statutory nuisance, land transactions, insurance and coo-labelling. This is a very valuable and readable compendium. It is written with a reasonable mixture of commentary and technical detail. It is by no means a dry legal reader. The only obvious item missing is any reference to the application of the precautionary principle. Yet that principle is enshrined in European law and the Maastricht Treaty. The author admits that sustainability themes will probably begin to dominate the law from now on. A ,future text will doubtless be even more European and less U.K. orientated, and laced with the ambiguous jargon of sustainable development. TIMOTHY O'RIORDAN School of Environmental Sciences Norwich NR4 7TJ U.K. Grant, M. (1994) Planning Law. Butterworths, London.
2651
Atmospheric Environment Vol. 30, No. 14, p. 2651, 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain
1352-2310(95) 00480-7
BOOK REVIEW Environmental Law, by Richard Burnett-Hall et al. Sweet and Maxwell, 1995. 1124 pp., plus glossary, appendices and index. ISBN 0-421 47090-9. This is as up-to-date a compendium on environmental law as one can find. It is written by a leading barrister with colleagues in the U.K. Environmental Law Association, and covers all aspects of pollution, environmental protection and environmental administrative law in England and Wales, together with a substantial comparative chapter on Scotland. Planning is given less attention, because it is a topic covered elsewhere in equal detail by Malcolm Grant (1994). There is a chapter, written by Ian Gatenby, on the basic principles of the planning system, including the all important cluster of planning guidance notes. The latter are also scattered in the text, for example in the section on nature conservation, written by George Black. Each major paragraph is labelled with a chapter number and sequential paragraph number, so it is easy to locate any detail with reference to the very comprehensive index. This is designed to be a lawyer's compendium, the kind of document found in any planning and environmental law chambers. The text is illuminative, easy to read, well laid out and fully cited. There is a serious effort to bring in European environmental law, the law of risk, environmental assessment and eco-labelling, as well as the more conventional
treatment on air, water, land drainage, waste, integrated pollution control, chemicals, pesticides, genetically modified organisms, radioactive substances, hazardous operations, noise, and litter. In addition to all this, there are excellent chapters on the evolution of environmental law, with its roots in nuisance and public interest property rights. There are also up-to-date reviews on criminal and civil liability, access to information, statutory nuisance, land transactions, insurance and coo-labelling. This is a very valuable and readable compendium. It is written with a reasonable mixture of commentary and technical detail. It is by no means a dry legal reader. The only obvious item missing is any reference to the application of the precautionary principle. Yet that principle is enshrined in European law and the Maastricht Treaty. The author admits that sustainability themes will probably begin to dominate the law from now on. A ,future text will doubtless be even more European and less U.K. orientated, and laced with the ambiguous jargon of sustainable development. TIMOTHY O'RIORDAN School of Environmental Sciences Norwich NR4 7TJ U.K. Grant, M. (1994) Planning Law. Butterworths, London.
2651