Environmental Justice: Law, Policy & Regulation

Environmental justice is a significant and dynamic contemporary development in environmental law. Rechtschaffen and Gauna provide an accessible compilation of interdisciplinary materials for studying environmental justice, interspersed with extensive notes, comments, and questions designed to facilitate classroom discussion. It integrates excerpts from empirical studies, cases, agency decisions, informal agency guidance, law reviews, and other academic literature, as well as community-generated documents. The materials include writings from the fields of environmental law and civil rights law, as well as sociology, political science, and risk assessment.

The book begins with an examination of various conceptions of justice, studies about disparities in environmental harms and benefits, and theories concerning the causes of such inequities. It then looks at environmental justice in a variety of regulatory contexts, including program design, standard setting, permitting, enforcement, cleanup, and brownfield redevelopment. The concluding chapters explore various tools used in the effort to achieve environmental justice, including citizen suit enforcement of environmental laws, claims brought under the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and various non-litigation strategies, including land use and planning tools, disclosure laws, and collaborative projects. A large chapter is devoted to Native American issues.

The book is designed for use in a single semester seminar course, and each of the 16 chapters roughly corresponds to a week's worth of reading. It can also be used as a supplement in other environmental, land use, or civil rights classes in which the professor wishes to cover selected issues in environmental justice.

 

 

"This collection, edited by Rechtschaffen and Gauna, covers the terrain of environmental justice masterfully...Researchers with an interest in environment justice should own this work; students will make good use of it as well. Summing up: Essential."
-CHOICE Magazine, April 2003, Vol. 40, No. 8

 

"C. Rechtshaffen and E. Gauna, Environmental Justice: Law, Policy, and Regulation (2002) is a wonderful resource on environmental justice issues, with extensive references to the rapidly expanding literature."
-Environmental Regulation: Law, Science, and Policy (4th ed. 2003); R. Percival, C. Schroeder, A. Miller, and J. Leape

Clifford Rechtschaffen is a professor of law at Golden Gate University School of Law. Eileen Gauna is a professor of law at Southwestern State University School of Law.