Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental Law and the Search for Objectivity

Kysar, Douglas A

ISBN 10: 030012001X / ISBN 13: 9780300120011

Published by Yale University Press 2010-06, 2010

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 6666-IUK-9780300120011

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental Law and the Search for Objectivity
• Publisher: Yale University Press 2010-06
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 030012001X
• ISBN 13: 9780300120011
• Binding: PF
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Drawing insight from a diverse array of sources -- including moral philosophy political theory cognitive psychology ecology and science and technology studies -- Douglas Kysar offers a new theoretical basis for understanding environmental law and policy. He exposes a critical flaw in the dominant policy paradigm of risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis which asks policymakers to in essence "regulate from nowhere." As Kysar shows such an objectivist stance fails to adequately motivate ethical engagement with the most pressing and challenging aspects of environmental law and policy which concern how we relate to future generations foreign nations and other forms of life. Indeed world governments struggle to address climate change and other pressing environmental issues in large part because dominant methods of policy analysis obscure the central reasons for acting to ensure environmental sustainability. To compensate for these shortcomings Kysar first offers a novel defense of the precautionary principle and other commonly misunderstood features of environmental law and policy. He then concludes by advocating a movement toward environmental constitutionalism in which the ability of life to flourish is always regarded as a luxury we can afford.

About the Author

Douglas Kysar is Professor of Law at Yale Law School.