Osgoode Hall Law School of York University Osgoode Digital Commons Articles & Book Chapters Faculty Scholarship 2006 Environmental Law for Sustainability Stepan Wood Osgoode Hall Law School of York University,
[email protected] Benjamin J. Richardson Osgoode Hall Law School of York University Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/scholarly_works Recommended Citation Wood, Stepan, and Benjamin J. Richardson. "Environmental Law for Sustainability." Richardson, Benjamin J., and Stepan Wood, eds. Environmental Law for Sustainability. Oxford, UK: Hart Publishing, 2006. ISBN: 1841135445 This Book Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Osgoode Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles & Book Chapters by an authorized administrator of Osgoode Digital Commons. ch-01.qxd 1/7/2006 11:30 AM Page 1 1 Environmental Law for Sustainability BENJAMIN J. RICHARDSON* AND STEPAN WOOD** A. Introduction Some 40 years into the ‘modern’ environmental era, how much closer is humankind to an ecologically and socially sustainable relationship with its envi- ronment, and what role can environmental law, in all its various forms, play in securing such a relationship? These are the central questions addressed by this book. The answer to the first question remains sobering despite several decades of efforts at environmental regulation. There have been notable successes, espe- cially in the advanced industrialised countries, but in the past five decades envi- ronmental