1.2 General Introduction to Environmental Law

Environmental law = the rules protecting that environment: the pollution's prevention-and- control, the resources' conservation, the nature's preservation, the climate's governance. The field's character (the intro's marks): the interdisciplinary science-law hybrid (the law's terms science-defined); the preventive-and-restorative mix (the ex-ante assessment + the ex- post liability); the public-interest orientation (the environment's everyone-and-no-one's ownership — the standing's special problems, the PIL's birth); the multi-level structure (the international, the constitutional, the statutory, the local, the judge-made); the inter-generational consciousness (the future's interests represented in today's law — the field's distinctive ethic).