ABSTRACT
In the field of environmental law and governance, the landscape is constantly shifting and developing. This is particularly true for the response of governments and societies to the greatest challenge of our time, i.e. preserving the integrity of the Earth’s ecological systems. Overall the response has been weak and ineffectual, yet many areas of environmental law aim for making societies more sustainable. The fundamental importance of sustainability is in no dispute and no-one denies the need for more effective laws. What seems to be missing is a sense of urgency and the capacity for integrating social, economic and environmental laws and policies. This book makes the case for sustainability as a fundamental principle of law and governance, so that policy areas such as economics, finance, health, education and the environment are all informed and shaped by the same principle. Sustainability remains a most popular idea. It is so popular today that all sectors of society have embraced it. People in business and politics promise sustainability at every possible occasion. Living sustainably is an idea whose time has come. Or has it? All good ideas take time and often they are misunderstood. In the case of sustainability, there has been a period of incubation followed by expert debate and eventual popularization through international politics. This has done more harm than good. The concept of ‘sustainable development’ lost its core meaning somewhere between the 1980s and today. The idea and terminology of ‘sustainable development’ goes back to Robert PrescottAllen, World Conservation Union (IUCN) staff writer and principal author of the 1980 World Conservation Strategy. Section 13.1. reads:
Ultimately the behavior of entire societies towards the biosphere must be transformed if the achievement of conservation objectives is to be assured. A new ethic, embracing plants and animals as well as people, which will enable human societies to live in harmony with the natural world on which they depend for survival and well-being.
