Contemporary environmental regulation is having to adapt to significant
challenges. These challenges come from all directions, including the quest for
economic efficiency, popular mistrust of experts and frequent observation of
poor practical results. At EU level, criticisms of regulatory activity are
accentuated by the significant questions that surround the legitimacy of
certain EU institutions and processes. Although it is not suggested that
innovation and evolution in EU environmental law are in every case a conscious
response to explicit challenges to regulatory authority, this book, examining a
range of substantive EU environmental law and policy, considers far-reaching
endeavours to improve environmental regulation. One striking feature of
contemporary EU environmental law is its wholehearted preoccupation with the
structure of decision-making. This development, and some of the serious
tensions that arise in the legal conditions for decision-making, forms a major
theme of this book.
