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Abstract:
This paper explores the range of legislation that has created the EIA mandate. A more comprehensive study of all EIA laws is under preparation by the Commission on Environmental Law of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, but this study will not be complete until 1992. In the absence of such an exhaustive analysis, this paper sketches the global legislative trends in EIA.

Abstract:
Since the 1972 U.N. Conference on the Human Environment, the world has witnessed an unprecedented period of environmental law making. In the space of one generation, through both national legislation and international agreements, nations have established norms and a framework for environmental stewardship of the Earth. The norms are embodied in the still-young field of environmental law, a body of law which now exists within every nation and permeates much of public international law. The norms reflected in environmental law may not yet embrace fully Aldo Leopold's "Land Ethic" as a rule of law: but they have established the juridical framework from which the Land Ethic may emerge and come to be acknowledged. One sign of the acceptance and maturation of these norms is that nations now worry about how to enforce environmental law and how to achieve compliance with environmental laws and rules.

Abstract:
By way of introduction, this essay provides background and a conceptual framework for the presentations which follow. This essay can best introduce the symposium by delineating first the scope of regulation by exercise of the police power and the definitions for what resources are "historic," then the elements of real property law which transect these regulations, and thereafter the operation of municipal ordinances and federal procedural statutes which are the body of historic preservation law. The essay will then raise several of the thorny issues currently in dispute within this evolving field.

Abstract:
Environmental law, evaluated across nations through the techniques of comparative law, is both a foundation for sustainable development in terms of Agenda 21 and serves as an indicator of the success or failure of a nation's measures to attain or maintain sustainable development. The systematic analysis of environmental law in this way is still in its infancy, and much more attention has been devoted to international environmental law. This is partially because it is difficult to know how to compare Environmental Law and where to find it in different jurisdictions. By clarifying the processes of comparative environmental legal study, the objectives of sustainable development can be materially advanced.

Abstract:
Recurring patterns of new land uses and development exist throughout the United States. It is only natural, therefore, that state legislatures have sought to regulate and control these developments in similar ways. The environmental impact assessment process at its best is a technique not just to protect environmental.quality, but also to promote the ordered growth of society. The courts do much to advance both wise use of natural resources and social and economic development by reinforcing the legislative judgment that environmental impact analysis shall be a part of all governmental decision-making in the federal government and in states such as New York, California and Washington.

Just as the experiences under the Massachusetts' little NEPA gave the Council on Environmental Quality the idea of "scoping" to narrow an EIS, and the NEPA regulations now include a requirement for scoping, so also the NEPA process can guide the states' little NEPA's. An evolving and symbiotic relationship exists between NEPA and the comparable state laws, just as there is one among the state enactments.

Abstract:
Arthur M. Crocker Lecture, presented on Feb. 15, 2007, at the Center for the Forest Preserve, Niskayuna, New York. Includes bibliography of legal materials on the Adirondack Park compiled by Jack McNeill, Associate Director, Pace Law Library.