The Regulation of Environmental Space

Abstract

The need to regulate environmental problems is of ever-increasing urgency. Yet the complexity of environmental dynamics challenges any regulatory scheme. We use this essay to describe and assess some of these challenges. We deploy the terms scope and scale as analytic tools in this effort. We define and elaborate on these terms and then use them to analyze three especially critical dilemmas in environmental regulation: the fit between environmental dynamics and legal categories, the relationship between legal and nonlegal dynamics in structuring human impacts on the environment, and the relationship between environmental law and environmental justice.