Journal of Environmental Law Advance Access originally published online on February 11, 2008
Journal of Environmental Law 2008 20(1):1-2; doi:10.1093/jel/eqm046
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Editor's Foreword
University of Reading, UK
This issue of the journal sees a new editor and marks the journal's twentieth anniversary. The significant fact that lies behind this dual observation is that Professor Richard Macrory, of UCL, not only founded the journal but has successfully steered its course as editor-in chief since its inception. That the journal is now regarded as one of the foremost environmental law journals in the world is a clear testament to his leadership and vision in the field.
To mark the twentieth anniversary edition, the authors of the five articles in the very first 1989 issue were invited to provide an update in the form of a brief reflections piece—considering how environmental law in general and, where appropriate, their specialism in particular, had changed since their original articles were written. These pieces are collected together in the second half of this extended foreword and make fascinating, if at times rather depressing reading. A common theme among a number of them is that while environmental law has certainly changed (not least in its range of instrument usage), many of man's deleterious impacts on the environment remain sadly unchanged. Although there have been some success stories (such as the ozone layer), the issue of climate change threatens to be our greatest, and irreversible failure. While Winter notes that there has perhaps been too quick a rush here to the use of economic instruments, instead of employing the more longstanding BAT approach employed elsewhere, many of the authors conclude that climate change will probably require more invasive surgery than environmental law in liberal democracies has so far been able to provide.
Anniversaries are of course also a time for looking forward as well as back. Some of the anniversary pieces do engage in a degree of environmental law crystal ball gazing, whilst acknowledging the difficulties and dangers of doing so. However, in my first issue as Editor, it is perhaps also worth considering the future direction of the Journal of Environmental Law and how I see it developing. Given that the journal is already in a very good position, any changes made will be in an attempt to improve it still further. One change which readers of the hard copy and visitors to the website will notice is in the cover, which brings the journal more into line with some of its sister law titles at OUP. Another more substantive change is the broadening out of the Case Analysis section to become simply an Analysis section—the aim being to provide a space for critical analysis, not just of case law, but also of policy papers, new legislation and Treaties, and any other notable developments in the field. In the context of the UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), in many legal subjects case notes have arguably come to have less currency academically than longer articles. Environmental (and also EU law) journals are fortunate to have bucked this trend, no doubt in part because the relevant sections are in fact so much more than notes: they are, effectively, shorter articles and are often widely cited. I certainly hope that environmental lawyers—both early career and more established—will continue to provide the sort of insightful commentary on new developments that we have become accustomed to within the JEL Case Law pages, albeit now with a broader canvass to address.
Long gone are the days when academics and practitioners kept themselves up-to-date with virtually all of the case law and books on environmental law. At a time when information overload is a very real danger, the place of the annual review of significant cases (UK, EU and International) and of the Book Reviews section becomes more and more important. Therefore, it is perhaps no surprise to find that these sections are amongst the most read parts of the journal.
As for longer articles—the mainstay of any journal—I very much envisage the journal continuing to accept the best environmental law scholarship from all corners of the globe. The journal is UK and EU-based but the environment, perhaps more than most other fields of law, is an area where international law and insights from other national jurisdictions play an important role. If I had one criticism of environmental law as a discipline today, it is that it can occasionally be too insular in terms of its outlook. Like Richard Macrory—who made much the same point in his first foreword in 1989—I am a strong believer that other academic disciplines and thus inter-disciplinarity have much to offer the subject. The US is arguably better at this, although they might perhaps be accused of a territorial insularity—sometimes writing as though non-US authors do not exist. Thus, while I see a continuing place in the journal for a strong tradition of doctrinal legal research in environmental law, I hope that it will also be seen (as to an extent it already is) as a natural home for socio-legal pieces (both empirical and theoretical) and for those from other disciplines writing about environmental law and policy. In other words the journal is, and will continue to be, a broad church. I look forward to continuing to publish articles which go beyond mere description or an account of the relevant law, to provide an argument to explain or critique it.
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