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This book exposes the dysfunction of environmental law and offers a transformative approach based on the public trust doctrine.
List of contents
Part I. Environmental Law: Hospice for a Dying Planet?: 1. 'You are doing a great job'; 2. The great legal experiment; 3. The politics of discretion; 4. Behind the grand façade; 5. The administrative tyranny over nature; Part II. The People's Natural Trust: 6. The inalienable attribute of sovereignty; 7. The ecological res; 8. Fiduciary standards of protection and restoration; 9. From bureaucrats to trustees; 10. Beyond borders: shared ecology and the duties of sovereign co-tenant trustees; 11. Nature's justice: the role of the courts; Part III. The Public Trust and the Great Turning: 12. Nature's trust and the heart of humanity; 13. Using Earth's interest, not its principal; 14. The public trust and private property rights; 15. The new world: a planetary trust.
About the author
Mary Christina Wood is the Philip H. Knight Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Oregon School of Law. She has taught law for more than twenty years, specializing in property law, environmental law and federal Indian law. She founded the school's top-ranked Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program and initiated several of the program's interdisciplinary research projects, including the Native Environmental Sovereignty Project and the Food Resiliency Project. She is the coauthor of a textbook on natural resources law and another on public trust law. She has also authored many articles and book chapters on the federal Indian trust obligation, wildlife law and climate crisis.
Summary
This book exposes the dysfunction of environmental law and offers a transformative approach based on the public trust doctrine. An ancient and enduring principle, the public trust doctrine empowers citizens to protect their inalienable property rights to crucial resources. This book shows how a trust principle can apply from the local to global level to protect the planet.
