Race and socioeconomic status should not dictate the environmental health risks we face. Yet, too often this is not the case. The environmental justice movement seeks to avoid, minimize, and mitigate disproportionately high and adverse impacts on minority and/or low-income communities and to ensure that disadvantaged communities are engaged meaningfully in environmental decisionmaking processes.
Environmental Justice: Legal Theory and Practice provides a thought-provoking exposition and comprehensive review of the complex mixture of environmental laws and civil rights legal theories that are central to this still-evolving area of law. The book, now in its 5th edition, includes all of the significant cases and developments that have occurred since the prior edition. Readers will come away with a deep understanding of the dynamics of environmental justice and gain insight as to how best to address the issue through enlightened leadership in our communities, government agencies, state bar associations, law offices and legal services providers, law school clinics and academic institutions, and corporations.
“As the great civil rights issue of the 21st century, environmental justice has become an increasingly crucial law school course, and Prof. Barry Hill’s book continues to serve as an essential primer for law students and seasoned practitioners alike. In this newest edition, Professor Hill meticulously details the societal context and ‘hard law’ of environmental justice—through the perspectives of social justice, geographic justice, and procedural justice—to help stakeholders better understand the dynamics of this ever-evolving and expanding body of law.”
—Benjamin Wilson, Adjunct Professor of Environmental Justice,
Howard University School of Law
“Barry Hill’s Environmental Justice: Legal Theory and Practice is the ideal book for teaching about environmental justice as well as a terrific reference for practitioners seeking to better understand the topic. Hill takes the balanced perspective of both a practitioner, who looks at all avenues—judicial, legislative, executive, and private—for obtaining environmental justice, as well as a scholar, who deeply explores the legal underpinnings for environmental justice theories. Anyone seeking to understand or teach in this area should consult this seminal work.”
—Scott Schang, Professor of Practice & Director, Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, Wake Forest University School of Law
“I have been teaching the survey course in Environmental Law at Vermont Law School for many years. After our introductory discussions of Environmental Justice issues, I invariably tell the students that, for greater breadth and depth about Environmental Justice topics, they should consult the gold standard, Barry Hill’s Environmental Justice: Legal Theory and Practice.”
—David B. Firestone, Professor of Law, Vermont Law School
“Environmental Justice: Legal Theory and Practice is both a casebook and clarion call for promoting fairness and human dignity under law. Its Verne-esque journey chronicles international recognition of everyone’s entitlement to a healthy and sustainable environment, before it sails through concepts, meanings, and purpose in the United States and around the globe, and then lands on how legislators, executives, and courts can realize environmental justice. Along the way, it deftly weaves laws, policies, structure, cases, and
commentary into a pastiche of environmental protection for everyday people.”
—James R. May, Distinguished Professor of Law & Founder,
Global Environmental Rights Institute, Widener University Delaware Law School