Federalism and the Environment

This edited volume is a comprehensive examination of the legal framework in which environmental policy is fashioned in the major English-speaking federations—the United States, Canada, and Australia. The need for national solutions to environmental problems emerged long after the largest share of governmental power was allotted to states or provinces. This volume attempts to solve the paradox of how a country can have effective laws protecting the environment, vigorously enforced, when legislative and administrative powers are divided between two tiers of government.

The contributors analyze environmental lawmaking along three dimensions. Part I describes the formal constitutional allocation of powers between states or provinces and the federal government, concluding that on paper environmental protection is essentially a local responsibility, although the reality is far different. In Part II the contributors explore the extent to which governments resort to informal negotiations among themselves to resolve environmental disputes. Part III is a thorough canvassing of the judiciary's role in making environmental policy and resolving disputes between levels and branches of government. In Australia and Canada, the courts play a relatively less important role in formulating policy than in the United States. In conclusion, the work shows that the level of environmental protection is relatively high in these three federations. Environmental politics, the work suggests, may be less divisive in federations than in unitary systems with comparable levels of development.

KENNETH M. HOLLAND is Professor of Political Science the University of Memphis./e His published works include Comparative Politics in the New World Order, Law and Politics: The Political Role of Courts in the United States, Judicial Activism in Comparative Perspectives, The Political Role of Law Courts in Modern Democracies, and articles appearing in Justice System Journal, Law and Policy Quarterly, Quebec Studies, and Canadian Journal of Law and Society.

F. L. MORTON is Professor of Political Science at the University of Calgary. He is the author of Pro-Choice v. Pro-Life: Abortion and the Courts in Canada, and Charter Politics (with Rainer Knopff) as well as articles in Canadian Journal of Political Science, Pouvoirs, Polity, and Publius.

BRIAN GALLIGAN is Professor of Political Science at the University of Melbourne. His publications include Politics of the High Court, Utah and Queensland Coal, Beyond the Protective State, and A Federal Republic: Australia's Constitutional System of Government.