Across the world, there are more environmental regulations in force today than at any point in legal history. From oceans to mountains, micro-organisms to the largest of creatures, almost all are – in one way or another – under the jurisdiction of a regulatory framework. Yet, the planet’s environment is in a worse state than ever. Rather than a network of countries united in well-regulated environmental stewardship, we have a global Wild West of poorly formed and inadequately enforced environmental laws.
So what’s gone wrong? And, with human-induced biodiversity-loss marching on, and some estimates putting irreversible shifts in our climate at only 86 months away, what hope do legal structures offer in finding solutions to such problems?
