Human Rights and the Environment

Reviews / Votes

'This book demonstrates the rapidly changing nature of law and the environment in the new millennium and the dynamic capacity for moulding and reshaping legal concepts to enhance environmental protection. It provides an authoritative collection of scholarship that offers new perspectives on human rights and the environmen. This book is quite simply a work that postgraduate students, seasoned academics, judges and jurists will return to as a source of information and imagination.' -- Trevor Daya-Winterbottom, Waikato Law Review 'James R. May and Erin Daly, household names in global environmental constitutionalism, have produced a magnum opus on human rights and the environment. An encyclopedia studded with precious research, analysis and wisdom from eminent voices from all over the world. The timing of the publication is auspicious. It coincides with the first ever Report of the UN Secretary General on International Environmental Law towards a Global Pact for the Environment. The encyclopedia is a must have for all students and scholars of human dignity and sustainable development, and particularly for those that will, hopefully, craft the Global Pact for the Environment into hard law on the model of the International Covenants on Human Rights.' -- Parvez Hassan, IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law and Pakistan Environmental Law Association 'Is the Environment about the birds and the bees, the flowers and the trees? Or is It about the vital organs of Life on Earth - the Land, Air, and Waters? (LAW). This marvelous work by James R. May and Erin Daly, and the contributors, world champions of the human right to Life and to the Sources of Life, could not be more timely. When we finally understand that the Environment is Life itself, then we will truly care for the LAW of Life that the Encyclopedia volume on Human Rights and the Environment envelops.' -- Antonio Oposa, Jr., Litigator, Educator, Organizer and Activist 'James R. May and Erin Daly have curated a highly original analysis of Human Rights and the Environment through the lenses of legality, indivisibility, dignity and geography. The stellar array of authors offer their insights into the intersections between Human Rights and Environmental Constitutionalism, climate change, gender, property, water, biodiversity, energy and Indigenous rights, to mention a few. The intercontinental reach of the contributions is unique. The editors and contributors are to be congratulated on bringing this impressive and timely encyclopaedia to fruition.'
--Rosemary Lyster, University of Sydney, Australia'James R May and Erin Daly set out to create an 'encyclopedia' of human rights and the environment, and a stellar encyclopedic effort is what they have delivered. Divided into four major analytical parts covering the field, the May and Daly tome includes 44 contributions by world leading authorities. The volume is designed to not only capture the essence of the entries, but also to move our thinking forward - something vital in this important emerging area of law.'
--Donald K Anton, Griffith Law School, Australia

'This excellent volume is highly recommended to everyone interested in human rights and environment and human rights in general. The authors, who are the leading experts in their fields offer challenging insights into human rights and the environment. This publication is especially timely after the seminal 2017 Advisory Opinion of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the extraterritorial application of environmental human rights. Although much has been written and debated about human rights and the environment, this encyclopedia has adopted a novel and original approach offering new insights into the debate by analyzing four subjects, which approach environmental human rights from different perspectives. Its analytical focus is on four overarching themes: the challenges of identifying the fundamental legal sources for the protection of human rights and the environment (legality), the recognition of the indivisibility of human rights and environmental law (indivisibility), the centrality of the right to human dignity as the lodestar of human rights law (dignity), and the uniqueness of geographic particularities (geography). I have no doubt that this volume of the encyclopedia, will be a very significant contribution to further development of knowledge in the field of environmental human rights due to its novel and challenging approach.'
--Malgosia Fitzmaurice, Queen Mary, University of London, UK