Overview

Cumulative environmental problems are complex, insidious, slow-motion tragedies that are all too common, from biodiversity loss, to urban air pollution, to environmental injustice. Taking an interdisciplinary, comparative and applied approach, this book offers a new framework for designing solutions using four integrated regulatory functions: Conceptualization, Information, Regulatory intervention and Coordination (the CIRCle Framework). Rules that deliver these functions can help us to clarify what we care about, reveal the cumulative threats to it and do something about those threats – together. Examples from around the world illustrate diverse legal approaches to each function and three major case studies from California, Australia and Italy provide deeper insights. Regulating a Thousand Cuts offers an optimistic, solution-oriented resource and a step-by-step guide to analysis for researchers, policymakers, regulators, law reformers and advocates. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Full Product Details

Author:   Rebecca Nelson (University of Melbourne)
Publisher:   Cambridge University Press
Imprint:   Cambridge University Press
Weight:   0.727kg
ISBN:  

9781316515105

ISBN 10:   1316515109
Pages:   382
Publication Date:   09 October 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

1. Introducing cumulative environmental impacts as a central problem for law; 2. Why cumulative environmental problems are difficult and implications for law: introducing the CIRCle framework; 3. Law and cumulative environmental problems: a landscape for analysis; 4. Conceptualization: laws for defining what matters, who matters, and what unacceptable harm means; 5. Information: Laws for producing, sharing, aggregating and analyzing information; 6. Regulatory intervention: laws for influencing cumulative harm; 7. Coordination: Laws for making links; 8. Not a drop to drink: Conceptualizing environmental justice in California groundwater; 9. Coral, coal and cattle: cumulative impacts and the great barrier reef; 10. Between nature and culture: regulating cumulative impacts on alpine Grasslands; 11. Design for regulating a thousand cuts: summary guidance and concluding reflections; Glossary; Index.

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Author Information

Rebecca L. Nelson is an Associate Professor, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, and Director of the Melbourne Centre for Law and the Environment. She was the Australian Law Council's Mahla Pearlman AO Young Environmental Lawyer of the Year (2014), IAH/NCGRT Distinguished Lecturer (2016) and Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow (2018-2021).

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