Book Reviews Baker, Randall (ed.). Environmental Law and Policy in the European Union and the United States. Westport, CT, London: Praeger Publishers, 1997. Pp. 280. $65. Randall Baker’s edited volume adds to the rapidly growing field of comparative environmental law and policy. Resulting from a joint Dutch-American law school summer programme in 1994 and 1995, the volume compares the broad character of environmental law and policy in the United States and the European Union, with some case studies of specific environmental issues. The introduction provides a convincing rationale for a comparative perspective. This volume is, however, not a well-structured comparative study. The chapters explore either the European Union or the United States, without comparing the two ‘federal’ systems within a chapter. Such an approach would be more effective in revealing the similarities and differences between the United States and Europe. There is no concluding chapter to draw the book together as a whole. In this way, the volume does not provide a strongly integrated comparative perspective. The volume takes a broad view of environmental law and policy, with much good discussion of Dutch and European approaches. In particular, Katte provides an excellent, historically grounded introduction to environmental law-making and trends in the European Union. Weiland and Caldwell give an equally strong overview of environmental law and policy in the United States. The volume emphasizes traditional subject matter: air, water and waste regulation. As such, it does not cover many of the important recent developments in both the United States and the European Union, such as integrated pollution control, industrial ecology or contaminated land clean-ups. Hanf’s chapter on European air pollution policy is illuminating and theoretically rigorous. By contrast, many of the other specific case study chapters are of uneven quality, and often simply provide descriptive accounts. In addition, there are chapters on the adoption of international law into Dutch and US domestic jurisdictions and the standing of people to bring environmental proceedings in the European Court of Justice. In the latter piece, Hay is heavily technical, but highlights the way in which policy-making accountability has been limited in the European Union because of its institutional framework. Ultimately, the volume hints at the important insight that institutional and policy culture conditions differ between the European Union and the United States, but does not develop this theme significantly. Alastair Iles Harvard University
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