1. Fisher, E et al ‘Maturity and methodology: starting a debate about environmental law scholarship’ (2009) 21(2) J Envtl L 213 (henceforth ‘Fisher et al’).CrossRefGoogle Scholar The debate has been continued in Macrory, R ‘Maturity and methodology: a personal reflection’ (2009) 21(2) J Envtl L 251;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Pederson, O ‘Modest pragmatic lessons for a diverse and incoherent environmental law’ (2013) 33(1) Oxford J Legal Stud 103;CrossRefGoogle Scholar McEldowney, J and McEldowney, S ‘Science and environmental law: collaboration across the double helix’ (2011) 13 Envtl L Rev 169;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Fisher, L ‘Environmental law as ‘hot’ law’ (2013) 25(3) J Envtl L 347;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Pederson, O ‘The limits of interdisciplinarity and the practice of environmental law scholarship’ (2014) 26(3) J Envtl L 423;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Graham, N ‘This is not a thing: land, sustainability and legal education’ (2014) 26(3) J Envtl L 395.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

2. Fisher et al briefly consider a range of reasons why environmental law scholarship might be perceived as immature: the intellectual incoherence of the subject; the perceived marginality of the scholarship, the poor quality of some of it; and the inherent difficulties of the subject. They then argue that perceptions of immaturity really reflect the methodological challenges of the subject. Fisher et al, above n 1, at 218–243.

3. Fisher et al also suggest that environmental law scholars should think more about the relationship between method and research questions, mapping the subject and having a more explicit debate about the quality of scholarship. Ibid, at 215, 244–250.

4. Or law and economics scholars, governance scholars etc: for discussion of the main approaches to scholarship utilised in UK legal academia, see Cownie, F Legal Academics: Culture and Identities (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2004) pp 49–72.Google Scholar See also McCrudden, C ‘Legal research and the social sciences’ (2006) 122 Law Q Rev 632.Google Scholar

5. The idea of legal scholarship as being primarily concerned with legal rules is particularly strong in the context of positivist, doctrinal research: see Adams, Jn and Brownsword, R Understanding Law (London: Sweet and Maxwell, 1999) p 30.Google Scholar

6. For example, official reports that provide socio-legal scholars with data on how law and legal processes operate.

7. MacCormick, N Institutions of Law: An Essay in Legal Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) p 290. For analysis of the nature of the legal knowledge that has been built up in these different areas, see chs 10–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. Ibid, pp 299–300.

9. See further, on regulatory space, Hancher, L and Moran, M ‘Organising regulatory space’ in Hancher, L and Moran, M (eds) Capitalism, Culture and Economic Regulation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989) pp 276–279;Google Scholar and Scott, C ‘Analysing regulatory space: fragmented resources and institutional design’ (2001) (Summer) Pub L 329.Google Scholar

10. For example, private law scholarship encompasses tort, restitution, contract, the law of persons, property law, trust law, succession law, company and commercial law, employment law and the law of actions. Public law scholarship, among other things, includes in its subject matter the law of EU institutions, UK constitutional law, local government law, revenue law, administrative law, the law governing the legal system and human rights law. Criminal law scholarship analyses not only law that defines and governs individual crimes, but also the laws of criminal evidence, procedure and process. See MacCormick, above n 7, p 290. For a critical analysis of the tendency of legal education to divide the study of law into separate subdisciplines, thereby blocking integrated thinking about law's relationship with the environment, see Graham, above n 1, at 405–413.

11. Indeed, Peter Birks went so far as to argue that a ‘sound case can be made for the view that the … [core] subjects … are genuinely foundational to the western legal tradition’: see Birks, P ‘A decade of turmoil in legal education’ in Birks, P (ed) Examining the Law Syllabus: Beyond the Core (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) p 10.Google Scholar Note Anthony Bradney's contrasting argument that the focus on the requirements of the legal profession should be of no particular importance in the provision of a modern, ‘liberal’ legal education: for him, it ‘is not what is studied but the manner in which something is studied that matters’: see Bradney, A Conversations, Choices and Chances: The Liberal Law School in the Twenty-First Century (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2003) pp 86–87.Google Scholar On the sometimes challenging status of the university law school as ‘part of the legal profession’ and ‘part of a university’, see Collier, R ‘The changing university and the (legal) academic career – rethinking the relationship between women, men and the ‘private life’ of the law school’ (2002) 22 Legal Stud 1 at 5. For information on the professionally qualifying subjects for the legal profession in England and Wales and Scotland, see http://www.sra.org.uk/students/academic-stage.page (accessed 11 August 2015) and http://www.lawscot.org.uk/education-and-careers/studying-law/currently-studying-the-llb/subjects-you-need-to-become-a-solicitor/ (accessed 11 August 2015).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. For discussion of why law graduates go on to become legal academics, see Cownie, above n 4, pp 79–81.

13. Indeed, it has long been viewed as being of considerable importance. On the relationship between research and teaching in UK law schools, see Bradney, above n 11, pp 110–113, 122–123.

14. See Duxbury, N Jurists and Judges: An Essay on Influence (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2001) p 27;Google Scholar and Vick, D ‘Interdisciplinarity and the discipline of law’ (2004) 31(2) J L Soc'y 163 at 177–180.Google Scholar See also Graham, above n 1, at 409–413 for a critical analysis; and Maharg, P Transforming Legal Education (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007) p 4.Google Scholar

15. Doctrinal research is derived from the application of methods used by judges and lawyers in the context of legal practice, by which legal rules embodied in statute or precedent can be evaluated ‘to build up a systematic statement of the law in acute form, often combined with proposals of how the law can be beneficially developed in the future’: Goff, Lord ‘Judge, jurist and legislature’ (1987) Denning LJ 79 at 92, quoted in Vick, above n 14, at 178.Google Scholar For further reflection on the internal dynamics of doctrinal scholarship, see also McCrudden, above n 4, at 636–636.

16. ‘… Socio-legal studies embraces disciplines and subjects concerned with law as a social institution, with the social effects of law, legal processes, institutions and services and with the influence of social, political and economic factors on the law and legal institutions … Socio-legal research is diverse, covering a range of theoretical perspectives and a wide variety of empirical research and methodologies. See Socio-Legal Studies Association Ethics Statement (January 2009), available at http://www.slsa.ac.uk/images/slsadownloads/ethicalstatement/slsa%20ethics%20statement%20_final_%5B1%5D.pdf (accessed 3 March 2014)’. The term ‘socio-legal’ can also be used more narrowly to mean research that only uses social science methods: see eg Campbell, D ‘Socio-legal analysis of contract law’ in Thomas, P (ed) Socio-Legal Studies (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1997) 247. In the UK, the SLSA's broad-church definition is now the norm.Google Scholar

17. For discussion of the mix of methods used in UK legal scholarship, see Cownie, above n 4, pp 54–57.

18. Murphy, Wt and Roberts, S ‘Introduction’ (1987) 50 Mod L Rev 677 at 680.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

19. For discussion of the relationship between legal scholarship and practice, see Vick, above n 14, at 177–181.

20. Arguably, the connection with legal practice contributed to a lack of self-confidence on the part of some legal scholars in the UK relative to their colleagues in more established academic disciplines: see Bradney, above n 11, pp 2–17; see also Cownie, above n 4, p 198. The view expressed by Harold Laski, a prominent left-wing thinker in the 1930s and 1940s, that most UK legal academics were ‘a very inferior set of people who mainly teach because they cannot make a success of the bar’ cast a long shadow: see Duxbury, above n 14, p 71; and Bradney, above n 11, pp 2–3. For similarly lacerating views, see Becher, T Academic Tribes and Territories (Buckingham: Open University Press,1989) p 30:Google Scholar ‘The predominant notion of academic lawyers is that they are not really academic … their scholarly activities are thought to be unexciting and uncreative, comprising of a series of intellectual puzzles scattered among large “areas of description”.’ See also Bradney, above n 11, pp 2–17.

21. Birks, P ‘Introduction’ in Birks, P (ed) Pressing Problems in the Law Volume 2: What Are Law Schools For? (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1996) p ix. Peter Birks was latterly Professor of Civil Law at the University of Oxford and was a highly influential President of the Society of Legal Scholars. For him, the close intellectual relationship with legal practice provided law with its special and (perhaps peculiar) character as an academic discipline. He went on to argue that: ‘… legal research which criticises, explains, corrects legal doctrine is still and must remain the heart of the law school's research. If our work is ever useless to judges and practising lawyers, we will have cut adrift from our foundations.’ See also Vick, above n 14, at 177–181.Google Scholar

22. See Birks, ibid – it should be acknowledged that Birks also argued for a catholic approach to method and viewed the distinction between core and periphery as divisive and therefore unhelpful.

23. As articulated in the Socio-Legal Studies Association Ethics Statement (January 2009), above n 16.

24. Doctrinal research has been criticised by some socio-legal scholars for being old-fashioned, divorced from its social, economic, political, moral and theoretical contexts, intellectually narrow, and, in its least distinguished forms, descriptive ‘case law journalism’: see Adams, J and Brownsword, R Understanding Law (Sweet and Maxwell: London, 1991) p 30;Google Scholar and Rvan Gestel and H Micklitz ‘Revitalising doctrinal research: what about methodology? (2004) European University Institute Working Papers Law 2011/05 at 2. Socio-legal scholarship has, in its turn, been criticised by some as lacking firm academic and methodological foundations and for the uncritical and haphazard adoption of theories from other disciplines: see eg Cownie, above n 4, pp 68–69.

25. McCrudden, above n 4, at 642–646.

26. For discussion, see Cownie, above n 4, pp 55–58; Bartie, S ‘The lingering core of legal scholarship’ (2010) 30(3) Legal Stud 345 at 354–359;Google Scholar and Keyes, M and Johnstone, R ‘Review of Legal Academics: Cultures and Identities by Fiona Cownie’ (2005) 27 Sydney L Rev 377 at 379.Google Scholar Siems, M ‘Legal originality’ (2008) 28 Oxford J Legal Stud 147 at 148–152 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Vick, above n 14, at 165–166 also point to the continuing importance of doctrinal methods as part of what Vick called the ‘interdisciplinary spectrum’ in legal scholarship.

27. McCrudden, above n 4, at 644–645.

28. Thus, the overview report of the UK Research Excellence Framework 2014 (‘REF 2014’) law sub-panel commented that it had reviewed a ‘large volume of outputs covering several core areas of law’, which included criminal law, criminal justice, public law and human rights, commercial law and EU law. Tort law had ‘showed a revival of scholarly interest’, although the volume of outputs submitted in property law and some ‘more traditional’ areas of mercantile law was ‘surprisingly low’. The sub-panel also remarked on ‘a notable trend towards more broadly “contextual” approaches to the discussion of legal issues’ and the increasing influence of socio-legal research methods and techniques. There were still, however, many ‘impressive examples of legal scholarship in the more traditional and classical modes’. See REF 2014: Overview Report by Main Panel C and Sub Panels 16 to 26 (January 2015) p 71. See also Vick, above n 14, at 177–181.

29. Fisher et al, above n 1, at 221–223.

30. Ibid, at 220.

31. For information on the prescribed professional subjects, see above n 11.

32. Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, A ‘Towards a critical environmental law’ in Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, A (ed) Law and Ecology: New Environmental Foundations (London: Routledge, 2011) p 18.Google Scholar

33. See Steele, J ‘Assessing the past: tort law and environmental risk’ in Jewell, T and Steele, J (eds) Law in Environmental Decision-Making (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998) ch 4.Google Scholar

34. See generally Malcolm, R and Ponting, J ‘Statutory nuisance: the sanitary paradigm and judicial conservatism’ (2006) 18 J Envtl L 37;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Lee, M ‘Personal injury, public nuisance and environmental regulation’ (2009) 20 King's L J 129;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Papworth, N ‘Public nuisance in the environmental context’ [2008] J Pub L 1526.Google Scholar

35. See eg Duxbury, R Telling and Duxbury's Planning Law and Procedure (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).Google Scholar

36. For discussion of the legal definitions of waste, see Wilkinson, D ‘Time to discard the concept of waste?’ (1999) 1 Envtl L Rev 172;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Tromans, S ‘Ec waste law – a complete mess?’ (2001) 13 J Envtl L 133;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Cheyne, I ‘The definition of waste in Ec law’ (2002) 14 J Envtl L 61;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Lee, R and Stokes, E ‘Rehabilitating the definition of waste: is it fully recovered?’ (2008) 8 Yearbook Eur Envtl L 162.Google Scholar

37. Which involves discussion of a range of issues: for example, legal provision for public participation in decision taking and access to justice in environmental matters under the Aarhus Convention, EU law and domestic legislation; regulation, governance and enforcement; judicial review of administrative action; and human rights aspects of environmental law. On which, generally and respectively, see: Lee, M and Abbot, C ‘The usual suspects? Public participation under the Aarhus Convention’ (2003) 66 Mod L Rev 80;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Steele, J ‘Participation and deliberation in environmental law: a problem solving approach’ (2001) 21 Oxford J Legal Stud 415;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Gunningham, N ‘Environmental law, regulation and governance: shifting architectures’ (2009) 21 J Envtl L 179;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Macrory, R Regulation, Enforcement and Governance in Environmental Law (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2010);Google Scholar Macrory, R Consistency and Effectiveness: Strengthening the New Environmental Tribunal (London: UCL Centre for Law and the Environment, 2011);Google Scholar Moules, R Environmental Judicial Review (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2011);Google Scholar and Morrow, K ‘Worth the paper they are written on? Human rights and the environment in the law of England and Wales’ (2010) 1 J Hum Rts Envt 66.Google Scholar

38. That is, EU and international law, both of which could be considered topics in their own right. On the former, see generally Kramer, L EU Environmental Law (London: Sweet and Maxwell, 2012)Google Scholar and ‘Thirty years of Ec environmental law: perspectives and prospectives’ (2002) 2 Yearbook Eur Envtl L 155;Google Scholar von Homeyer, I ‘The Evolution of EU Environmental Governance’ in Scott, J (ed) Environmental Protection: European Law and Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009);Google Scholar and Vedder, H ‘The Treaty of Lisbon and European environmental law and policy’ (2010) 22 J Envtl L 285.Google Scholar On the latter, see generally Birnie, P, Boyle, A and Redgwell, C International Law and the Environment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009);Google Scholar Bodansky, D The Art and Craft of International Environmental Law (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010);Google Scholar and Sands, P and Peel, J Principles of International Environmental Law (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39. See eg Jacobs, F ‘The role of the Ecj in the protection of the environment’ (2006) 8 J Envtl L 185;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Tromans and Cheyne, above n 36.

40. For example, the International Court of Justice, the World Trade Organisation dispute settlement mechanism, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the European Court of Human Rights. For an excellent analysis of this complex area, see generally Stephens, T International Courts and Environmental Protection (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41. For discussion of the significance of the EU law dimension in UK environmental law, see Wyatt, D ‘Litigating community environmental law – thoughts on the direct effect doctrine’ (1998) 10 J Envtl L 9 at 10.Google Scholar

42. See Duxbury, above n 35, chs 19, 20.

43. See above n 34.

44. See Wilkinson, above n 36; Tromans, above n 36; and Cheyne, above n 36.

45. See for discussion, Fisher, E, Lange, B and Scotford, E Environmental Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) pp 583–597;Google Scholar and Wilkinson, D ‘Causing and knowingly permitting pollution offences: a review’ (1993) 4(1) Water L 25.Google Scholar

46. For comprehensive general discussion, see Bell, S, McGillivray, D and Pederson, Ow Environmental Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) ch 14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47. Fisher, Lange and Scotford, above n 45, p 614.

48. While some have contended that courts can have a potentially significant role in the development of climate change law, Fisher, Lange and Scotford argue that ‘[w]hatever the merits of this scholarly debate, climate change litigation has been limited and fragmented’: ibid, p 639. For a discussion of developments in a range of jurisdictions, see Lord, R et al Climate Change Liability: Transnational Law and Practice (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49. Although the EU legislation on GMOs has given rise to some European litigation concerning the distribution of power between the EU and Member States and the interpretation of EU law (see principally Case C-304/02 European Commission v France; Joined Cases C-439/05 and C-454/05 P, Land Oberosterreich and Another v Commission of the European Communities [2007] ECT I -7141; and Case C-165/08 Commission of the European Communities v Republic of Poland [2009] ECR I-6843), its function is making procedural and institutional provision for the controlled release of GMOs by the EU and member states (see Little, G ‘The regulation of genetically modified organisms as an environmental risk’ in McManus, F (ed) Environmental Law (Edinburgh: W. Green, 2007) ch 7)Google Scholar. The role of domestic courts under the statutory regime is therefore limited.

50. For examples, see above nn 46–49.

51. Macrory, above n 1, at 254; and Macrory, R Regulation, Enforcement and Governance in Environmental Law (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 22nd edn, 2014) p 245.Google Scholar

52. Macrory (2014), ibid.

53. Coyle, S and Morrow, K The Philosophical Foundations of Environmental Law (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2004) pp 108–109.Google Scholar

54. Macrory (2014), above n 51, p 245.

55. Macrory, above n 1, p 254: see also ibid.

56. See Coyle and Morrow, above n 53, p 157. For a critical analysis of the anthropocentric nature of traditional approaches to property law, see Graham, above n 1.

57. Rodgers, C ‘Nature's place? Property rights, property rules and environmental stewardship’ (2009) 68 Cambridge L J 550 at 557–558.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Concepts of property rights are also closely intertwined with the environmental idea of the ‘Commons’: for discussion, see Rodgers, C ‘Reversing the “Tragedy” of the Commons? Sustainable management and the Commons Act 2006’ (2010) 73 Mod L Rev 461 at 461, 463–464.Google Scholar

58. See Steele, above n 33.

59. See Lee, above n 34, and Papworth, above n 34.

60. See Moules, above n 37.

61. Cane, P ‘Are environmental harms special?’ (2001) 13 J Envtl L 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62. Lee, above n 34, at 136.

63. See Fisher, Lange and Scotford, above n 45. For a definition of polycentricity, see Fuller, L ‘The forms and limits of adjudication’ (1978) 92 Harv L Rev 353 at 395. Fuller argued that the more polycentric a situation becomes, the less amenable it is to adjudication: see at 394–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

64. The difficulties this poses for environmental law scholars are discussed by Fisher et al: see above n 1, at 235–239.

65. Ibid.

66. For a discussion of the conventional UK approach to balancing policy, scientific evidence and industry interests in environmental law, see Bell et al, above n 46, pp 232–234. For a flavour of the complexities involved in this process, see R Macrory ‘Loaded guns and monkeys – responsible environmental law’ in Macrory, above n 37, p 367, at pp 376–384; and The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, 21st Report Setting Environmental Standards (1998) CM 4053, chs 1 and 8.

67. Bell et al, above n 46, pp 232–266.

68. For example, one of the main reforms introduced by the Companies Act 2006 – the largest statute passed by the UK Parliament – was the creation of a new statutory statement of company directors’ duties, many of which were originally fiduciary duties created under the common law.

69. See Macrory, above n 37. Professor Macrory's work on regulatory sanctions has had a significant effect on the environmental enforcement regime in England (and other areas of regulation) via the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2010. There is a strong and influential tradition of legal scholarship on environmental enforcement: see eg Hawkins, K Enforcement and Environment: Regulation and the Social Definition of Pollution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

70. See Fisher, Lange and Scotford, above n 45.

71. See eg Gunningham, above n 37; Gunningham, N and Grabosky, P Smart Regulation: Designing Environmental Policy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998);Google Scholar Driesen, D ‘Alternatives to regulation? Market mechanisms and the environment’ in Cave, M, Baldwin, R and Lodge, M (eds) Oxford Handbook on Regulation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) ch 10;Google Scholar The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, above n 66; and Macrory, above n 37.

72. See generally Ogus, A Regulation: Legal Form and Economic Theory (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2004);Google Scholar Baldwin, R, Cave, M and Lodge, M Understanding Regulation: Theory, Strategy, and Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Baldwin, R, Cave, M and Lodge, M (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Regulation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010);CrossRefGoogle Scholar JM Black ‘“Which arrow?” Regulatory policy and rule type’ [1995] Pub L 94; Baldwin, R and Black, J ‘Really responsive regulation’ (2008) 71(1) Mod L Rev 59–94;Google Scholar and Baldwin, R and Black, J ‘Really responsive risk-based regulation’ (2010) 32 Law & Pol'y 181.Google Scholar

73. Fisher et al, above n 1, at 233.

74. See Ogus, above n 72, ch 3.

75. See Hilson, C Regulating Pollution: A UK and EU Perspective (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2000) pp 3–5.Google Scholar

76. For example, risk theories: for a (still) relevant discussion of how risk theories and the perception and communication of risk impact on regulation, see Krimsky, S and Golding, D (eds) Social Theories of Risk (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992).Google Scholar

77. See above n 9.

78. Fisher et al, above n 1, at 235–239. See also Scott, J and Trubek, D ‘Mind the gap: law and new approaches to governance in the European Union’ (2002) 8 Eur L J 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

79. For example, the work of Neil Gunningham.

80. Pederson (2014), above n 1, at 424.

81. Ibid and at 435–440.

82. McEldowney and McEldowney, above n 1, at 171. Science should not, however, be assumed to be a monolithic entity. There are differences of emphasis and approach in different scientific disciplines and within the environmental sciences, which are comprised of a range of disciplines: for a discussion of the development of the environmental sciences, see Bowler, Pj The Fontana History of Environmental Sciences (London: Fontana, 1992).Google Scholar

83. Heinzerling, L ‘The environment’, in Cane, P and Tushnet, Mv (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Legal Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) p 701 at p 703.Google Scholar

84. National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2004) p 2.Google ScholarPubMed See also Klein, Jt Crossing Boundaries: Knowledge, Disciplinarities and Interdiciplinarities (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1996).Google Scholar For a thoughtful analysis of interdisciplinarity in the legal context, see Vick, above n 14, at 181–191: he also highlighted the importance of defining what is meant by it – see at 164–165.

85. European Science Foundation and European Cooperation in Science and Technology Responses to Environmental and Societal Challenges for Our Unstable Earth (Rescue) (2012) p 48, available at http://www.esf.org/fileadmin/Public_documents/Publications/rescue.pdf (accessed 11 August 2015).

86. Ibid.

87. Klein, Jt ‘Evaluation of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research’ (2008) 35(2 Suppl) Am J Prev Med s116 at s117. Note that within the sciences, the definition can vary: see eg European Science Foundation and European Cooperation in Science and Technology, above n 85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

88. Fisher et al, above n 1, at 232–233.

89. See the criteria of the UK Socio-Legal Studies Association, above n 16.

90. Fisher et al, above n 1, at 246–247.

91. Two papers appearing in the articles section in 2009 were not included in the sample as full articles, as they were short correspondence responses following on from an earlier paper.

92. That is, using the criteria of the UK Socio-Legal Studies Association, above n 16.

93. That is, they were predominantly or entirely composed of doctrinal analysis of legal provision.

94. Note that Fisher et al analysed the number of environmental law articles published in the period 2000–2007 in generalist law journals, and found that there were relatively few (ie 36) by comparison with four other applied legal subjects. There were, however, proportionately more environmental law articles published in specialist European and international law journals than these other applied subjects (ie 88) during the sample period. See Fisher et al, above n 1, at 222–223.

95. See REF 2014, above n 28, p 72. What Fisher et al and Pederson refer to as ‘interactional expertise’, in which environmental law scholars utilise knowledge from other disciplines without seeking to contribute to those disciplines, can be seen as a form of law in context scholarship: see Fisher et al, above n 1, at 232 and Pederson (2014), above n 1, at 427.

96. There were 46 sole authored pieces in the overall sample, 41 of which can be identified as having been written by legal scholars: of this last category, 38 were socio-legal in nature. Note that it was not always possible to identify with certainty the disciplinary background of authors from the information provided in the journal and Internet searches. If it was not possible to do so, their outputs were not included: the findings should be interpreted accordingly.

97. There were 16 co-authored articles in total and four that can be identified as having been written entirely by non-lawyers (as individuals or jointly with other non-lawyers). See ibid for the context to the findings.

98. For a detailed discussion, see the National Academies, above n 84, chs 4–6.

99. For the leading example, see Macrory, above n 37.

100. A number of scholars have considered this issue. For example, Samuel argues that law is an intellectually closed off ‘authority paradigm’ as opposed to an ‘enquiry paradigm’, and as such has little to offer scientists or social scientists: see Samuel, G ‘Interdisciplinarity and the authority paradigm: should law be taken seriously by scientists and social scientists?’ (2009) 36 J L Soc'y 431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

101. That is, disciplines such as environmental history, philosophy and literature.

102. Rose, Db et al ‘Thinking through the environment, unsettling the humanities’ (2012) 1 Envtl Human 1 at 1–2, available at http://environmentalhumanities.org/arch/vol1/EH1.1.pdf (accessed 11 August 2015).Google Scholar See also Sörlin, S ‘Reconfiguring environmental expertise’ (2013) 28 Envtl Sci & Pol'y 14;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Sörlin, S ‘Environmental humanities: why should biologists interested in the environment take humanities seriously?’ (2012) 62(9) BioScience 788;Google Scholar Griffiths, T ‘The humanities and an environmentally sustainable Australia’ (2007) 43 Aust Human Rev; available at http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-December-2007/EcoHumanities/EcoGriffiths.html (accessed 11 August 2015) – the paper was also published in The Humanities and Australia’s National Research Priorities (Commonwealth of Australia, 2003) p 13;Google Scholar and Swearer, Dk ‘Introduction’ in Swearer, Dk (ed) Ecology and the Environment: Perspectives from the Humanities (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008) pp 9–20.Google Scholar

103. Rose et al, ibid, at 2.

104. Eg McEldowney and McEldowney, above n 1.

105. European Science Foundation and European Cooperation in Science and Technology, above n 85, p 3.

106. Ibid, pp 5, 12–13. See also Palsson, G et al ‘Reconceptualising the “Anthropos” in the Anthropocene: integrating the social sciences and humanities in global environmental change research’ (2013) 28 Envtl Sci & Pol'y 3;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Holm, P et al ‘Collaboration between the natural, social and human sciences in global change research’ (2013) 28 Envtl Sci & Pol'y 25;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Sörlin (2013), above n 102; Speth, Jg The Bridge at the End of the World: Capitalism, the Environment and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008);Google Scholar and Ehrlich, P and Kennedy, D ‘Millennium assessment of human behavior’ Science 22 July 2005 at 562.Google ScholarPubMed

107. Palsson et al, ibid, at 4.

108. Sörlin (2013), above n 102, at 22.

109. Indeed, in addition to Sörlin, ibid, Holm et al, above n 106, at 26, cite law as one of the important disciplines that can help ‘to fully understand Earth systems and human motivation and to guide decision-makers’.

110. See eg above n 102.

111. For discussion, see Griffiths, above n 102, at 3–5.

112. See Griffiths, above n 102, at 4; and McInney, Ml, Schioch, Rm, Yonavjak, L Environmental Science: Systems and Solutions (Burlington, MA: Jones and Bartlett; 2013) p 579.Google Scholar

113. For a thought-provoking discussions, see McNeill, Jr Something New under the Sun (New York: WW Norton, 2000), ch 1;Google Scholar and Griffiths, ibid. For wide-ranging analysis of the interconnection of environmental and human timescales, see Roberts, N The Holocene: An Environmental History (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014).Google Scholar

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115. See eg Warde, P Energy Consumption in England and Wales, 1500–2000 (Naples: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, CNR, 2008).Google Scholar

116. For example, Clapp, above n 114, makes frequent reference to environmental legislation without analysis of either its substance or of its effectiveness as a means of influencing human impact on the environment.

117. Fisher, Lange and Scotford, above n 45, pp 18–20.

118. Ibid, p 18.

119. Ibid, p 19.

120. Ibid.

121. Smout, Tc Exploring Environmental History: Selected Essays (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009) p 5.Google Scholar

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123. Griffiths, above n 102, at 4.

124. Cover, R ‘ Nomos and narrative’ [1983] 97(4) Harv L Rev 4.Google Scholar

125. Ibid, at 4.

126. Ibid.

127. Ibid, at 5.

128. Ibid.

129. Griffiths, above n 102, at 5.

130. For discussion, see Bird, A The Philosophy of Science (Abingdon: Routledge, 1998) chs 5–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

131. McEldowney and McEldowney, above n 1, at 196–198.

132. They take standard-setting in the EU water framework directive, the EU chemicals regulation GMOs and synthetic biology as examples: see McEldowney and McEldowney, above n 1, at 172–190.

133. Ibid, at 196.

134. Ibid, at 197.

135. RESCUE report, above n 85, p 28.

136. Ibid, pp 27–28. See also Holm et al, above n 106.

137. RESCUE report, above n 85, p 28.

138. Ibid. See also Holm et al, above n 106, at 29–30.

139. RESCUE report, above n 85, p 29.

140. Ibid.

141. Fisher, E, Pascual, P and Wagner, W ‘Understanding environmental models in their legal and regulatory context’ (2010) 22(2) J Envtl L 251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

142. US Environmental Protection Agency Guidance on the Development, Evaluation, and Application of Environmental Models (Washington, DC: US EPA, 2009) chs 3–4.Google Scholar

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144. RESCUE report, above n 85, p 29.

145. See principally Alcamo, J (ed) Environmental Futures: The Practice of Environmental Scenario Analysis (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2008);Google Scholar European Environment Agency Scenarios as Tools for International Environmental Assessments (Copenhagen: EEA, 2001);Google Scholar and Alcamo, J, Kreileman, E and Leemans, R (eds) Global Change Scenarios of the 21st Century (Oxford: Pergamon/Elsevier Science, 1998). For discussion of the use of environmental scenarios in strategic planning, including in the UK,Google Scholar see Farber, Da ‘The challenge of climate change adaptation: learning from national planning efforts in Britain, China and the Usa’ (2011) 23 J Envtl L 359 at 366–368, 373–376.Google Scholar The UK government has recognised the value of environmental scenarios in planning: see DEFRA Adapting to Climate Change in England: A Framework for Action (London: DEFRA, 2008) p 29.Google Scholar

146. Alcamo, J and Henrichs, T ‘Towards guidelines for environmental scenario analysis’, in Alcamo, J (ed), ibid, p 13;Google Scholar and European Environment Agency, ibid, pp 7–8.

147. Alcamo and Henrichs, ibid, p 16.

148. For discussion, see ibid, pp 19–22; and European Environment Agency, above n 145, pp 10–13.

149. Alcamo and Henrichs, above n 146, pp 31–33.

150. Ibid, pp 26–29.

151. European Environment Agency, above n 145, p 9.

152. Alcamo and Henrichs, n 146 above, p 25–26; and European Environment Agency, ibid, pp 25–28.

153. Alcamo and Henrichs, ibid, p 22.

154. On which, see ibid, pp 26–29.

155. Ibid, p 20; and European Environment Agency, above n 145, p 11.

156. Alcamo and Henrichs, above n 146, pp 29–31.

157. Ibid, p 20; and European Environment Agency, above n 145, p 11.

158. McEldowney and McEldowney, above n 1.