Book Release–Environmental Justice: Legal Theory and Practice

The Environmental Law Institute celebrated the release of Environmental Justice: Legal Theory and Practice, 2nd Edition by Barry E. Hill

Environmental risks and harms affect certain geographic areas and populations more than others. The environmental justice movement is aimed at having the public and private sectors address this disproportionate burden of risk and exposure to pollution in minority and/or low-income communities, and for those communities to be engaged in the decision making processes.

Barry Hill’s second edition of his comprehensive work, Environmental Justice: Legal Theory and Practice, provides an overview of this defining problem and explores the growth of the environmental justice movement. It analyzes the complex mixture of environmental laws and civil rights legal theories adopted in environmental justice litigation and challenges the reader to explore this complex and controversial area of the law. The new edition includes a new section on sustainable development, and an additional chapter on a human right to a clean and healthy environment in the international context as well as in the U.S.

Barry E. Hill is currently a visiting scholar at the Environmental Law Institute and the senior counsel for environmental governance in the Office of International and Tribal Affairs of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He has taught environmental justice and sustainable development at the Vermont Law School for 15 years, where he serves on the board of advisors for the Environmental Law Center. He has published numerous articles on environmental law and policy, and environmental justice.