Out of print
Race and socioeconomic status should not dictate the environmental health risks we face. Yet, too often this is not the case. The environmental justice movement seeks to avoid, minimize, and mitigate disproportionately high and adverse impacts on minority and/or low-income communities and to ensure that disadvantaged communities are engaged meaningfully in the environmental decisionmaking processes.
Environmental Justice: Legal Theory and Practice provides a thought-provoking exposition and comprehensive review of the complex mixture of environmental laws and civil rights legal theories that are central to this still-evolving area of law. The book, now in its 4th edition, includes all of the significant cases and developments that have occurred since the prior edition. Readers will come away with a deep understanding of the dynamics of environmental justice and gain insight as to how best to address the issue through enlightened leadership in our communities, government agencies, state bar associations, law offices and legal services providers, law school clinics and academic institutions, and corporations.
“Professor Hill’s 4th edition is remarkable. The professor-cum-artist has provided his students with a veritable easel by which they will be enabled to paint a picture illustrating the environmental issues confronting us as a community, nation, and globe. I can envision Professor Hill’s students using his treatise, his easel, to not only depict the problems but to advocate for meaningful solutions. If America is to be, truly, great, there is a critical subset of factors of environmental justice concerns that must be remedied. Professor Hill’s treatise illustrates that environmental justice is the primary issue confronting us all in the 21st century.”
—Pierre B. Turner, Judge, New York City Housing Court (ret.)
“Prof. Barry Hill’s 4th edition opens with an impactful poem by Michigan Professor Emeritus Bunyan Bryant on the profound effects of childhood lead exposure, and then builds upon its predecessors by meticulously detailing the societal context and legal standing of environmental justice. As one of the great civil rights issues of the 21st century, environmental justice has become an increasingly crucial law school course, and Professor Hill’s text serves as an essential primer for law students and seasoned practitioners alike.”
—Benjamin Wilson, Chairman, Beveridge & Diamond, P.C., and Adjunct Professor of Environmental Justice, Howard University School of Law
“In 2017, students and practitioners of environmental justice experienced a severe case of whiplash during the transition between federal administrations. Prof. Barry Hill’s book provides the necessary treatment. In this 4th edition, Professor Hill provides a compilation of the most up-to-date and relevant law and policy readings necessary for the next generation of environmental justice advocates. As important, Professor Hill’s careful selection and organization of case studies cannot help but fuel the sense of outrage necessary for advocates, old and new, to sustain the long-term strategies necessary to bend ‘the arc of the moral universe’ toward justice for victims of environmental injustice and racism.”
—David K. Mears, Associate Dean for Environmental Programs, Vermont Law School