In this introduction to the special issue of <em>Sustainability</em> on environmental laws and sustainability, we attempt to synthesize key lessons from the issue’s ten substantive articles. These lessons involve the use of law to achieve integrated decision-making, the use of pre-existing laws to...

The article explores what we can learn about sustainable development, and the progress the United States has already made or not made, by looking at citizen suits under United States environmental law. The article focuses on four aspects of citizen suits: the manner in which they allow access to...

This Article explains how and why sustainable development emerged as a conceptual framework, the basic concepts or principles on which this framework is based, why sustainability is primarily a matter for domestic national governance, and why the United States needs to play a leading role in...

Sustainable development is a framework for furthering development (particularly economic and social development) and environmental protection or restoration at the same time. It is a response to the problems of furthering development without sufficient attention to the environmental...

While it is widely recognized that lawyers have an important role to play in fostering sustainable development, and while a growing number of lawyers describe themselves as doing sustainability work, it is less clear what they actually do. This article, which is based on interviews with 26...

This article describes and explains a sustainability law practicum class that is now taught in only two law schools, but which has considerable teaching and practical value. It also explains how this class is consistent with, and furthers, the growing demand for experiential, skills-based legal...

The sudden and unexpected development of shale gas has the potential to accelerate or hinder the transition to sustainability, depending on how it is handled. Sustainable development is a useful evaluative framework for shale gas development. It would have us analyze its environmental, social,...

Sustainable development has its origins in the conservation and environmental movements in the United States and other countries, and in the laws that were adopted because of those movements. Lawyers in the public and private sectors drafted these laws and worked with clients to implement them....

Sustainable development (or sustainability) is a decision-making framework for maintaining and achieving human well-being, both in the present and into the future. The framework requires both consideration and achievement of environmental protection, social justice and economic development. In...

The Pennsylvania Constitution contains a unique Environmental Rights Amendment (“ERA”) creating an individual right to “clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment.” The ERA also includes a public trust element...