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....

This article is a critique of Bjoslash;rn Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist (2001) from the perspective of sustainable development. While the author often uses the language of sustainable development, the book would turn sustainability on its head. It is generally true, as Lomborg says,...

This is an introduction to the special issue on environmental laws and sustainability of the on-line peer review journal, Sustainability. In this introduction, we attempt to synthesize key lessons from the issue’s ten substantive articles. These lessons involve the use of law to achieve...

This article argues that a key to sustainability is redirecting the law of economic development. From a historical perspective, sustainable development is an effort to integrate environmental protection and restoration with development. As a result, it is not possible to fully understand...

This article explains why states and localities need to be full partners in a national climate change effort based on federal legislation or the existing Clean Air Act. A large share of reductions with the lowest cost and the greatest co-benefits (e.g., job creation, technology development,...

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...

At the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 1992, the nations of the world committed themselves to an ambitious plan for achieving sustainable development (Agenda 21) and a set of principles to guide that effort (Rio Declaration). This Article addresses the meaning of...

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...

One of the most longstanding narratives in environmental law and politics is the alleged necessity of choosing between development and environment. The narrative, based on conventional development, has a built-in zero-sum game — development or environment. A competing narrative, which has been...

Sustainable development has become increasingly important to lawyers and their clients. This article surveys the American Bar Association’s many sustainable development activities. These include House of Delegates resolutions dating back to 1991, activities of ABA’s Section of International...