Traditional legal systems around the world are increasingly ill-equipped to cope with the fast-moving impact of climate change on communities, new research warns.
Courts and authorities who control planning and local services must follow rigid rules which are based around people's rights and environmental protection. However, changes to make laws more dynamic and responsive could help those who enforce them to move beyond reacting to events to being able to be more proactive as they manage urban spaces.
This can help cities across the globe survive and thrive amidst climate change, urban uncertainty, and social inequalities, the book shows.
Dr Tiago de Melo Cartaxo, founder and lead of the Exeter Centre for Environmental Law, has developed a new blueprint which he hopes will rescue urban environmental policy from fragmented governance and outdated legal frameworks.
The book, From Environmental Rights to Resilience Justice: Innovative Legal Tools to Face Urban Uncertainty (published by Springer), provides a practical toolkit encouraging the dismantling of traditional and maladaptive regulatory barriers. This includes promoting deep collaboration between environmental regulators, urban planners, local businesses, and the public. It advocates for adaptive governance frameworks, tech-driven data sharing, and community-led decision-making to transform complex, and sometimes confusing, legal structures into clear, empowering guidance for sustainable city development and resilience.
Dr de Melo Cartaxo, who is based at the University of Exeter's Cornwall campus, analysed environmental enforcement in the EU (Denmark, Hungary, and Portugal), and in the US (Florida, Pennsylvania, and Washington state). He examined the work of those enforcing planning, constitutional and environmental law, and the regulatory bodies responsible for environmental protection.
Dr Tiago de Melo Cartaxo said: "We need to ensure the law is not static and responds to changing realities and the huge amount of data we now have about the environment and how people live, thanks to new technology. This can really help policymakers and law enforcers understand how communities feel about decisions and carry out better consultations. This can help to speed up and improve decision-making.
"The urban and environmental challenges we face are incredibly complex, but they also offer a vital catalyst for institutional innovation. Environmental laws truly come alive and make an impact when local communities are empowered to shape and implement them. By building robust and data-driven adaptive legal frameworks to implement environmental rights and enhance environmental justice, we can create resilient urban ecosystems that thrive for generations. This book provides a blueprint that can be successfully mirrored by city leaders and policymakers right across the UK and globally."
