Risk, innovation and resilience: moving towards mutual supportiveness

There is a growing recognition that environmental law has changed and transformed over the last 40 years. Such transformation has occurred due to a myriad of factors, not least of which is the fact that environmental risks are now more global, requiring multilateral solutions. However, such multilateral solutions still require domestic implementation and this is where further transformation has occurred. While the state and domestic legislation still has a central role to play, the role of non-state actors has increased, leading to broader notions of regulatory governance. A further aspect of the emergence of new forms of environmental regulatory governance has been an increased reliance on market-based instruments, either together with or as a replacement for command and control instruments within a country's regulatory mix.