Books received.

THE YEARBOOK OF EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENTAL LAW: VOLUME 5

Edited by T.F.M. Etty and H. Somsen. Great Clarendon Street Oxford OX2 6DP U.K.: Oxford University Press, November 2005. (44 1865) 556-767. www.oup.com. ISBN: 0-19-927878-4. 640 pp. $250.00 Hardback.

The Yearbook of European Environmental Law brings together topical analyses of contemporary European environmental law. Leading European and American academics provide in-depth scholarly articles covering a wide range of challenging issues. The Yearbook contains an easily accessible annual survey providing legal practitioners, academics, and policy-makers with detailed and indispensable information on current and future European environmental law. In addition, The Yearbook features summaries and full texts of preparatory commission documents, green books, and other discussion papers, as well as a selection of reviews of books.

Editors-in-chief: T.F.M. Etty, Researcher at the Centre for Environmental Law, University of Amsterdam; H. Somsen, Professor at the University of Amsterdam

Current survey editor: V. Heyvaert, Lecturer at the London School of Economics,

Book reviews editor: M. Lee, Lecturer at the King's College, London.

Documents editor: L. Kramer, Honorary Professor at the University of Bremen.

TRANSBOUNDARY HARM IN INTERNATIONAL LAW: LESSONS FROM THE TRAIL SMELTER ARBITRATION

Edited by Rebecca M. Bratspies and Russell A. Miller. 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473: Cambridge University Press, August 2006. [phone]. www.cambridge.org. ISBN 0-521-856434. 424 pp. $95.00 Hardback.

Many harms flow across the ever more porous sovereign borders of a globalizing world. These harms expose weaknesses in the international legal regime built on sovereignty of nation states. Using the Trail Smelter Arbitration, one of the most cited cases in international environmental law, this book explores the changing nature of state responses to transboundary harm. Taking a critical approach, the book examines the arbitration's influence on international law generally, and international environmental law specifically. In particular, the book explores whether there are lessons from Trail Smelter Arbitration that are useful for resolving transboundary challenges currently confronting the international community. The book collects the commentary of a distinguished set of international law scholars who consider the history of the Trail Smelter Arbitration, its significance for international environmental law, its broader relationship to international law, and its resonance in fields beyond the environment.

Rebecca M. Braptsies is an associate professor of law at CUNY School of Law where she teaches environmental, property, and administrative law.

Russell A. Miller is an Allan G. Shepard Distinguished Associate Professor of Law at the University of Idaho.

BORDER LANDSCAPES: THE POLITICS OF AKHA LAND USE IN CHINA AND THAILAND

Janet C. Sturgeon. P.O. Box 50096, Seattle, WA 98145-5096: University of Washington Press, February 2006. [phone]. www.washington.edu/ uwpress. ISBN 0-295-98544-5. 264 pp. $50.00 Hardback.

In this comparative, interdisciplinary study based on extensive fieldwork as well as historical sources, Janet Sturgeon examines the different trajectories of landscape change and land use among communities who call themselves Akha (known as Hani in China) in contrasting political contexts. She shows how, over the last century, processes of state formation, construction of ethnic identity, and regional security concerns have contributed to very different outcomes for Akha and their forests in China and Thailand. With Chinese Akha function as citizens and grain producers, and Akha in Thailand are viewed as "non-Thai" forest destroyers.

The modern nation-state grapples with local power hierarchies on the periphery of the nation, with varied outcomes. Citizenship in China helps Akha better protect a fluid set of livelihood practices that confer benefits on them and their landscape. Denied such citizenship in Thailand, Akha are helpless when the state ruthlessly claims forests and other resources. Drawing on current anthropological debates on the state in southeast Asia and more generally on debates on property theory, states and minorities, and political ecology, Sturgeon shows how people live in a continuous state of negotiated boundaries--political, social, and ecological.

Scholars of political ecology, environmental anthropology, ethnicity, and politics of state formation in east and southeast Asia will welcome this pioneering comparison of resource access and land use among historically related peoples in two nation-states.

Janet C. Sturgeon is an assistant professor of Geography at Simon Fraser University.

POLITICAL ECOLOGY IN A YUCATEC MAYA COMMUNITY

E. N. Anderson. 355 S. Euclid Avenue, Suite 103, Tucson, AZ 85719: The University of Arizona Press, October 2005. [phone]. www.uapress. arizona.edu. ISBN 0-8165-2393-2. 264 pp. $55.00 Hardback.

In Chunhuhub, the Conquest is not a done deal. Unlike many small tropical towns, Chunhuhub in rural Quintana Roo, Mexico, has not been a helpless victim of international forces. Its people are descendants of heroic Mayans who held off the Spanish invaders. People in Chunhuhub continue to live largely through subsistence farming of maize and vegetables, supplemented by commercial orchard, livestock, and field crop cultivation. They are, however, also serf-consciously "modernizing" by seeking better educational and economic opportunities.

Political Ecology in a Yucatec Maya Community tells the story of Chunhuhub at the beginning of the twenty-first century, focusing on the resource management of plants and animals. E.N. Anderson and his Mayan co-authors provide a detailed overview of Maya knowledge of and relationships with the environment, describing how these relationships have been maintained over the centuries and are being transformed by modernization. They show that the Quintana Roo Maya have been working to find ways to continue ancient and sustainable methods of making a living while also introducing modern techniques that can improve that living. For instance, traditional subsistence agriculture is broadly sustainable at current population densities, but hunting is not, and modern mechanized agriculture has an uncertain future. Bringing the voice of contemporary Mayas to every page, the authors offer an encyclopedic overview of the region: history, environment, agriculture, medicine, social relations, and economy. Whether discussing the fine points of beekeeping or addressing the problem of deforestation, they provide a remarkably detailed account that immerses readers in the landscape. Mayas of the Yucatan Peninsula have had more than their share of successes--and some failures as well--and as a study in political and cultural ecology, Political Ecology in a Yucatec Maya Community has much to tell us about tropical development and about the human condition. Mayans' experience tells us that if we wish to have not only farms but also mahogany, wildlife, and ecotourism, then further efforts are needed. As Anderson observes, traditional Maya management, with its immense knowledge base, remains the best--indeed, the only--effective system for making a living from the Yucatan's harsh landscape. Political Ecology in a Yucatec Maya Community is a compelling testament to the daily life of modern peasant farmers that can provide us with clues about more efficient management techniques for the conservation of biodiversity worldwide.

E. N. Anderson is a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Riverside.

FIELDS OF POWER, FORESTS OF DISCONTENT: CULTURE, CONSERVATION, AND THE STATE IN MEXICO

Nora Haenn. 355 S. Euclid Avenue, Suite 103, Tucson, AZ 85719: The University of Arizona Press, May 2005. [phone]. www.uapress.arizona.edu. ISBN 0-8165-2399-1. 272 pp. $45.00 Hardback.

Enduring differences between protected areas and local people have produced few happy compromises, but at the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in the southern Mexican state of Campeche, government agents and thousands of local people collaborated on an expansive program to alleviate these tensions--a conservation-development agenda that aimed to improve local people's standard of living while preserving natural resources. Calakmul is home to numerous endangered species and raises a common question: How can environmental managers and citizens reconcile competing ecological desires? For a brief time in the 1990s, collaborations at Calakmui were heralded as a vital example of melding local management, forest conservation, and economic development.

In Fields of Power, Forests of Discontent, Nora Haenn questions the rise and fall of this conservation program and examines conservation at the intersection of national-international agendas and local political-economic interests. Although other assessments of such programs have typically focused on why they do or do not succeed, Haenn instead considers conservation's encounter with people's everyday lives, and how those experiences affect environmental management.

Haenn explores conservation and development from two perspectives: first regionally, to look at how people used conservation to create a new governing entity on a tropical frontier once weakly under national rule; then locally, focusing on personal histories and aspects of community life that shape people's daily lives, farming practices, and immersion in development programs--even though those programs ultimately fail to resolve economic frustrations. She identifies how key political actors, social movements, and identity politics contributed to the instability of the Calakmul alliance. Drawing on extensive interviews with Calakmul Biosphere Reserve staff. She connects regional trends to village life through accounts of disputes at ejido meetings and the failure of ejido development projects.

In the face of continued difficulty in creating popular conservation in Calakmul, Haenn uses lessons from people's lives--history, livelihood, village organization, expectations--to argue for a "sustaining conservation," one that integrates social justice and local political norms with a new, more robust definition of conservation. In this way, Fields of Power, Forests of Discontent goes beyond local ethnography to encourage creative discussion of conservation's impact on both land and people.

Nora Haenn is an assistant professor of anthropology at Arizona State University.

ENVIRONMENTAL SOVEREIGNTY AND THE WTO: TRADE SANCTIONS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

Bradly J. Condon. 410 Saw Mill River Road, Ardsley, NY 10502: Transnational Publishers, Inc., May 2006. [phone]. www.transnational pubs.com. ISBN 1-57105-366-2. 400 pp. $125.00 Hardback.

The growing body of WTO jurisprudence is of profound significance for the development of the general body of international law. With this in mind, Environmental Sovereignty and the WTO succinctly examines how the WTO law can contribute to achieving coherence between general international law, international environmental law and international trade law and avoid conflicts between trade liberalization and global environmental protection. Professor Condon argues that these three branches of law are generally consistent with each other in the area of international law where they intersect. However, WTO jurisprudence can benefit from a more explicit analysis, which Professor Condon provides, of the way that panel decisions fit into the general framework of international law. No law reforms are currently needed to facilitate this task. As the text shows, it is a matter of using the current WTO rules to resolve conflicts between treaties such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and multilateral environmental agreements and to determine the circumstances in which unilateral trade measures should be permitted.

The topics that Environmental Sovereignty and the WTO addresses will be of considerable interest to a broad audience, given the global political controversy over American unilateralism, the fairness of WTO rules to poor countries, and the effect of trade rules on efforts to protect the global environment. The book addresses these controversial issues without sacrificing academic rigour and will also appeal to a scholarly and professional audience seeking new approaches to addressing the problems raised by the globalization of law.

Bradly J. Condon is professor at Departamento Academico de Administracion Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico and senior fellow, Tim Fischer centre for Global Trade and Finance, School of Law, Bond University, Australia.

MEXICAN AMERICANS AND THE ENVIRONMENT: TIERRA Y VIDA 

Devon G. Pena. 355 S. Euclid Avenue, Suite 103, Tucson, AZ 85719: The University of Arizona Press, April 2005. [phone]. www.uapress.arizona.edu. ISBN 0-8165-2211-1. 232 pp. $16.95 Paperback.

Mexican Americans have traditionally had a strong land ethic, believing that humans must respect la tierra (the earth) because it is the source of la vida (life). As modern market forces exploit the earth, communities struggle to control their own ecological futures, and several studies have recorded that Mexican Americans are more impacted by environmental injustices than are other national origin groups. In our countryside, agricultural workers are poisoned by pesticides, while farmers have lost ancestral lands to expropriation. In our polluted inner cities, toxic waste sickens children in their playgrounds and homes.

This book addresses the struggle for environmental justice, grassroots democracy, and a sustainable society from a variety of Mexican American perspectives. The book draws on the ideas and experiences of people from all walks of life--activists, farmworkers, union organizers, land managers, educators, and many others--who provide a clear overview of the most critical ecological issues facing Mexican-origin people today. The text is organized to first provide a general introduction to ecology, from both scientific and political perspectives. It then presents an environmental history for Mexican-origin people on both sides of the border, showing that the ecologically sustainable Norteno land use practices were eroded by the conquest of El Norte by the United States. Finally, the book offers a critique of the principal schools of American environmentalism and introduces the organizations and struggles of Mexican Americans in contemporary ecological politics. Devon Pena contrasts tenets of radical environmentalism with the ecological beliefs and grassroots struggles of Mexican-origin people, then shows how contemporary environmental justice struggles in Mexican American communities have challenged dominant concepts of environmentalism.

Mexican Americans and the Environment is a didactically sound text that introduces students to the conceptual vocabularies of ecology, culture, history, and politics as it tells how competing ideas about nature have helped shape land use and environmental policies. By demonstrating that any consideration of environmental ethics is incomplete without taking into account the experiences of Mexican Americans, it clearly shows students that ecology is more than nature study, but embraces social issues of critical importance to their own lives.

Devon Pena is a professor of anthropology, environmental studies, and Chicano studies at the University of Washington.

UNDERSTANDING THE ENVIRONMENT: BRIDGING THE DISCIPLINARY DIVIDES

Edited by R. Quentin Grafton, Libby Robin, and Robert J. Wasson. P.O. Box 50096, Seattle, WA 98145-5096: University of New South Wales Press, Ltd., October 2005. [phone]. www.unswpress.com.au. ISBN 0-86840-912-X. 220 pp. $40.00 Paperback.

This major textbook in environmental studies brings together some of the world's leading environmental researchers in the life sciences, physical sciences, social sciences and humanities to bridge the disciplinary divides in understanding the environment. Understanding the Environment connects across these multiple domains to provide fresh insights as to how we comprehend and how we should confront our environmental challenges.

R. Quentin Grafton is a professor at the Crawford School of Economics and Government, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

Libby Robin is a fellow at the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

Robert J. Wasson is a professor and director of the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

DOCUMENTS IN EUROPEAN COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENTAL LAW: SECOND EDITION

Edited by Philippe Sands and Paolo Galizzi. 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473: Cambridge University Press, April 2006. [phone]. www.cambridge.org. ISBN 0-521-83303-5. 988 pp. $210.00 Hardback. ISBN 0-521-54061-5. $115.00 Paperback.

This is the companion volume to the second edition of Philippe Sands' Principles of International Environmental Law and Sands and Galizzi's Documents in International Environmental Law. It comprises extracts from essential EC Treaties, Regulations, Directives, Decisions and other Acts of EC institutions. EC environmental legislation represents one of the most complex and challenging legal regimes for the protection of the environment. The significant body of legislation which now exists has given rise to numerous disputes over its application and interpretation. This collection brings together the principal documents in an accessible form, providing practitioners, scholars and students with the essentials necessary to understand, advise upon, and apply this body of law. Concise editorial notes summarise the main provisions of the instruments reproduced and place them in their wider context.

Philippe Sands is a Professor of Laws and Director of the Centre for International Courts and Tribunals at University College London and a Barrister at Matrix Chambers.

Paolo Galizzi is a Marie Curie Fellow at Imperial College London and a Visiting Scholar and Adjunct Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law in New York.