Overview
The Right of Nonuse provides a fresh and remarkably different perspective on the real causes of the ills plaguing the world's resources and environment. It re-examines the very nature of nature, and from this new perspective, argues that what is needed is for humans to grant to natural resources a legal right to be left alone - a right of nonuse. In the process, it explores the following questions: Why do natural resources continue to be depleted and removed at an alarming rate? Why are species becoming extinct at a pace that may be unprecedented? Why does the environment continue to be polluted? Why do the weather and climate seem to be changing? Perhaps most important, why have laws, legal institutions and governments been unable to address and correct these problems? Jan Laitos reviews the history of our relationship with the natural environment and develops new ways of thinking about nature and its protection. Instead of proceeding with human-based goals, Laitos argues that we should protect environmental resources for their own intrinsic value. Instead of giving humans more and more rights to clean up the environment, and to halt resources depletion, a right of nonuse held by the resource itself should be created. Natural resources have always possessed this parallel nonuse function, and society should recognize and legitimize it.
Full Product Details
Author: Jan G. Laitos (John A. Carver, Jr. Professor of Law, John A. Carver, Jr. Professor of Law, Univ. of Denver, Sturm College of Law)
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:
Width: 23.40cm
, Height: 1.80cm
, Length: 15.50cm
Weight: 0.386kg
ISBN: 9780199990788
ISBN 10: 0199990786
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 30 May 2013
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.
Reviews
<br> The Right of Nonuse is a tour de force. Jan Laitos debunks the enduring myth that private property rights and the market will best serve humanity's interest. Drawing on law, economics, ecology, history, and ethics, he makes a compelling case that the dominant instrumentalist view will inevitably fail to achieve its stated goals and that a truly sustainable and efficient path demands that we focus on the values we derive from nonuse of resources, and that we endow the resources themselves with rights to protect these values. With this book, Laitos moves the concept of nonuse from bit player in crowd scenes to contender for a leading role in shaping conservation law and policy. <br>--Alyson Flournoy <br>Alumni Research Scholar & UF Research Foundation Professor <br>University of Florida, Levin College of Law<p><br> Drawing from a multitude of disciplines, Jan Laitos elegantly synthesizes a wide spectrum of research and scholarship into a coherent and compelling legal theory of the Right of Nonuse. His sweeping history of resource use and nonuse in law and society spans the Age of Human Survival, through periods of market dominance and rising property rights, to his vision of an Age of Eco-centrism. Using the theory of nonuse as a legal right vested in nature, Laitos challenges even emerging theories of ecological management policy. Anyone interested in a refreshingly reasoned and practically minded new perspective on the law and policy of nature will find it here. <br>--J.B. Ruhl <br>David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair in Law <br>Vanderbilt University Law School<p><br>
The Right of Nonuse is a tour de force. Jan Laitos debunks the enduring myth that private property rights and the market will best serve humanity's interest. Drawing on law, economics, ecology, history, and ethics, he makes a compelling case that the dominant instrumentalist view will inevitably fail to achieve its stated goals and that a truly sustainable and efficient path demands that we focus on the values we derive from nonuse of resources, and that we endow the resources themselves with rights to protect these values. With this book, Laitos moves the concept of nonuse from bit player in crowd scenes to contender for a leading role in shaping conservation law and policy. --Alyson Flournoy Alumni Research Scholar & UF Research Foundation Professor University of Florida, Levin College of Law Drawing from a multitude of disciplines, Jan Laitos elegantly synthesizes a wide spectrum of research and scholarship into a coherent and compelling legal theory of the Right of Nonuse. His sweeping history of resource use and nonuse in law and society spans the Age of Human Survival, through periods of market dominance and rising property rights, to his vision of an Age of Eco-centrism. Using the theory of nonuse as a legal right vested in nature, Laitos challenges even emerging theories of ecological management policy. Anyone interested in a refreshingly reasoned and practically minded new perspective on the law and policy of nature will find it here. --J.B. Ruhl David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair in Law Vanderbilt University Law School
Author Information
Jan G. Laitos is the holder of the John A. Carver, Jr. Chair in Natural Resources and Environmental Law at the University of Denver, Sturm College of Law. Previously, he was the law clerk to the Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court, and worked in the Office of Legal Counsel for the United States Department of Justice. Jan Laitos served as Vice Chair and Commissioner on the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission, and is a trustee of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation. He is the author of the authoritative treatise in the property rights field entitled: Law of Property Rights (1999). He is also the author of: The Law of Hazardous Waste and Toxic Substances, 2nd ed. (2008) and Pioneers in Environmental Law (2008).
