The Environmental Law Guide prepared by Clifford Chance is a useful guide to a discrete and fast developing area of legal practice. Five years ago, environmental law was untaught in virtually all English universities and few, if any, U.K. law firms had specialist environmental lawyers or departments. That has changed dramatically, in large part because of the extensive body of European Community Directives and Regulations adopted since the late 1970s which have slowly filtered into English law and the consciousness of English lawyers. The Environmental Protection Act 1990 confirmed the arrival of a new practice area.

The Guide provides a well-structured and fairly comprehensive overview of the key areas of law establishing substantive obligations, as well as the relevant procedural requirements. Emissions into the atmosphere and marine environment, regulation of waste, hazardous substances and “integrated pollution control” are dealt with in a clear and accessible fashion. Reference is also made to some of the more obscure but potentially significant recent developments, such as the adoption by the EC of a new rule prohibiting television advertisements which “encourage behaviour prejudicial to the protection of the environment”. And there are useful sections dealing with “Implications for Business” and “Insurance Implications”.

Published in 1991, the Guide has already been overtaken by important developments, most notably the Maastricht amendments to the Treaty of Rome. These include provision for the adoption of EC environmental law by qualified majority voting (rather than unanimity voting), the formal incorporation of the “precautionary principle” and the requirement that environmental protection requirements must be integrated into the definition and implementation of other EC policies. The draft Civil Liability Directive set out in the Annex was significantly amended in 1991, and the Eco-Labelling Regulation has now been formally adopted.

How might the Guide be improved in its next edition? It could usefully bring together the various (and sometimes contradictory) liability rules into a single chapter, and introduce a more comprehensive consideration of the use of economic instruments which are likely to