European Union (EU) environmental law is a moving target. Over the last decades, some of the key achievements of EU environmental law have been to facilitate the general public’s access to information, participation in decision making, and access to justice in environmental matters. The early development of EU environmental law was closely related to the creation and completion of the EU internal market, and the environmental challenges this inevitably entails. More recently, new challenges have been presented by the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty,^{Footnote 27} including a new treaty title on energy issues, the turmoil created by the global financial crisis, and the emergence of new technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) and geoengineering.

The body of literature on EU environmental law has grown expansively, with Krämer,^{Footnote 28} Fisher, Lange and Scotford,^{Footnote 29} Jans and Vedder^{Footnote 30} amongst the leading scholars to give a general and encyclopaedic overview of the field.^{Footnote 31} The two books subject to this review depart from this approach and focus on specific elements and recent challenges of EU environmental law. In the second edition of her monograph, EU Environmental Law, Governance and Decision-Making, Maria Lee engages with important ‘meta’ questions about legitimacy, democracy, and the role of science and politics in EU environmental law. Taking another approach in his volume, EU Environmental Law and the Internal Market, Nicolas de Sadeleer examines EU environmental law through the free movement and competition law lenses. Both books are welcome additions to the existing scholarship.

The key message conveyed by Maria Lee in EU Environmental Law, Governance and Decision-Making is that environmental protection and decision making depend on two main factors: specialized information on the physical state of the world, and political judgments on values and priorities (p. v). Risk assessment and cost–benefit analysis are key tools in the politically motivated decision-making process. Lee looks at the integration of decision making and governance into EU environmental law areas such as industrial pollution, chemicals, environmental impact assessment (EIA) and climate change, as well as the internal market. The first six chapters establish the general framework and explain key principles and concepts, while Chapters 7 to 10 provide illustrative case studies. Lee clearly demonstrates how science (‘risk assessment’) and politics (‘risk management’) go hand in hand, and points out that science as such is not the only factor of decision making, but that morals, ethics, and politics also impact upon the decision-making process (p. 56). She goes even further and states that sound science input is vital but the final decision making is merely political and subject to administrative decision makers whose political legitimacy is rather fragile in the EU legal system (pp. 39–43).

Lee’s point of departure for this second edition is a claim that the economic and financial crisis in 2008, the EU enlargements in 2004, 2007 and 2013, and the political shift from centre-left to centre-right (p. 19) have had an adverse impact on environmental action, legitimacy, regulation, and decision making at the Union level (p. 27). The ‘green economy’ approach (Chapter 3, pp. 19, 70) is thought to provide a possible response by uniting direct and ‘new’ and alternative regulation (p. 85), including the aspects of flexibility, collaborative governance, and information and learning (pp. 86–92). There is also the obligatory discussion of soft versus hard law (p.88). Lee further calls for the integration of environmental law in ‘more established sub-disciplines in EU law, including the internal market and administrative law’ (p. 27, and similarly at pp. 67–8), as well as a ‘firm constitutional basis of EU environmental law’ (p. 27), although she doubts that the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights^{Footnote 32} can contribute significantly to this (pp. 24, 27).

Lee further adopts a rather critical view on the status and the effects of the principle of sustainable development in EU law, concluding that the concept will ‘cease to be a core term in EU environmental law and policy’ (p. 80). Instead, there is a need for a ‘strong environmental strategy that is independent of sustainable development’ (p. 67). According to Lee, the role of sustainable development in EU (environmental) law has become substantially weaker than it was at the time of publication of the first edition, ten years ago (p. 79), and it functions rather as a political concept (pp. 64, 77 and 80). At best, it can provide a starting point for debate (pp. 57, 58) rather than function as an enabling principle. She critically discusses the role and functioning of sustainable development goals, standards and indicators (pp. 72–9) and provides some suggestions on sustainability reporting (p. 77). She calls for an overall policy turn away from sustainable development as we know it towards ecological sustainability’ (p. 80), but does not develop this concept much further.

As Lee herself stresses,^{Footnote 33} the second edition of her book is a complete overhaul of the first edition, which was published in 2005. Although the overall focus and structure is maintained, the selection of case studies recognizes the changes in law and policy priorities and also takes into account new topics of environmental law. For example, the fact that climate change is included in this recent edition as a separate chapter pays tribute to its growing importance on the European and international agendas.^{Footnote 34} In turn, the issue of ‘waste’ has been dropped as a separate case study, and is now included under the discussion of the (recast) Directive 2010/75/EU on Industrial Emissions (Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control).^{Footnote 35} The discussion of governance and decision making with regard to the internal market and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is updated and complemented by the discussion on chemicals and REACH, taking into account that Regulation (EC) No. 1907/2006 concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH)^{Footnote 36} was adopted and entered into force only after the publication of the first edition of Lee’s book. Similarly, the second edition takes account of the changes brought to the environmental area with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in December 2009. This includes the change in status of the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights and the citizens initiative (CI) as a tool for enhanced public involvement. Although she sees CI as a ‘potentially […] significant institutional commitment’ with the hopeful promise of enhancing public debate and bringing the Union closer to its citizens, she also warns that without clear criteria the CI instrument might ‘weaken rather than enhance legitimacy’(pp. 187–9).

My critique of Lee’s text is limited to formalities. A table of abbreviations would have been helpful. Further, the book’s concise and specific focus calls for a detailed index. The index contained in this volume is too general to be helpful, and fails to include many necessary and important key words (e.g. internal market).

In EU Environmental Law and the Internal Market, Nicolas de Sadeleer focuses on another challenge in contemporary EU environmental law, namely, the interaction of environmental law and policy with the internal market and competition law, with a specific focus on the involvement of the Courts of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). De Sadeleer aims to provide a ‘detailed examination of the compatibility of environmental protection regimes with the internal market’ and to outline ‘in a concise manner the environmental protection rules contained in the Treaties and in key secondary legislation and the ways in which they interact with the internal market and competition law’ (p. liv). The structure of the book is straightforward. The first part establishes key concepts, objectives and principles, and provides a general introduction to EU environmental law. The second part of the book discusses the internal market free movement elements. De Sadeleer dedicates an entire chapter to the free movement of goods and combines the analysis of the free movement of services and freedom of establishment in another chapter. The last and third part of the text discusses the key concepts of EU competition law through an environmental lens.

As a starting point, de Sadeleer defines the concept of the environment (a challenge in itself). He uses a legal perspective based on the conceptualizations developed by key international courts, mainly the CJEU, the European Court of Human Rights, and the International Court of Justice (pp. 5–7).

Throughout the book, de Sadeleer's main line of argument is that the EU internal market ranks higher than an environmental protection concerns and that a hierarchical rather than an integral approach characterizes these two key areas of EU law (pp. 218, 383). This is not good news for the status of EU environmental law as, according to the integration principle,^{Footnote 37} environmental concerns should be integrated in all EU policy areas.

De Sadeleer finishes the doctrinal discussion of free movement on a very practical note. He formulates ten recommendations for the CJEU on how to deal with legal questions that impact on both the internal market and the environment (p. 384). Indeed, the Court would be well advised to take heed of these recommendations with a view to bringing much needed clarity in this never-ending and increasingly complicated and technical legal debate.

De Sadeleer succeeds admirably in reaching the highly ambitious objectives set out above. He addresses a broad range of issues in a clear and accessible way, helped by the inclusion of instructive tables and to-the-point summaries of the main aspects discussed throughout the book.^{Footnote 38} These are helpful tools for non-EU lawyers and non-academics to navigate and gain a comprehensive overview of EU environmental law and associated disciplines. Despite the overall reader-friendliness, the vast amount and minutiae of information presented in the book may be challenging to certain readers. The volume is clearly geared towards an ‘advanced’ audience rather than students. However, this point of critique is, at the same time, a great strength of the volume. De Sadeleer manages to provide a full and encyclopaedic overview of all aspects of EU internal market and competition law through an environmental lens. In addition, the outstanding selected bibliography at the end of the book combines all literature of key European environmental scholars and beyond, enabling the reader to dive into even more detail on any specific subject area.

As the titles of their volumes suggest, Lee and de Sadeleer approach the challenges of EU environmental law from different perspectives. They start from the same point of departure (EU environmental law as an evolving challenge within EU law) but have distinct focus and emphasis. Lee concentrates on decision making, public participation and legitimacy; de Sadeleer on the internal market and competition law. At first glance, one might think these books do not have much in common and address two completely different sub-areas of EU environmental law. That would be an incorrect impression. Both perspectives are of increasing relevance for the development of the EU and its law and policy framework as such. The completion of the internal market is essential for maintaining the economic and financial stability of the Union. Furthermore, sound science, transparent and democratic decision making, as well as public participation, are key issues not only in the area of environmental law but also more generally to overcome the current atmosphere of political disenchantment towards the EU.

Some specific comparisons between both books are worthy of mention. De Sadeleer dedicates an entire chapter to the human rights perspective and its parallel development on environmental law (pp. 94–125), which is given much less attention by Lee in her volume (mainly at pp. 22–7), despite its specific focus on public participation and decision making. Further, unlike de Sadeleer, Lee does not discuss the external dimension of EU environmental law. Whereas de Sadeleer provides a detailed and complete review of the concept of the internal market, Lee looks at this subject area with a much narrower (case studies) focus on the authorization procedure for chemicals (pp. 203–23) and the concept of national autonomy in relation to GMOs (pp. 224–47). Whereas Lee’s book builds around the risk and science interface, de Sadeleer addresses this debate only indirectly under the discussion of the precautionary principle. Finally, legitimacy is a key theme in Lee’s volume, and receives very critical treatment; de Sadeleer touches on this issue only in the self-regulation debate (pp. 90, 252).

Overall, the two volumes complement each other well, even if both aim to answer different questions. Their contribution to EU environmental law scholarship is not to be overlooked: both books make an important contribution to recent legitimacy and governance debates, which extend beyond EU environmental law. Both are must-reads and should have a place in every environmental law library.