Editors' Summary: Deciding when and how to regulate behavior is an important first step toward protecting our environment. Below, Wanxin Li addresses the concept of environmental governance in hopes of improving our understanding about the environmental problems we face, the institutional arrangements responding to these challenges, and the efficiency and effectiveness of available policy instruments. After describing those situations under which governmental intervention is justified, she examines the policymaking process and available regulatory tools and enforcement mechanisms.

Editor's Summary: Australia is the world's driest continent. Its watersheds collect very little water, and except for Antarctica, it has the lowest level of rainfall of any continent. Land use choices, in addition to the extraction of surface water and groundwater for domestic, industrial, and agricultural purposes, have further exacerbated the nation's water woes. Australia's experience in water law and policy could therefore prove quite instructive as we face the need to better manage our global water resources. In this Article, Prof.

Editor's Summary: Today, government agencies in Australia must manage water resources sustainably. One of the means available for achieving this goal is the use of market instruments. Yet the protection of ecological and environmental values and the protection of private interests in water seem at odds with one another. In this Article, Prof. Douglas Fisher examines these two seemingly conflicting objectives as he considers how a market in water rights might be created, what legal framework would be appropriate to sustain such a market, and issues of transferability.

Editor's Summary: Throughout Australia, allocating water to protect the natural environment is a fundamental aspect of managing the right to take water for consumptive purposes. The allocation of water for environmental purposes, therefore, requires a balance between competing uses. Further, decisions to allocate water to consumptive uses in compromise of natural ecosystems reflect societal choices about what will be an acceptable sustainable use of water resources. And because water resources legislation reflects these societal choices, some core principles need to apply.

Editors' Summary: Rivers, lakes, and aquifers cross national borders around the world creating international interdependencies related to one of the world's most precious resources. More than one-half of the world's population derives their water from international sources, located beyond the jurisdiction and control of the country where they live. What are the rules of international law that govern these shared waters, and how can national water policy objectives be pursued in light of such interdependency, especially in a world of sovereign states? In this Article, Dr.

Editor's Summary: With an array of activities available at the beach and an increasingly litigious society, liability issues are a major concern for beach owners and operators. In this Article, Terra Bowling provides an overview of liability issues that could result from accidents at the beach. After examining the role of common law in determining liability, she looks at statutory protections, with examples of laws in Hawaii and New Jersey. She also examines the role of adequate warning signs in beach liability cases.

Responding to the latest scientific advancements is not a simple matter for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A number of factors--such as the extent to which the new information intersects with EPA's statutory mission, as well as the quality of the research--necessarily impact EPA's response to this new science.

Editor's Summary: Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist was uniquely situated to have a profound impact on the development of federal environmental law--both because of the overlap of his tenure with the development of the field of environmental law and because of his four-decade tenure on the U.S. Supreme Court, more than one-half of which was as Chief Justice.

Editors' Summary: Grandfathering is a form of what some tax scholars call transition relief--the payment of compensation for a legal change. Grandfathered polluters and grandfathered emissions permits are both compensations for legal transitions, but the two are fundamentally different. In this Article, Edan Rotenberg defines the two types of grandfathering and exposes the problems these practices pose for environmental law. He begins with some definitions and an overview of compensation.

Editors' Summary: In working to protect species and enforce the Endangered Species Act, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) generally take one of two possible routes: litigation or collaboration. While some NGOs primarily use confrontational efforts to force agency action, such as petitioning the government to list a species, filing lawsuits to require timely agency action, and challenging decisions not to list through litigation, other NGOs use cooperative efforts with private landowners and agencies to help protect and recover species.