'Tick the box and move on': compartmentalization and the treatment of the environment in decision-making processes

Smyth, Caer ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5816-6180 2021. 'Tick the box and move on': compartmentalization and the treatment of the environment in decision-making processes. Journal of Law and Society 48 (3) , pp. 410-433. 10.1111/jols.12309

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Abstract

Legal decision-making processes are contending with increasingly urgent and complex environmental issues. While the importance of treating these issues holistically has long been recognized in environmental law, obstacles seem to exist that block decision makers in the planning system from taking integrated approaches to environmental issues. This article approaches this problem from a grounded perspective. It draws on original empirical research findings from a socio-legal ethnographic research project conducted at a public local inquiry in South Wales (the inquiry into the M4 Corridor around Newport scheme). The article suggests that embedded assumptions in legal decision-making processes might partly account for this often limited response. It proposes that such processes tend to ‘compartmentalize’ and that this tendency has an adverse impact on the treatment of the environment, holding back efforts within environmental law that seek to embed more holistic approaches to environmental decision making.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Law
Publisher:	Wiley
ISSN:	0263-323X
Funders:	ESRC
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	12 August 2021
Date of Acceptance:	15 July 2021
Last Modified:	23 May 2023 20:14
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/142658

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