Environmental law’s structure conflicts with criminal law’s core assumptions

Evidence

Criminal law, for instance, requires the highest standard of proof to convict (namely, beyond a reasonable doubt by a unanimous jury), but environmental law makes such a showing problematic because of scientific uncertainties and fragmented corporate decisionmaking authority. Criminal law emphasizes settled norms, while environmental law is dynamic, changing, and seeks fundamental and dramatic change. And although criminal law employs clear, determinate, and readily accessible legal standards familiar to the general public, environmental law is replete with obscure, indeterminate, and highly technical standards that few can genuinely master. — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 862

Categorization

• XREF: Structural-tension framing of law mirrors the reader’s soundscape work on regulation mismatched to its subject. — connects to: Environmentalism transformed the content of a dozen unrelated fields of American law — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 28; International trade law is far more institutionally organized than environmental law — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 1038; Strict-construction canons and harsh criminal liability doctrines sit in unresolved tension — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 1666