Offering a novel, transdisciplinary approach to environmental law, its principles, mechanics and context, as tested in its application to the urban environment, this book traces the conceptual and material absence of communication between the human and the natural and controversially includes such an absence within a system of law and a system of geography which effectively remain closed to environmental considerations.

The book looks at Niklas Luhmann's theory of autopoiesis. Introducing the key concepts and operations, contextualizing them and opening them up to critical analysis. Indeed, in contrast to most discussions on autopoiesis, it proposes a radically different reading of the theory, in line with critical legal, political, sociological, urban and ecological theories, while drawing from writings by Husserl and Derrida, as well as Latour, Blanchot, Haraway, Agamben and Nancy.

It explores a range of topics in the areas of environmental law and urban geography, including:

• environmental risk, environmental rights, the precautionary principle, intergenerational equity and urban waste
• discourses on community, nature, science and identity.

The author redefines the traditional foundations of environmental law and urban geography and suggests a radical way of dealing with scientific ignorance, cultural differences and environmental degradation within the perceived need for legal delivery of certainty.

Without being legalistic (surely praise indeed for a work such as this), this book is a highly analytical, novel, poetic and multi-layered work about law, environment and ecology, as well as systems theory, and is enticing from its opening, which is entitled ‘Closing’. It is a clever book (though not self consciously so) and provides a deep, stimulating and rewarding read, albeit one requiring some perseverance. A final point is that it caters for and deserves a readership from a range of disciplines as well as levels of expertise. - Jane Holder, Journal of Environmental Law, Vol 20, No 3 (2008)

Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, LLB, LLM, PhD is a Reader in Law, University of Westminster.