Through an extended study of agricultural land use and policy, Natural Capital, Agriculture and the Law presents a comprehensive legal analysis of proposals for protecting natural capital stocks and the sustainable use of ecosystem services, critiquing the legal challenges in designing and operationalising a workable natural capital approach. Evaluating legal considerations at international, national and local levels, chapters canvas the challenges behind creating an optimal policy mix when shifting towards a natural capital approach, including entrenched private property rights and privacy and intellectual property concerns. Exploring the instruments necessary to support improved valuation and accounting for nature in the development of a natural capital framework, including digital technologies, regulation and market-based instruments, the book then considers the legal, technical and social barriers that impede their use. With an international outlook on environmental laws, trade rules and values, it concludes by arguing that operationalising natural capital governance requires designing and implementing legal and regulatory frameworks to support the identification, valuation, protection and restoration of natural capital. Global in scope, the book will prove invaluable for scholars of environmental and agricultural law, environmental economics and policy design. Identifying practical options for legal, regulatory and governance design, it will also be useful for governmental policymakers and environmental consultants.

The legal arrangements applying to the economic and commercial aspects of managing natural resources have traditionally been unrelated to those applying to the management of ecosystems and the protection of the environment. However, the interface between what have increasingly been described as economic law and environmental law has become an issue of both practical and theoretical importance at all levels of the legal system. Dr Felicity Deane's global analysis of the relationship between emissions trading law and the law of the World Trade Organization is both timely and important. She skillfully reviews the range of complex legal issues. The result is a significant contribution to the legal literature.' - Douglas Fisher, Queensland University of Technology, AustraliaEmissions trading is an economic legal framework designed to address the global environmental crisis of climate change. This book analyses the broader impacts of these frameworks - particularly the relationship between emissions trading schemes and the WTO. Felicity Deane focuses primarily on the rules of the WTO as a tool to demonstrate where the boundaries exist for acceptable interface with international trade. She explores the meaning of goods and products, services, subsidies and border adjustments within the context of the WTO rules and considers the impacts of these definitions on emissions trading frameworks. Academics and students with an interest in the WTO and the convergence of trade and environment will find this an insightful book. The points raised will also be useful to legal professionals, economists and policymakers involved in emissions trading practices.