A Sustainable ‘Middle Way’ to Economic Responsibility in Environmental Governance : The Case of EC Salmon Aquaculture

Discovering new paths to responsible governance requires alternative perspectives in the economic analysis of legal reforms to encourage sustainable development. The perspective presented herein, at its core, challenges economic analysis of law theorists to more fully encapsulate normative issues relating to sustainable development. This perspective equally challenges rights-based theorists advocating stewardship obligations to better appreciate the importance of economic incentives that permeate virtually all of our lives and drive the global economy, thus providing a translational bridge between these interdisciplinary landscapes. In general, economics asks questions about the assessment of value, the process of exchange and the choices made in the allocation of scarce resources, and this particular branch of legal theory evaluates the economic ‘efficiency’ of a legal rule or governing tool that affect these processes. The alternative viewpoint offered here evolves from a more progressive conception of the economic analysis of law. Although more narrowly focused liberal approaches have in the recent past overshadowed other lines of reasoning in the economic evaluation of legal rules, broader interpretations like this one may prove useful, particularly with regards to environmental issues. Accordingly, this chapter introduces a sustainable ‘middle way’ to economic responsibility in environmental governance by employing a law and economic model of sustainability derived as the Rawls-Nash economic efficiency criteria