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The early-modern Netherlands continue to inspire interesting historical scholarship on environmental regulation (see, e.g. here ). Last year's Environment and History had an article by Milja van Tielhof, "Regional Planning in a Decentralised State: How Administrative Practices contributed to Consensus-Building in Sixteenth-Century Holland" . The abstract: This article examines how a regional drainage system in the northern part of Holland in the Late Middle Ages could emerge despite the fact that the weak central state was hardly able to provide the necessary coordination nor prevent free-riding. Institutions, defined as rules and norms, including practices, procedures and techniques, play a key role in the argument. Four traditional administrative practices are identified as essential to the emergence of regional water control: a broad consultation process, by which opponents of new plans were also heard; landowners giving their explicit consent to plans and their costs;...

On Friday we discussed the place of French and American law in Privy Council water decisions , leading up to the seminal 1858 case of  Miner v. Gilmour . Today we'll look at how Miner  became an inter-imperial authority, as Lord Kingsdown's summary of the relative rights of riparian owners was cited widely throughout the British Empire and beyond (for examples of the case's influence, see the article  on which this series is based). Though arising in a case in which the applicable law was the old French law of Canada East, on the imperial periphery, it was taken as a faithful exposition of the common law of England, the imperial metropolis. In the 1876 case of Lyon v. Fishmongers’ Company, for instance, dealing with the right of access of riparian owners to the River Thames, the House of Lords (at the time the highest court for cases arising in Britain itself) referred to it as one of ‘the best authorities’ on riparian doctrine. "a lord of appeal" [Colin Blackbu...

David Zetland and Bene Colenbrander recently posted "The Evolution of the Dutch Drinking Water Sector" . The abstract: Dutch drinking water companies (DWCs) have brought more water of better quality to more people over the past 160 years, but their institutional environment has changed with social priorities. We divide these changes into four eras in which an initial solution leads to a new constraint that forces a change in priorities and thus DWC actions. The first era begins around 1850 when polluted common pool water attracts sellers of drinking water as a private good. Priorities changed around 1900 as the government pushed for a network expansion that would bring drinking water services to all as a public good. The third era began around 1950 as strains on common-pool budgets and water supplies shifted the focus to rationalization and efficiency. The fourth and current era began around 1970 with DWCs being asked to restore ecosystems and play a larger role in the commun...