In Defence of Environmental Target Laws

Abstract This article argues that an emerging body of ‘target laws’ – legislation that incorporates binding, quantified environmental targets with specified deadlines – represents a crucial evolution in environmental governance. Whereas traditional environmental risk regulation was valuable for managing discrete environmental impacts, it has proven inadequate to address systemic challenges like climate breakdown and ecosystem collapse. Target laws, by contrast, are better equipped to deliver the transformative change needed to respond to systemic threats. Drawing on examples from climate legislation and the European Union’s Nature Restoration Law, the analysis demonstrates how target laws can overcome environmental law’s persistent vulnerabilities to short-termism, marginalization, and public obscurity. However, targets are paradoxical entities that inject considerable complexity into legal frameworks, creating novel challenges around temporality, legal status, implementation, and enforceability. While acknowledging these formidable difficulties, the article contends that target laws merit vigorous defence as they offer environmental legislation unprecedented dynamism, resilience, and transformative potential.