The main challenge to international environmental law is to strike an adequate balance between the discretion of states to undertake economically attractive activities and the need for constraint in order to protect the environment. Based on one particularly elaborate environmental regime (the regime for transboundary water pollution as it applies to the Netherlands) this book examines how international law has sought to replace discretion by constraint, and what limitations have been encountered with that endeavour. The study provides a comprehensive assessment of the main assets and lacunae...