Many view the early 1970s as the dawn of environmental law here in the United States. President Nixon signed NEPA into law on January 1, 1970. By December of that same year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was formed. Across the Atlantic, France was similarly focused on the environment, and created the Ministry of the Environment in 1971. Was this pure serendipity or were there cultural and historical factors at play that contributed to that almost concurrent establishment?  And what other parallels existed between France and the United States in their environmental regulatory journeys? In this episode, ELI Visiting Attorney Aïcha Ghmouch discusses her work examining these two frameworks.