Trusted by generations of students and academics alike, Environmental Law continues to provide, in its ninth edition, broad and comprehensive coverage of the key topics taught on most environmental law courses, explaining the subject in its social and political context, and considering both UK, EU, and international perspectives. Known for its clear structure and systematic approach, the book considers topics by theme and by sector, allowing more experienced readers to explore the intricacies of the subject while also providing a logical introduction for those new to environmental law or without a legal background. A clear and easy-to-understand writing style helps ensure readers are informed yet not overwhelmed, while useful diagrams and tables help to explain complex points. The new edition also features case studies, information boxes, and self-test questions to help draw out key points and consolidate your learning in preparation for assessments and further research. New to this edition are: discussions of the potential impact of Brexit on UK environmental law; an additional chapter discussing the regulation of new technologies, such as ‘fracking’; coverage of important cases such as Coventry v. Lawrence on nuisance, Walton, Champion, and the HS2 decision on environmental assessment, the ClientEarth air pollution litigation and the ICJ’s decision in Costa Rica v. Nicaragua; analysis of the Paris Agreement and other recent climate change developments; analysis of the new EIA Directive; discussion on the new sentencing guidelines; and enhanced coverage of the latest developments in respect to costs of litigation and the role of courts, the Aarhus Convention, and environmental rights.
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Stuart Bell, Donald McGillivray, Ole Pedersen, Emma Lees, and Elen Stokes
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This chapter concerns two key concepts of environmental law: environmental principles and environmental policy. Both concepts are well known to those who study and practise UK and EU law, but that familiarity can be deceiving when it comes to understanding their role in environmental law, because both principles and policy perform important, distinctive, and evolving functions. Environmental principles are highly symbolic ideas of environmental policy that have been developing prominent roles in environmental law globally, including in EU environmental law. Environmental policy is often implicated in environmental law regimes because of the need to respond quickly to changing circumstances and provide detailed and technical guidance in complex policy areas. Determining the legal implications of extensive reliance on policy in environmental law is thus important. Exploring both these distinctive legal features of environmental law—principle and policy—helps to elucidate different aspects of environmental law as a subject, interrogating the jurisprudential nature of environmental law and revealing key characteristics of its developing doctrine.
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This chapter examines environmental law and policy in the European Union, considering Union powers and the international context. It discusses the framework for Union environmental law and policy; environmental principles; European Union environmental law by sector; trade in endangered species; nature conservation; environmental protection implementation and enforcement; and environmental litigation.
Chapter
Stuart Bell, Donald McGillivray, Ole W. Pedersen, Emma Lees, and Elen Stokes
This chapter, which discusses the difficult issue of defining ‘environmental law’ for the purposes of this book, covers the definition of certain key terms and provides an outline of some of the underlying themes that will be found in many of the chapters that follow. It is designed for use at the very beginning of a course of study to help to establish a context for future study. The notes and questions at the end of the chapter are designed to provoke thought about the way in which law and policy might affect everyday environmental issues and problems. In identifying the subject matter of this book, it is first necessary to consider whether there is any identifiable subject that could be termed ‘environmental law’.
Chapter
Elisa Morgera and Kati Kulovesi
This chapter examines EU environmental law. It first introduces the legal framework of EU environmental policy by explaining its historic evolution, as well as its current objectives and principles. It then explores three representative areas of EU environmental law - nature conservation, water, and climate change - with a view to highlighting two trends of broader relevance to the understanding of EU environmental law as a whole: the interaction between environmental protection and economic development, and the interaction between EU and international environmental law.
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This chapter examines the institutions of global governance responsible for formulating and implementing international environmental policy and law. It starts by defining global governance as a continuing process via which conflicting or diverse interests may be accommodated. This provides the environment where cooperative action may be taken. Global governance includes formal institutions and regimes empowered to enforce compliance, as well as informal arrangements. In this situation, there is no single model or form of global governance, nor is there a single structure or set of structures. Global governance, therefor, is a broad, dynamic, complex, process of interactive decision-making. The chapter also looks at the differences in international environmental policy and law today compared to when this book first published twenty-five years previously.
Chapter
Elisa Morgera and Kati Kulovesi
This chapter examines EU environmental law. It first introduces the legal framework of EU environmental policy by explaining its historic evolution, as well as its current objectives and principles. It then explores three representative areas of EU environmental law—nature conservation, water, and climate change—with a view to highlighting two trends of broader relevance to the understanding of EU environmental law as a whole: the interaction between environmental protection and economic development, and the interaction between EU and international environmental law. The chapter illustrates the very broad and ambitious objectives of EU environmental law, its progressive development and its continuing challenges, distinguishing areas of the EU environmental acquis that appear at different stages of development. Attention is focused on cutting-edge regulatory approaches in relation to freshwater and climate change. This chapter also demonstrates that the study of EU environmental law would not be complete without an understanding of the role of the EU as a global environmental actor, proactively engaged in the development and implementation of international environmental law. To a significant extent, EU environmental law aims to fulfil the international environmental obligations of the Union and/or its Member States. In addition, the EU increasingly develops its internal environmental regulation to anticipate or even influence the making of international environmental law.
Chapter
Celebrated for their conceptual clarity, titles in the Clarendon Law Series offer concise, accessible overviews of major fields of law and legal thought. This chapter discusses the development of international environmental law. It first considers the Behring Sea Fur Seal arbitration in 1893, as early stirrings of the subject. It then turns to developments after 1945, including the Stockholm Declaration 1972; and the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) that resulted in two documents: the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, which sets out principles designed to reconcile environmental and developmental needs, and Agenda 21, which included proposals on ways to tackle ‘the delicate balance between environmental and developmental concerns’ in the twenty-first century. Next the chapter discusses techniques employed to achieve the aims of international agreements, including prohibitions, setting targets, information and informed consent, environmental impact assessment, licensing, monitoring and reporting, safe procedures and cleaning up, and liability.
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Planning law regulates development. Given that environmental problems are often caused by development, planning law has an important role to play in environmental law. With that said, planning law is a vast subject. This chapter provides a basic introduction to planning law and its relationship to environmental law. Its objective is to ensure students have a robust understanding of how planning law works. It begins with a brief overview of the history of planning law, its major themes, and provides a map of the main legal frameworks in planning. It then considers the role of planning policy, the development application process, and the relevance of a range of environmental issues in that process.
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This chapter examines Article 101(3) of the Treaty of Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Article 101(3) provides a ‘legal exception’ to the prohibition in Article 101(1) by providing that it may be declared inapplicable in respect of agreements, decisions or concerted practices, or of categories of agreements, decisions or concerted practices, that satisfy four conditions. After making some preliminary comments on the application of Article 101(3), this chapter discusses the four conditions in Article 101(3). It then considers the implications of Regulation 1/2003 for undertakings and their professional advisers, and in particular their need to ‘self-assess’ the application of Article 101(3) to agreements. The final section of this chapter describes the system of so-called ‘block exemptions’.
