This chapter deals with public participation in environmental law and policy. Over recent years, there have been significant moves towards increasing both the quantity and quality of public participation in many different areas of environmental decision-making. The exact nature of public participation can take many forms, but the chapter concentrates on access to information on the environment and public participation in environmental decision-making. It also looks at some of the reasons for giving greater access to environmental information; the types of environmental information that are available; the use of environmental information as a regulatory instrument; international and European initiatives; and past, present, and future approaches to access to environmental information in the UK.
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Chapter
9. Public participation
Stuart Bell, Donald McGillivray, Ole W. Pedersen, Emma Lees, and Elen Stokes
Chapter
20. Environmental Assessment
Environmental impact assessment (EIA) and other related forms of assessment require decision-makers to take into account the environmental implications of an activity before making a decision about those acitvities. EIA is a feature of most environmental law systems of the world. This chapter is an overview of the Environmental impact assessment (EIA) and strategic environmental assessment (SEA) legal regimes in the EU and how they have been implemented into English law. It provides an overview of the distinctive legal nature of both EIA and SEA, the main legal features of each directive, and how they have been implemented into national law. A significant feature of this chapter is that it provides an overview of the case law of the CJEU and UK courts concerninig these regimes.
Chapter
19. The conservation of nature
Stuart Bell, Donald McGillivray, Ole W. Pedersen, Emma Lees, and Elen Stokes
This chapter looks at the laws that aim specifically to protect plants, animals, the natural habitats—and, increasingly, the ecosystems—of which they are a part. This is an important part of environmental law, not least because of the appalling rate of decline in, and loss of, the natural environment, but also due to the obvious public interest in conserving biodiversity. Using the law to conserve nature, however, involves finding solutions to some complex policy issues. Finding space for species and habitats to be conserved often clashes with other legitimate social interests, such as economic development and respect for private property. These tensions—which mean that nature conservation law can be a controversial policy area—are a central theme of the chapter.
Chapter
2. History and challenges
Stuart Bell, Donald McGillivray, Ole W. Pedersen, Emma Lees, and Elen Stokes
This chapter broadly considers the origins and evolution of environmental law and policy. It then moves on to look at some of the key challenges for the future, and at possible trends in environmental law and in the costs of complying—and not complying—with environmental law. Environmental controls have a long history, going back to medieval statutes on small-scale pollution and the development of private law principles to deal with threats to property and communal assets such as water. Of course, until recently, few would have thought of these laws as part of something called ‘environmental law’ because their main focus was on the protection of private and common property. The adequacy of private law, in particular, fell far short of an effective protection regime, even for affected individuals.
Chapter
1. What is Environmental Law?
This chapter provides an introductory overview to environmental law including the way the subject is defined and the challenges involved in studying it. As with other chapters in this book, this introductory chapter provides an advanced introduction to environmental law containing carefully selected abstracts from cases, legislation, and academic debate. The chapter begins with an overview of the environmental law landscape in the UK and moves on to describe three different ways to define environmental law—descriptively, purposively, and jurisprudential—and why these different definitions matter. The challenges of practising and studying environmental law are explored and in the last section a framework is provided for structuring environmental law inquiry. Overall, the chapter provides a launching off point for the study of environmental law as well as a reference point for those who are studying the subject.
Chapter
10. Environmental Law in the Legal Culture of the United Kingdom
This chapter is an overview of the legal cultures within the UK as they relate to environmental law. The focus here is on England, but the scope of analysis is across the UK and includes discussion of the devolved regions. The purpose of the chapter is to give the reader not only a general overview of the main features of these cultures but also to highlight much of its complexity. In particular, the uniqueness of much of UK environmental law means that one must be wary of transplanting ideas and assumptions about environmental law from other jurisdictions. The chapter thus begins with a basic discussion of legal culture.
Chapter
1. What is environmental law? A brief introduction
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
12. International Environmental Law
The concern and awareness about the need for environmental protection has increased dramatically, both nationally and internationally, in the last few decades. One way of putting this concern into action is the law, being a means to structure and regulate behaviour. International environmental law includes many treaties and declarations, a body of State practice and some compliance mechanisms, as well as a development towards the introduction of flexible instruments to achieve compliance. This chapter discusses the context of international environmental law; environmental theories; international obligations; selected environmental treaties; and the relationship of the environment with other international law issues.
Chapter
21. Nature Conservation
This chapter focuses on nature conservation law. This area of law includes a diverse range of legal regimes which are concerned with protecting the natural environment and includes laws that protect individual species and laws that protection particular areas. Nature conversation regimes exist at the national, EU and international level. The reasons for protection can vary as can by the types of law included in these regimes.
Chapter
4. Public Law
This chapter explains the important role that public law, particularly administrative law, plays in environmental law. This role comes about because much of environmental law requires vesting decision-making and regulatory power in the hands of public decision-makers at all levels of government. This chapter begins by providing an overview of the different constituent elements of public law: constitutional law, administrative law, the role of the EU and international law, as well the complexities of this area of law. The chapter then moves on to consider the way in which the different types of interests involved in environmental problems and the need for information and expertise provide challenges for public law. The chapter then provides an overview of four major features of public law that are particularly relevant to environmental lawyers: the Aarhus Convention, accountability mechanisms, judicial review, and human rights.
Chapter
3. Private Law
This chapter provides an overview of different areas of private law and their relationship to environmental law including property law, tort law, contract law, and private law. The chapter begins by showing how the role of private law in addressing environmental problems is due to environmental law being applied law. Sections 3.3, 3.4, 3.5 and 3.6 give an overview of property law, tort law, contract law, and company law and their relationship to environmental law. This analysis shows that private law has a role in framing our understanding of environmental law and environmental problems, while environmental law and environmental problems also shape understandings of private law, and of property law in particular. The final section concludes by discussing the multi-dimensional nature of the interrelationship between private law, environmental problems, and environmental law in more detail.
Chapter
7. Courts
Courts play an important role in environmental law. Among other things, they uphold the rule of law and adjudicate on the legal disputes that inevitably arise. This chapter explores the role of courts in environmental law. It outlines why courts are understood to be important in environmental law, what courts are, the different types of courts relevant to UK and EU environmental law, the importance of access to justice, and the actual and potential role of specialist environmental courts. Overall, what is apparent from this chapter is not only that the role of courts is an important one, but that it is also complex.
Chapter
8. Principle and Policy
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.
Chapter
14. International Environmental Law
The concern and awareness about the need for environmental protection has increased dramatically, both nationally and internationally, in the last few decades. International environmental law offers a means to structure and regulate behaviour in this area. It now includes many treaties and declarations, a body of State practice and some compliance mechanisms, as well as a development towards the introduction of flexible instruments to achieve compliance. This chapter discusses the context of international environmental law; environmental theories, including some of the differences between approaches in the Global South and the Global North; international obligations; selected environmental treaties; and the relationship of the environment with other international law issues, such as human rights, Indigenous Peoples, armed conflict and trade, as well as dealing with some climate change issues.
Book
Elizabeth Fisher, Bettina Lange, and Eloise Scotford
All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing able students with a stand-alone resource. Environmental Law: Text, Cases & Materials provides students with a deep understanding of environmental law while also encouraging critical reflection of legal reasoning and pointing out areas of controversy and debate. The authors present a wide range of extracts from UK, EU, and international cases, legislation, and articles to help support learning and demonstrate both how the law works in practice and how it should or could work, clearly guiding students through key areas while providing insightful explanations and analysis. Topics have been carefully selected to support a wide range of environmental law courses, within law school and beyond. These include pollution control, nature conservation, climate change regulation, town planning, and water regulation, all incorporating aspects of law from local, UK, EU and international legal cultures. With its unique combination of extracts and author discussion, this new edition provides a wide-ranging, stimulating, and fresh approach to environmental law, which can be relied upon throughout your course and career. This book is also accompanied by an Online Resource Centre that features updates to the law, further reading suggestions, and useful weblinks.
Chapter
12. Town and country planning
Stuart Bell, Donald McGillivray, Ole W. Pedersen, Emma Lees, and Elen Stokes
This chapter discusses the UK system of town and country planning, which plays a central role in environmental law because of its enormous importance in relation to locational issues, as well as in determining how much of any particular activity is allowed in any place and the intensity of such development. However, town and country planning is not only about environmental protection: it has a wider role in organizing economic development. In balancing economic, political, social, and environmental factors to do with development in a democratic context, it ought to be a key mechanism for making development more sustainable. The chapter deals with town and country planning law, rather than the role of planning-type mechanisms in general. The law now requires various plans relating to the environment, such as the national strategies for air and waste, and river basin plans for water quality regulation, while there are also non-statutory plans, such as local transport plans, and informal plans, such as local Environment Agency plans.
Chapter
22. International Environmental Law
Catherine Redgwell
The development of international environmental law is typically divided into three periods. The first demonstrates little genuine environmental awareness but rather views environmental benefits as incidental to largely economic concerns such as the exploitation of living natural resources. The second demonstrates a significant rise in the number of treaties directed to pollution abatement and to species and habitat conservation. Here an overt environmental focus is evident, yet the approach is still largely reactive and piecemeal. The final phase, which characterizes current international environmental law, demonstrates a precautionary approach to environmental problems of global magnitude such as biodiversity conservation and climate change. Concern transcends individual States, with certain global problems now considered the common concern of humankind. This chapter defines international environmental law, its key sources and actors, and difficulties of enforcement, before embarking on a sectoral examination of the extensive treaty law applicable in this field.
Chapter
23. International Environmental Law
Catherine Redgwell and Eva R van der Marel
The development of international environmental law is typically divided into three periods. The first demonstrates little genuine environmental awareness but rather views environmental benefits as incidental to largely economic concerns such as the exploitation of living natural resources. The second demonstrates a significant rise in the number of treaties directed to pollution abatement and to species and habitat protection. Here an overt environmental focus is evident, yet the approach is still largely reactive and piecemeal. The final phase, which characterizes current international environmental law, demonstrates a precautionary approach to environmental problems of global magnitude such as biodiversity conservation and climate change. Concern transcends individual States, with certain global problems now considered the common concern of humankind. This chapter defines international environmental law, its key sources and actors, as well as the difficulties of implementation, compliance, and enforcement.
Chapter
2. Understanding Environmental Problems
This chapter is an introduction to environmental problems specifically written for those studying environmental law. Understanding environmental problems is not just of passing academic interest, but is, rather, essential for understanding environmental law. A good environmental lawyer has a sophisticated appreciation of environmental problems and understands in particular how their nature impacts on environmental law and practice. The extracts in the chapter are thus not just optional background reading but are essential for understanding the subject. This chapter covers the collective nature of environmental problems, the role and limits of knowledge in identifying and addressing environmental problems, the nature of environmental values and the important but contentious role of the state in environmental decision-making.
Book
Anders Henriksen
International Law provides comprehensive and concise coverage of the central issues in public international law. The text takes a critical perspective on various aspects of international law, introducing the controversies and areas of debate without assuming prior knowledge of the topics discussed. Supporting learning features, including central issues boxes, chapter summaries, recommended reading and discussion questions, highlight the essential points. Topics covered include the history of international law, legal sources, the law of treaties, legal personality, jurisdiction and state immunity. The text also looks at the international law of the sea, human rights law, international environmental law, international economic law, the peaceful settlement of disputes, the use of force, the laws of armed conflict and international criminal law.
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