Reflections on 30 years of EU environmental law. A high level of protection?

Abstract:

Environmental law is now a major body of European law, in stark contrast to thirty years ago when it was considered to be outside the competence of the European Community. This work relates the progress made during those thirty years.

The book is organised over twenty eight chapters. Chapters one and two cover the establishment of environmental law as a competence within EC law, then chapter three makes an assessment of the environmental impact in EC law. Public information and participation in EC environmental law is dealt with in chapter four, with particular attention given to the Aarhus Convention. Chapter five looks at the EU and climate change. There then follow a number of chapters dealing with the environmental aspects of EC policies on labelling, liability, energy, transport and chemicals, as well as competition and environment. Products and the environment are covered in chapter twelve. Transnational law making and EC product policy are the focus of chapter thirteen, while chapter fourteen examines European waste management.

Various areas having environmental issues are dealt with in the next four chapters: marine safety, biotechnology, biodiversity and noise law. Chapter nineteen examines some proposals for reform of enforcement procedures; this is followed by a chapter on the matching of tasks and competences, then the role of the ECJ in the implementation of environmental law is examined. The role of NGOs in European consumer and environmental law is dealt with in chapter twenty two. A closer scrutiny of proposals for a Regulation on the application of the provisions of the Aarhus Convention to EC institutions and bodies is made in chapter twenty three. Chapter twenty four examines the need to consolidate EU environmental law from a Polish perspective, and the impact of EC environmental law on Portuguese law is the focus of chapter twenty five. Environmental law issues relating to the accession countries are explored in chapter twenty six, then in chapter twenty seven the international trade and environmental protection aspects are discussed. The final chapter offers a round-up of thirty years of environmental governance in the European Union by Ludwig Kramer, a leading and distinguished enthusiast for environmental law and a prodigious scholar in the field.

The work will interest scholars and students, researchers and practitioners in Environmental Law.