Ludwig Krämer

Transnational Access to Environmental Information

This paper traces back the efforts, in particular in Europe, to promote transnational legal provisions which grant a right of access to environmental information. Initiatives in the 1970 s failed to establish a fundamental right to a clean environment. However, the establishment of fundamental procedural rights of access to information, participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters has been more successful – culminating in the 1998 Aarhus Convention. This paper describes the – until now unsuccessful – attempts to extend the territorial scope of application of the Aarhus Convention to non-European countries and regions, and ultimately the conclusion of a global convention on access to environmental information.

Environmental judgments by the Court of Justice and their duration

This article discusses some data concerning the environmental jurisdiction of the EC Court of Justice during 2006 and 2007, and compares them with previous years. During this time, the Court—including the Court of First Instance—issued about one decision per week. The majority of cases concerned nature conservation issues, followed by waste and air-climate change matters. About two thirds of all cases were submitted to the Court by the European Commission. Preliminary cases (Article 234 EC Treaty) took, on average, a time of 19 months, cases under Article 230 21 months, and cases under Article 226 EC Treaty 18 months. However, if one includes in the cases under Article 226 the compulsory pre-judicial period, the average duration of procedures was 47 months, thus almost four years. A closer analysis of the data reveals that this long duration is mainly attributable to the EC Commission.

Enforcement of Environmental Law

‘ is Research Collection by Ludwig Krämer lls a gap in the legal research related to the enforcement of environmental law. It provides a well reasoned and comprehensive collection of the existing literature on this topic, analysed from di erent perspectives (international, European and national) as well as covering di erent aspects, ranging from methodological to substantive issues. e book represents an indispensable reference point for all scholars interested in understanding the most relevant aspects and the most important lessons to be learnt related to the enforcement of environmental law.’ – Massimiliano Montini, University of Siena, Italy

Access to Environmental Justice: the Double Standards of the ECJ

In its findings of 27 June 2016, the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee concluded that European Union “failed to comply with Article 9 paragraphs 3 and 4 of the Convention with regard to access to justice by members of the public, because neither the Aarhus legislation nor the jurisprudence of the ECJ implements or complies with the obligations under these paragraphs”. Against this backdrop, the present contribution retraces the jurisprudence of the ECJ on access to justice in environmental matters, evaluates its compatibility with the Aarhus Convention and compares it with the ECJ’s practice in economic cases, in particular in the area of State aid. It is shown, i. a., that the ECJ denies NGOs access to justice with regard to acts and omissions of EU institutions and how this is in breach with both EU environmental laws and Article 9(3) of the Aarhus Convention. It is also shown that the Court of Justice is much stricter with regard to the admissibility of actions which try to protect the environment than it is with regard to actions, where economic interests are at stake.

Impact Assessment and Environmental Costs in eu Legislation

Since 2002, the eu Commission assesses the economical, social and environmental effects of its legislative proposals and other significant initiatives. The impact assessment reports are published, together with the Commission’s proposal. The present paper selected ten files and examined, how the environmental effects of the different options were assessed. It concluded that the choice of the options for policy action was aligned to the political agenda, but did not conform to objective scientific and neutral criteria.

Climate change and EU legal initiatives regarding water availability

Discussions on climate change legislation concentrate on measures relating to the emission of greenhouse gases. The present contribution tries to have a look at the impact of water availability within the European Union and to examine the need for EU legislation in this area, starting from the fact that the EU has, until now, not considered water availability to be a topic which deserves specific attention by the Union. The articles points at the serious impact which water scarcity is likely to have in particular, though not exclusively, in Southern European countries and passes in review a number of possible options for EU wide legislation.

The Contribution of the European Union to Marine Pollution Prevention

In public international law the European Union (EU) is called an organisation for regional economic integration, however, its environmental duty goes beyond economic integration, and is global in scope. The EU has fixed itself on the objective of “promoting measures at international level to deal with regional or worldwide environmental problems.”1 It has ratified all of the main UN environmental conventions, in particular, the Convention on the Law of the Sea.2 However, it is widely considered that EU foreign policy is at present largely rhetoric. The lack of sincere policy also affects foreign environmental issues and protection of the marine environment. Indeed, the EC has not developed a consistent policy to address the protection of the marine environment, either at the global or regional level.

The EU Directive 2014/89 Establishing a Framework for Maritime Spatial Planning

Directive 2013/89 introduces the obligation for Member States to draw up and implement maritime spatial plans. According to the 19 th recital of the Directive the main purpose of maritime spatial planning is to promote sustainable development and to identify the utilization of maritime space for different sea uses as well as to manage spatial uses and conflicts in marine areas. The following contribution analyses the genesis and main instruments of the Directive and it concludes that Directive will probably fail to achieve this objective.

Spain and Coal, the Environment and EU Law

Mining of indigenous Spanish coal has been heavily subsidized ever since 1986, and recently, the European Commission authorized a further amount of State aid of 2.3 billion in order to facilitate the closure of uncompetitive coal mines in Spain by 2018. These subsidies are paid regardless of the facts that: the indigenous coal is of minor quality and not needed to ensure safe energy supply in Spain; the combustion of coal is causing excessive greenhouse gas emissions and most coal-fired Spanish power plants are widely exceeding regular EU emission limit values; considerable investments will have to be made, in order to eventually comply with the requirements of EU law. However, supposed that these investments are made, there is no reason for the plant owners to participate in a coal phase-out. The present article provides a detailed analysis of these critical aspects of Spanish and European coal policy.

The Commission’s Omission to Use Article 267 TFEU as a Tool to Enforce EU Environmental Law

The present contributions examines if and to what extent preliminary judgments by the Court of Justice were used as an enforcement tool and helped the full legal and practical application of EU environmental legislation. Looking at available data about the use of this procedure and at the enforcement practice of Member States and the EU commission it is concluded that neither the means of preliminary reference according to Article 267 nor the infringement procedure under Article 258 TFEU are systematically exploited for effective enforcement of EU environmental law. In particular, it becomes evident, that Commission does not assume its role as environmental law enforcement authority. It rather acts as an opportunist political body which sometimes takes into consideration the rule of law, but sometimes not.