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"Science often entails connotations of 'objectivity', 'certainty', and the capability to discover the 'factual truth'. Judicial decisions, in turn, are routinely associated with resolving disputes in a 'final', 'neutral', and 'authoritative' way. Yet international environmental adjudication, where scientific and legal authority get entangled with each other, suggests that neither science nor law can fully live up to these idealized expectations. What happens if science and law yield competing narratives as to the factual basis of a dispute? Who could and should resolve their conflict and how, based on what benchmarks? Would the uncertain, probabilistic nature of scientific input diminish the authority of a legal judgment based upon it?"

Science, which inevitably underlies environmental disputes, poses significant challenges for the scientifically untrained judges who decide such cases. In addition to disrupting ordinary fact-finding and causal inquiry, science can impact the framing of disputes and the standard of review. Judges must therefore adopt various tools to adjust the level of science allowed to enter their deliberations, which may fundamentally impact the legitimacy of their reasoning. While neglecting or replacing scientific authority can erode the convincing nature of judicial reasoning, the same authority, when treated properly, may lend persuasive force to adjudicatory findings, and buttress the legitimacy of judgments. In this work, Katalin Sulyok surveys the environmental case law of seven major jurisdictions and analyzes framing techniques, evidentiary procedures, causal inquiries and standards of review, offering valuable insight into how judges justify their choices between rival scientific claims in a convincing and legitimate manner.

This study examines the ways in which environmental liability for environmental harm is allocated under Hungarian laws and regulations and in the practice of domestic courts. Specifically, it focuses on how laws handle the uncertain nature of causal links between a given pollution and its possible source, and which actors should bear the costs of remediation. The study posits that the uncertain nature of scientific evidence impacts the way environmental liability can be allocated and enforced, as scientific evidence can never establish requisite causal links with absolute certainty. The article first enumerates and discusses the sources of scientific uncertainty and demonstrates that it inescapably burdens scientific evidence. It then examines how laws and regulations in force handle causal uncertainty and the ways in which liability for environmental harm is distributed among various actors. The study concludes with proposing legislative amendments in order to allocate environmental liability in a more equitable way in cases when the causal processes remain inherently uncertain. ; A tanulmány a környezeti felelősség közjogi érvényesítésének szabályait vizsgálja, különös tekintettel arra, hogy a hatályos jogszabályok és a jogalkalmazói gyakorlat az okozati kapcsolat bizonytalanságát hogyan kezeli, és egy szennyezéssel okozott károk feltárására és felszámolására vonatkozó felelősséget kire telepíti. A tanulmány kiindulópontja, hogy a természettudomány eredményeinek bizonytalan mivolta kihat a környezeti felelősség érvényesíthetőségére, mivel egy szennyezés és annak forrása közötti okozati kapcsolatot nem lehet teljes bizonyossággal megállapítani. E cikk először a természettudományos bizonytalanság forrásait ismerteti, kitérve a bizonytalanság immanens jellegére. Majd bemutatja, hogy a kauzalitási bizonytalanságot hogyan kezeli a hatályos jogi szabályozás, végül javaslatokat tesz arra, hogy milyen jogalkotási lépések tennék méltányosabbá a környezeti felelősség telepítését olyan esetekben, amikor nem állapítható meg egyértelműen a kauzalitási kapcsolat a szennyezés és a szennyező között.