Les veritables lacunes du droit de l'environnement

In: Pouvoirs: revue française d'études constitutionnelles et politiques, Heft 127, S. 123-133

Abstract

The loopholes in environmental law are not so much the result of the insufficient number of legal documents as of their inefficiency. This inefficiency is due as much to the fact that they are not implemented as to a basic weakness with regards to other branches of the law. At the national level, the multiplication of documents a source of discretionary and sometimes arbitrary power , the inappropriateness of jurisdictional procedures for environmental law, the rules of the burden of proof which make the situation of victims highly unequal and unfair, and the ambiguous role of public authorities all contribute to the fact that environmental law remains a minor law in its criminal and civil branches, and is rather inefficient in its administrative branch. In the absence of criminal charge, the law of liability, which should be the most efficient tool, is hampered by a number of derogatory common law regimes that have allowed the repetition of scandals such as Metal Europe. At the international level, the lack of world governance and of juridictional penalty attached to the Multilateral Conventions on the Environment means that environmental law remains a highly virtual reality. Adapted from the source document.