Ceri Warnock, Environmental Courts and Tribunals: Power, Integrity and the Search for Legitimacy
DOI | 10.3366/gels.2022.0070 |
Author | |
Pages | 112-116 |
Date | 01 February 2022 |
Published date | 01 February 2022 |
Interpretation of environmental law at all levels has a complex legal system. As legal practice evolves through scientific and technical evidence, predicting future impact and balancing the conflicting economic, social, and environmental demands of sustainable development becomes complex. This book discusses an innovative theoretical subject for specialist environment courts by focusing on practitioners through engagement with the new forum. It also examines the issues of exploitation of specialized environmental courts and tribunals and acknowledges the contribution made by the judges and commission of the New Zealand Environment Court and New South Wales Land and Environment Court. This book discusses the theory and the need for the establishment of a special court and tribunal. Since the institutional structure is under the same legislative regime, judicial reasoning differs, reflecting a subtly different understanding of the court's role in making decisions and developing the law.
This book has seven chapters, 221 pages, and provides the reader with a mapping of the specialist environment courts (ECs). Chapter one examines the distinct feature of the environmental court in the legal landscape, and how a court decision impacts the environmental, social-cultural, and economic wellbeing of the nation. The oldest ECs are found in Australia, and some are new in India and China. But there is no theory that justifies the open criticism and susceptibility of the decline of varying ideologies with power, functions, duties. The author seeks to develop a universally applicable theory – interactional theory for normative legitimacy – for specialist environmental adjudication for the environment courts and tribunals. This theory will be useful to policymakers, the judiciary, and litigants. This theory illustrates how to foster effective environmental dispute resolution while ensuring adjudicative integrity through special ECs. But ECs and tribunals have been seen as politically controversial, fostering an environmental ethic that gets in the way of economic development. It is more challenging to the traditional notion of court-based adjudication and separation of power concepts.
Chapter two focuses on how ECs and tribunals vary from conventional courts and have a diversity of functions. The author highlights a three-dimensional concept of what the institution is (Constitution, power, duties, functions, and procedures), why it was created (its purpose and value)...
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