European Community Environmental Law: Legislation, the European Court of Justice and Common‐Interest Groups
| Published date | 01 September 1990 |
| Date | 01 September 1990 |
| Author | Philippe Sands |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1990.tb01834.x |
European Community Environmental Law:
Legislation, the European Court
of
Justice and
Common-Interest Groups
Philippe
Sands
*
Introduction
European Community (EC) environmental law and policy has come a long way since the
Council of the European Communities (Council) approved the first EC Action Programme
on the Environment in 1973,’ following a declaration on the environment by the Heads
of
State and government of the nine members in October 1972. Since then the EC has
adopted three further Action Programmes on the Environment* and more than one
hundred and
fifty
acts of secondary environmental legi~lation.~ It now seems possible to
imagine as an emerging legal reality a Single European Environment, recognising the
physical reality that EC Member States share a common environment which transcends
national boundaries.
The EC’s environmental policies are now keenly followed by the public, corporations
and common-interest groups (as defined by the Commission) committed to the protection
of
the environment. The latter, traditionally hostile to the EC as an engine of economic
development, have begun to play a key role in shaping both the legislative programme,
through lobbying the Commission of the European Communities (Commission) and the
European Parliament as well as Member State governments, and the enforcement
of
legis-
lation, principally by notifying the Commission of violations by Member States of EC
environmental law,4 but also by using EC law to achieve environmental
objective^.^
The EC environmental law and policy which is emerging raises a number of questions:
how will the EC achieve a balance between the original, and still dominant, objective
of
economic development and integration, and the new, and still subsidiary, objective
*Director, Centre for International Environmental Law (CIEL), School of Law, Kings College London.
1
2
3
(For the period 1973-76), OJ 1973 C112/1.
Second Programme (1977-81) OJ 1977 C39/1; Third Programme (1982-86)
OJ
1983 C46/1; Fourth
Programme (1987-92) OJ 1987 C328/1.
Secondary EC environmental legislation includes Regulations, Directives and Decisions under the EEC
Treaty and Euratom. For a detailed account of the Community’s secondary environmental legislation
see
N.
Ha&$,
EEC Environmental Policy
and
Britain
(2nd revised ed, 1989) (excluding relevant legislation
on radioactive substances);
S.
Johnson and G. Corcelle,
The Environmental Policy
of
the European
Communities,
1989;
Halsburys
Laws
of
England
(4th ed, 1986)
Vols
51 and 52,
D.
Vaughan (ed)
Law
of
the European Communities,
at Part 8; E. Rehbinder and
R.
Stewart,
Environmental Protection Policy
(1985) (Vol 2 of the series
Integration Through Law: Europe and the American Federal Experience),
Cappelletti, Seccombe and Weiler (Gen eds); Haagsma, ‘The EC’s Environmental Policy: A Case Study
in Federalism,’ 12 Fordham
IIJ
311
(1988).
In 1989 the Commission (Directorate General XI) received
460
notifications of alleged violations from
individuals or common-interest groups (telephone conversation between the author and L. Kramer, Legal
Adviser, DGXI, 7 June, 1990).
See
for example Case 187/87,
Saarland and Others
v
Ministry
of
Industry and Others,
[1989] 1 CMLR
529 where environmental protection groups in the Moselle valley, and others, successfully relied on Article
37 Euratom through a preliminary reference to the ECJ to obtain a judgment from a French court in
respect of a dispute concerning the disposal of radioactive waste from a nuclear power plant. For an
account of the effective use
of
Article 92 of the EEC Treaty by the Council for the Protection of Rural
England to prevent the privatisation of nuclear power
in
England,
see
P. Sands,
The Contribution
of
NWs
to the Progressive Development
of
International Environmental Law,
paper delivered at the 4th Annual
Anglo-Soviet Symposium on International Law, Moscow, May 1990.
4
5
The Modem Law Review
535 September 1990 0026-7961
685
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