Environmental Principles: From Political Slogans to Legal Rules

Front Cover
Oxford University Press, 2002 - 433 pages
Environmental law has always responded to risks posed by industrial society but the new generation of risks have required a new set of environmental principles, emerging from a combination of public fears, science, ethics and established legal practice. This book shows how three of the most important principles of modern environmental law grew out of this new age of ecological risk: the polluter pays principle, the preventive principle and the precautionary principle. The author examines the legal force of these principles and in the process offers a novel theory of norm formation in environmental law by unearthing new grounds of legality.

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Contents

List of Abbreviations
xi
Tables of Cases
xix
Tables of Legislation
xxix
General Introduction
1
THE POLLUTERPAYS PREVENTION
11
THE PRINCIPLE OF PREVENTION
71
THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE
84
Conclusions
225
Environmental law bears the marks of postmodernity
251
Concluding observations
260
protection
275
ན ངའ
286
Directing principles hard cases and the weighing of conflicting
289
THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE DIRECTING PRINCIPLES
305
The effects of directing principles of environmental law on litigation
333
Concluding observations
339

THEORETICAL PRESENTATION OF MODERN
233
21
237
61
243
Postmodern law
245
Conclusions
367
Bibliography
399
Index
421
Copyright

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About the author (2002)

Nicolas de Sadeleer teaches environmental law at the Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis in Brussels, where he is Director of their Environmental Law Centre, CEDRE. He was awarded a PhD with distinction in 1998 by Saint-Louis for his work on the application of environmental law principles to positive law. An updated version of the thesis was published in November 1999 in Belgium and Paris (Les principes du pollueur-payeur, de prévention et de précaution, Brussels, Bruylant/ Paris, AUF, 1999, 437 pp.). He is a guest lecturer in Université catholique de Louvain. He is also a member of the IUCN and sits on the board of Environment Law Network International.

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