Session 3: Introduction

to Environmental Law
Associate Professor Deng Haifeng

Kathmandu, Nepal
23-26 November 2018
1. Core Principles of Environmental Law
Design principles (to be considered when drafting
environmental laws)
1 Polluter pays principle (and economic instruments
generally):
• All individuals and organizations that discharge
pollutants into the environment shall pay a certain
fee in accordance with certain standards to
compensate for the losses caused by their pollution
behavior. Payment will prompt polluters to take
measures to control pollution, or enable
government and other management departments to
obtain corresponding income to control pollution
1. Core Principles of Environmental Law
2) Public participation, access to justice, access to
information:
• It can guarantee the full exercise of the rights of the
general public to participate in environmental
protection management. Because the quality of the
environment is directly related to the quality of life
of everyone and the right to pursue a happy life.
1. Core Principles of Environmental Law
3) Prevention principle
Precautionary principle:
• Where there are threats of serious or irreversible
environmental damage, lack of full scientific certainty
should not be used as a reason for postponing
measures to prevent environmental degradation.”
• At the international level, the 1980 World
Conservation Programme provided for “expected
environmental policies” and the 1982 United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea proposed the
precautionary principle.
1. Core Principles of Environmental Law
4 Sustainable Development Principle
• The concept of sustainable development was originally
proposed by the World Commission on Environment and
Development in the 1987 report “Our Common Future”.
• It advocates not only meeting the needs of the present,
but also jeopardizing the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs.
• In other words, it refers to the coordinated
development of economy, society, resources and
environmental protection.
1. Core Principles of Environmental Law
In 1995, the famous international environmental law scholar
Philip Sands summarized the principles of sustainable
development as:
a. intergenerational equity,
b. within generation equity,
c. sustainable use,
d. and integration of environment and development.
Since the United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development in 1992, the idea of sustainable development
has been gradually accepted by the international community
and integrated into important international environmental
legal documents, such as the Convention on Biological
Diversity and the Framework Agreement on Climate Change.
1. Core Principles of Environmental Law
5 The Principle of Not Causing Damage to the
Environment or Areas Beyond the Limits of National
Jurisdiction
• United Nations declaration of the human environment
adopted in 1972 regulated that :
In accordance with the UN Charter and the principles of
international law, countries have the sovereign right to
develop resources in accordance with environmental
policies, and they also have the responsibility to ensure
that they do not harm the environment of other
countries or the environment outside the jurisdiction of
each country.
1. Core Principles of Environmental Law
6 Common but Differentiated Responsibilities
Principle
It was determined at the Rio Conference.
a. The common b. A differentiated
responsibility ——“the responsibility ——“there
responsibility and is a difference between
obligations of all this common
countries to protect the responsibility between
global environment are developed and
common”. developing countries”.
 2. Scope of Environmental Law
Environmental law is potentially very broad in its scope
1) Environmental planning and impact assessment:
Environmental planning:
• The purpose is to guide people to carry out various
environmental protection activities, rationally allocate
emission reductions, constrain the behavior of polluters,
improve the ecological environment, prevent resource
destruction, strive to obtain the best environmental
benefits with minimum investment, and promote the
environment, economy and sustainable development of
society.
Environmental impact assessment:
• the analysis and demonstration of the possible
environmental impacts of the proposed human activities,
and on the basis of this, people can propose the prevention
measures and countermeasures.
2. Scope of Environmental Law
2) Environmental protection and pollution:
• Environmental protection originated from people's
treatment of pollution, so the relationship between
them is close.
3) Protection of biodiversity, and natural and cultural
heritage:
• Biodiversity is an important component in
maintaining ecological balance and promoting the
harmonious development between man and nature.
2. Scope of Environmental Law
4) The protection and sustainable use of natural resources:
• Fully, rational, economical and efficient use of existing
resources and continuous development of new alternative
resources can ensure the sustainable use of resources by
human beings and meet the needs of contemporary and
future generations.
5) Climate change and energy law:
• 1.What we can know is that climate change will bring great
harm to all mankind, so we must pay attention to this issue.
• 2. The energy law mainly regulates the social relations in the
development, utilization and management activities of
energy, and then ensure safe, efficient and sustainable
energy supply.
3.Sources of international environmental law
Main sources:
a. Treaty
• Treaties are the main source of international environmental law,
including bilateral, multilateral, regional and global treaties on
environmental issues.
• The treaty creates rights and obligations for the parties.
• However, due to the characteristics and nature of international
environmental law, environmental treaties have some characteristics of
their own. For example, in the form of treaties, environmental treaties
mostly adopt the form of “framework convention + protocol + annex”.
b. International Custom
• International habits are ancient sources that existed before the treaty
appeared.
• Because the treaty cannot contain everything and international habits
arise from practice, international habits are still important sources.
Other “sources”(complementary, not true source):
a. General Principles of Law(used less)
• It is difficult to clarify its true meaning. It is generally
considered to be the general principle of domestic law
recognized by the state.
b. Judicial Precedent
• Supplementary information only for determining legal
principles
c. International Law Theory
• Just a potential source, they have little effect in practice.
d. Legal documents such as resolutions of international
organizations
• Has a high legal value, not a true source
 4. Hard and Soft Environmental
Law
Soft law refers to those laws that cannot be enforced by state enforcement.
Soft law is relative to hard law, and hard law refers to those laws that can rely
on national coercive force to ensure implementation.
The vast majority of international environmental law is soft law.
International treaties and international soft law are not one or the other. Any
international treaty has varying degrees of softness and hardness.
1) Hard Law:
• Some treaties stipulate specific rights and obligations, have certain binding
force and enforcement power, and have certain dispute resolution
mechanisms.
2) Soft Law:
• a. Mainly refers some normative documents that are not legally binding and
coercive(such as declaration, resolution, action plan….)
• made by international organizations or international conferences.
Although the documents themselves are not legally binding, they strongly
influence and promote the development of international environmental law
and have strong political and moral influence.
5. Institutional Arrangements
HISTORY:
Since the 1970s, with the deepening of the understanding
of environmental issues and the development of
environmental management ideas, various countries have
begun to set up government agencies specializing in
environmental protection through environmental
legislation.
Environmental management power is gradually
concentrated in the central government, and countries
gradually form a unified environmental supervision and
management system.
From the end of the 1980s to the present, under the
guidance of the idea of sustainable development, the
institutions and functions of environmental management in
various countries have changed.
NOWADAYS
Due to different political, legal, economic, historical and other factors, the
environmental management systems of different countries are also
different.
Divided by function:
1) Establish an environmental protection agency mainly responsible for
pollution prevention(e. g. US)

2) Establish a management agency responsible for pollution prevention

and nature protection(e. g. South Korea)

3) Establish an integrated agency for environmental management and

natural resource management(e. g. Russia)

4) Establish a management department that combines environmental

and urban construction or other public affairs(e. g. Brazil)
6. Regulatory Tools:
Standards, Approvals, Licenses
1) Environmental standard
Most countries impose mandatory environmental
standards that are applicable to administrative actions
directly in the law.
Overall, environmental standards can be divided into:
1.environmental quality standards
2.pollutant discharge standards
3.environmental foundation standards
4.environmental monitoring analytical method standards
5.environmental reference material standards
 6. Regulatory tools:
standards, approvals, licenses
2) Environmental administrative approvals and licenses

• The environmental administrative license refers to the

administrative decision of the environmental law
enforcement agency to grant or permit the relative
person to engage in certain activities according to the
law according to the application of the relative person.
6. Regulatory Tools:
Standards, Approvals, Licenses
2. Made by
authorized
environmental law
enforcement
agencies, in most
cases by
General environmental
procedure: protection agencies

1. Relative 3. Generally, a
person's written form such
application is a as a permit or
prerequisite approval certificate
is issued to the
opposite person.
7. Economic Tools: Pollution Taxes
and Emissions Trading Systems
1) Pollution taxes
• In order to protect the environment, many countries have
established their own environmental pollution taxation system
under the guidance of tax theory.
E. g.
• The Netherlands is the country with an early environmental
protection tax. The taxes designed for environmental protection
mainly include fuel tax, noise tax and water pollution tax. It is also
the first country in the world to levy a carbon tax.
• In 1984, Italy levied waste recycling fees as a source of funds for
local governments to dispose of waste.
• France has levied a tax on deforestation.
• The EU has also imposed a carbon tax.
7. Economic Tools: Pollution Taxes
and Emissions Trading Systems
2) Carbon emissions trading
• an important mechanism for using the market
economy to promote environmental protection.
• allows companies to trade with carbon emissions
saved by energy savings within the total amount of
emissions specified.
 8. Enforcement Mechanisms
Violations of environmental laws may result in civil or criminal liability.
In order to protect the implementation of environmental laws and regulate the
development and utilization of the environment, the corresponding legal
responsibilities of environmental law are very necessary.

1) Civil liability
• Environmental civil liability refers to the responsibility caused by violation of
environmental protection laws and regulations, causing pollution damage or
environmental damage, and at the same time infringing on the legitimate rights
and interests of others.
• It is generally reflected in a special tort liability.
• The means of taking responsibility mainly include stopping the infringement,
removing the obstacles and harms, eliminating the dangers and harmful
consequences, restoring the original state of the environment, and compensating
for the losses.
 2) Criminal liability
• Environmental criminal liability means that the
perpetrator has intentionally or negligently committed
a serious environmental hazard, and caused personal
injury or serious loss of public and private property.
• This kind of behavior has already constituted a crime
and should be subject to criminal sanctions.
• Compared with other types of criminal responsibility,
the object of environmental criminal responsibility is
more special.
• It generally has the characteristics of compliance, which
mainly includes property ownership and personal rights
that have been infringed by violations of various
environmental factors and natural resources.
 9. Conclusion
• Environmental law has developed rapidly
since the 1950s and 1960s.
• As a law regulating environmental legal relations,
environmental law has the characteristics of
comprehensiveness, technology, and extensive
social and commonality.
YOUR GROUPS
Nepal Nepal
GROUP 1 GROUP 2

Bhutan DIVIDE Bangladesh

GROUP 5 GROUP 3
Bangladesh
GROUP 4
YOUR TOOLS

+
YOUR QUESTIONS

How are the core principles and instruments of

environmental law reflected in your country?
YOUR TASKS

1 Free-form discussion

2 Write up any key points

3 Select someone to report back

YOUR TIME

25 MINUTES 3 MINUTES

discussion report-back
write up 1 / group
REFLECTIONS ON THE METHODOLOGY
• Nature & Purpose of the Methodology
• Division of Groups
• Preparations
• Free Form Discussion
• Process
• Instructions
• Discussion
• Feedback
• Large Group Discussion