Courts and the Environment

455 Pages·2018·5.687 MB·English

by  Christina Voigt (editor), Zen Makuch (editor)

Courts and the Environment
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THE IUCN ACADEMY OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAW SERIES
Founding Series Editors: Kurt Deketelaere, University of Leuven, Belgium and Zen
Makuch, Imperial College London, UK
Editorial Board
Zen Makuch, Imperial College London, UK (Editor in Chief)
Jamie Benidickson, University of Ottawa, Canada (Editor in Chief)
Natasha Affolder, University of British Columbia, Canada
Javier de Cendra, IE Law School, Spain
Veerle Heyvaert, London School of Economics, UK
Francesco Sindico, Strathclyde University, UK
As environmental law increases in importance as an area of legal research, this
series brings together some of the most current research carried out by the IUCN
Academy of Environmental Law, a global network of environmental law scholars.
Each volume in the series addresses an important issue in the field and presents
original research analysis and assessment, along with a much-needed synthesis of
the state of environmental law. Directions as to the positive role that
environmental law can play at a global level are also emphasized. This series
provides essential reading for scholars throughout the world with an interest in
cutting-edge environment-related issues, and will no doubt play an important role
in shaping future debate.
Titles in this series include:
Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads
Edited by Robert V. Percival, Jolene Lin and William Piermattei
Water and the Law
Towards Sustainability
Edited by Michael Kidd, Loretta Feris, Tumai Murombo and Alejandro Iza
The Search for Environmental Justice
Edited by Paul Martin, Sadeq Z. Bigdeli, Trevor Daya-Winterbottom, Willemien du
Plessis and Amanda Kennedy
Implementing Environmental Law
Edited by Paul Martin and Amanda Kennedy
Energy, Governance and Sustainability
Edited by Jordi Jaria i Manzano, Nathalie Chalifour and Louis J. Kotzé
The Law and Policy of Biofuels
Edited by Yves Le Bouthillier, Annette Cowie, Paul Martin and Heather
McLeod-Kilmurray
Protecting Forest and Marine Biodiversity
The Role of Law
Edited by Ed Couzens, Alexander Paterson, Sophie Riley and Yanti Fristikawati
Courts and the Environment
Edited by Christina Voigt and Zen Makuch
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Courts and the
Environment
Edited by
Christina Voigt
Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo, Norway
Zen Makuch
Director, Sustainable Transitions, Imperial College London,
UK; Barrister
THE IUCN ACADEMY OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAW SERIES
Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA
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© The Editors and Contributing Authors Severally 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior
permission of the publisher.
Published by
Edward Elgar Publishing Limited
The Lypiatts
15 Lansdown Road
Cheltenham
Glos GL50 2JA
UK
Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc.
William Pratt House
9 Dewey Court
Northampton
Massachusetts 01060
USA
A catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018954446
This book is available electronically in the
Law subject collection
DOI 10.4337/9781788114677
ISBN 978 1 78811 466 0 (cased)
ISBN 978 1 78811 467 7 (eBook)
Typeset by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire
2
0
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Contents
List of figures viii
List of contributors ix
Courts and the Environment: An Introduction xii
Christina Voigt and Zen Makuch
PART I CONCEPTUALIZING THE ROLE OF COURTS IN
PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT
1. The nature of courts 2
Nicholas A. Robinson
2. Bridging the gap between aspiration and outcomes: the role
of the court in ensuring ecologically sustainable development 35
Justice Brian Preston, Paul Martin and Amanda Kennedy
3. The legitimate role of rights-based approaches to
environmental conflict resolution 59
Trevor Daya-Winterbottom
PART II TAKING THE LEAD: THE COURT AS
TRAILBLAZER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION
4. Ghana’s courts and environmental rule of law 85
Godwin E. K. Dzah
5. Activity of the Brazilian judiciary in the Amazon and
Cerrado biomes aimed at combating global warming 113
Heline Sivini Ferreira, Diogo Andreola Serraglio and Rullyan
Levi Maganhati Mendes
6. Procedural and substantive innovations propounded by the
Indian judiciary in balancing protection of environment and
development: a legal analysis 142
Stellina Jolly and Zen Makuch
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vi Courts and the environment
PART III ACCESS TO JUSTICE FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
7. Inviting civil society to the table: the case of the African
Commission 170
Nora Ho Tu Nam
8. Collective environmental litigation in Colombia: an empirical
assessment 190
Everaldo Lamprea and Angela M. Páez
9. Are courts colour blind to country? Indigenous cultural
heritage, environmental law and the Australian judicial
system 211
Justice Rachel Pepper and Lauren Butterly
10. What Chinese courts could learn from the USA: the
approach of public interest litigation under the new China
Environmental Protection Law 228
Zhuoxian Zhang
11. Protection of environmental rights of citizens in the courts of
Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine 250
Aleksandra Chornous and Nikolay Kichigin
PART IV COURTS IN ACTION
12. The challenge of bringing transnational corporations to
justice for environmental damage: a case study of Texaco Oil
Company and Chevron vs Lago Agrio Plaintiffs 271
María Augusta León Moreta and Bingyu Liu
13. Enhancing corporate responsibilities to fulfil the right to a
clean environment: a lesson learned from Indonesian courts 290
Yetty Komalasari Dewi and Anbar Jayadi
14. The Urgenda case: a successful example of public interest
litigation for the protection of the environment? 305
Otto Spijkers
15. US climate change adjudication: the epic journey from a
petition for rulemaking to national greenhouse gas regulation 345
David Hodas
16. A review of environmental courts and tribunals for CSOs and
the judiciary 369
Ria Guidone and Holly Jonas
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Contents vii
17. Swedish environmental courts – specialized civil and
administrative courts 389
Anders Bengtsson
Index 419
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Figures
1.1 The seal of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law 2
2.1 Key system actors 46
2.2 Contextualizing judgments 49
2.3 Selected system dynamics 53
8.1 Issue discussed in the suit 199
8.2 Plaintiffs in environmental popular actions 201
8.3 Defendants in environmental popular actions 202
8.4 When was the popular action suit filed? 203
8.5 When was the popular action case decided? 204
8.6 Success rate for litigants 205
8.7 Amount of the incentive for popular actions 208
16.1 Countries containing at least one ECT to date. Designed via
an aggregate of ECT estimates from articles, books,
commentaries and other online sources. (The base map is
courtesy of Bruce Jones Design Inc. and
FreeUSandWorldMaps.com) 371
16.2 Global estimate of the number of ECTs established between
1970 and 2017 373
16.3 Illustration of the decision-making hierarchy for
environmental matters adjudication in Sweden 376
16.4 Twelve critical ECT design factors to consider in the
decision-making process 387
17.1 Swedish court system in (most) environmental matters 397
17.2 The procedure in civil cases 403
17.3 The sequential procedure in permit cases 406
17.4 The procedure in administrative cases 408
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Contributors
Anders Bengtsson, Senior judge, Land and Environment Court (Växjö,
Sweden)
Lauren Butterly, Lecturer, University of New South Wales Law School
(Sydney, Australia)
Aleksandra Chornous, Researcher of Koretsky Institute of State and Law
of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Candidate of Legal
Sciences (Kyiv, Ukraine)
Trevor Daya-Winterbottom, Dr, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law,
University of Waikato, member of the Faculty’s Centre for Environmental
Resources and Energy Law (Waikato, New Zealand)
Yetty Komalasari Dewi, Associate Professor at the Department of Private
Law, Faculty of Law, Universitas Indonesia (Depok, Indonesia)
Godwin E. K. Dzah, Doctoral Candidate, Peter A. Allard School of Law,
University of British Columbia (Canada)
Heline Sivini Ferreira, Associate Professor of Graduate and Postgraduate
Programs in Law at Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná (PUCPR);
PhD in Law from Santa Catarina Federal University (UFSC), Regional
Coordinator of the Association of Professors of Environmental Law in
Brazil (APRODAB); International Affairs Director of Law for a Green
Planet Institute (IDPV) (Curitiba, Brazil)
Ria Guidone, JD, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University (Halifax,
Canada)
Nora Ho Tu Nam, Dr, Post-doctoral fellow at the Dullah Omar Institute,
University of the Western Cape (Belville, South Africa)
David Hodas, Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Law, Delaware Law
School, Widener University (Wilmington DE, USA)
Anbar Jayadi, Junior Member at the Department of International
Law  (2015–2018), Faculty of Law, Universitas Indonesia (Depok,
Indonesia)
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