Justice and Environment

J&E and EEB side event at the Green Week in Brussels

Justice and Environment — Thu, 16 May 2013 00:00:00 +0200

The Aarhus Convention 15th Anniversary

What has the Aarhus Convention brought in terms of the state of air quality?

Conference/seminar

The Aarhus Convention has been adopted 15 years ago. By now, every Member States is a party to the Convention. There is abundant experience on the impact of the Convention on law, state of the environment (including air quality) and other aspects. The meeting will bring together scholars (big names), practitioners, EU Commission representatives and European NGOs to discuss the impacts of the Convention, the status of implementation, preparation for MOP5, use of Convention in air quality related EU law and the future challenges.

Special focus of the event on:

public participation in air quality related matters
general requirements of the Air Quality Directive regarding information and public participation
measures required in the event of information or alert thresholds being exceeded
publication of short term action plans
public participatory requirements in the case of transboundary air pollution
national judicial cases that involve air quality issues and the involvement of the public in the decision-making (examples of Member State law implementation).

PLEASE JOIN OUR EVENT!

Date:
5 June from 9:00 to 13:00

Venue:
Hotel Be Manos

Square de l’aviation 23-27

Brussels
BELGIUM

Website:
http://justiceandenvironment.org/publications/aarhus-convention-15th-birthday

Agenda

Registrations or questions can be sent to

info@justiceandenvironment.org

All our outputs on the web on 1 page again

Justice and Environment — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0200

You can find them here organized by topics, as well as indicating countries covered by our findings (where relevant). We appreciate any feedback that you can send to info@justiceandenvironment.org.

What we will do in 2013

Justice and Environment — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0200

Under the Publications section at the following link you can find tha annual work plan of J&E as agreed by the Annual General Meeting and granted a support by LIFE+ of the EU. Please do not hesitate to comment the document at info@justiceandenvironment.org.

Climate, Energy, Aarhus, EIA, ELD and Land Use Planning

Justice and Environment — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0200

As we have successfully reported to our donors about the work we have done in 2012, we are heading towards new goals. The topics in which J&E will be active in 2013 are climate change, energy transition, access rights in the context of the Aarhus Convention, environmental impact assessment, environmental liability, and land use planning. Please visit our website or apply the RSS in order to be up-to-date on our actions and events.

J&E expresses worries over downsizing of DG Environment

Justice and Environment — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0100

J&E believes that this is a bad answer to the problem, and this will result in an even worse application of environmental laws, thus in the deterioration of the state of environment in the EU. Read our Press Release here.

Good news from the Commission for J&E

Justice and Environment — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0100

The decision is conditional upon the slight rewriting and adaptation of the proposal which is underway now. It means that we will go strong again in 2013!

New member of J&E ExComm from Spain

Justice and Environment — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Ana Barreira, LL.M.

Ana Barreira is the founding member of the Spanish non-profit organization, the Instituto Internacional de Derecho y Medio Ambiente (International Institute for Law and the Environment) and has since its foundation worked on diverse fields of environmental law and policy. She is the attorney for Oceana Europe, an international NGO specializing in the protection of the marine environment. She has worked in the environmental department of the solicitors firm Allen & Overy in London, was part of the drafting team of the 1995 Spanish Environmental Framework Bill and has provided legal advice to the Spanish Ministry of Environment during 2001-2002 for the EU Spanish Presidency, mainly for the preparatory process of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). She has participated in international negotiations such as PrepComm for WSSD and the UNECE meeting for Rio +20 / UNCSD.

She has also worked on internationally-funded projects including legal drafting in Albania, México, Portugal, Republic of Montenegro, Republic of Serbia and Slovakia.

A. Barreira teaches environmental law and policy in several centres in Spain. She is a law graduate (Complutense University, 1985-1990), holds two LL.Ms (Master of Laws) degrees: in Environmental Law from London University (1993) and in International Legal Studies from New York University (1996). She was admitted to the Madrid Bar in 1991.

2 new meeting reports on J&E website

Justice and Environment — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0100

The report can be found here.

EU Court rules in favor of public participation in Slovak case

Justice and Environment — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0100

Public must have access to land use decisions concerning operations with significant environmental impacts. The Court of Justice of the European Union decided on the 15th of January, after a uniquely long 29 months proceeding, that non-disclosure of a land use decision in a proceeding concerning the licensing of the Pezinok landfill was illegal. CJEU stated that the public concerned must have access to all relevant information already at the first instance of the decision-making process – before the first decision is taken. Non-disclosure during the first instance proceeding could have been remedied by disclosing the land use decision in the second instance only under the condition that all options within the decision-making are still open and the public still has effective impact on the outcome of the decision-making.

„In Pezinok, citizens were clearly not in a situation to have any impact on the decision-making at the second instance. In March 2008, when the land use decision has been finally disclosed, the landfill has been 2 months under construction“, said Zuzana Čaputová, VIA IURIS cooperating attorney who represented Pezinok citizens before the Grand Jury of CJEU. Parties to the proceeding were Pezinok inhabitants and Pezinok municipality as plaintiffs vs. Slovak Environmental Inspectorate as defendant.

This landfill case has mobilized Pezinok citizens for the last 15 years and has been the biggest citizens´ campaign in Slovakia since the so-called Velvet Revolution in 1989.

Another important statement of the CJEU concerns the obligation of national courts to request the assessment of compliance of the opinion of the national constitutional court with EU law. CJEU stated that the Supreme Court of Slovakia was obligated to request an opinion of CJEU (initiate preliminary ruling proceedings) and to disregard the opinion of the national Constitutional Court if it seemed to contradict European law.

Please find a chronology of the case here.

Please find a critical description of the case here.

Please find the press release of the CJEU here.

Please find the full judgment here.

Position Paper of J&E is supported by Greenpeace

Justice and Environment — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0100

The findings and the recommendations of this document also enjoy the endorsement by Greenpeace. Please read the paper here.