U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
The Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide
ELAW
• Global alliance of public interest lawyers and scientists
working outside of government to protect the
environment through law
• Giving local advocates the legal and scientific tools they
need to challenge environmental abuses, defend
biodiversity and build a sustainable future
• Helping local advocates employ electronic communication
tools in defense of the natural environment
• Helping local advocates gain the skills and resources they
need to build strong organizations and promote a
sustainable future
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
ELAW U.S. Initiatives for the Environment
1. Provide critical scientific tools
2. Provide critical legal tools
3. Electronic “home” of the network
4. Build strong organizations
5. Host fellows and build skills
6. Help communities speak out
and enforce the law
7. Defend the defenders
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Environmental Law
• Domestic environmental laws
• Administrative laws
• Legal doctrines
• International treaties
• Policies governing
international financial
institutions
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Legal Principles Used to
Protect the Environment
•
Constitutional Right to Life
•
Precautionary Principle
•
Polluter Pays Principle
•
Public Trust Doctrine
Legal theories of nuisance or
trespass
•
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Constitutional Right to Life
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Constitutional Right to Life
“Basic needs of man have traditionally
been accepted to the three - food,
clothing and shelter. The right to life is
guaranteed in any civilized society. That
would take within its sweep the right to
food, the right to clothing, the right to
decent environment and a reasonable
accommodation to live in.”
Shantistar Builders vs Narayan Khimalal Totame, Civil Appeal No. 2598 of 1989, decided Jan.
31, 1990. Supreme Court of India, at sec. 9.
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Chile: Trillium
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Chile: derecho subjetivo público y
derecho colectivo público
“Que, por último, respecto de la supuesta falta de
legitimación activa de los recurrentes para interponer
este recurso, alegada por los recurridos y la Empresa
Forestal Trillium, cabe señalar que el derecho a vivir
en un medio ambiente libre de contaminación es un
derecho humano con rango constitucional, el que
presenta un doble carácter: derecho subjetivo público y
derecho colectivo público.”
Chile -- Trillium, No. 2.732-96. 19 Marzo 1997
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Precautionary Principle
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Precautionary Principle
“By virtue of the precautionary principle . . . the
import and planting of the transgenic organism
known as a variety of Nucot 33B is ordered
suspended, until such time that Monsanto
Colombiana, Inc. has applied for, and obtained,
the environmental license that is required to
comply with Colombian law -- the purpose of
which is no other than the protection of the
environment, biological diversity, and human
health.”
--Acción Popular suspende Importación de Algodón Transgénico
en Colombia, 2003-00181, 17 Oct. 2003
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Polluter Pays Principle
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Polluter Pays Principle
The polluter pays principle "reflects the
growing concern on the part of legislatures
and of society about the safeguarding of the
environment. That concern does not reflect
only the collective desire to protect it in the
interests of the people who live and work in
it, and exploit its resources, today. It may
also be evidence of an emerging sense of
inter-generational solidarity and
acknowledgement of an environmental debt
to humanity and to the world of tomorrow."
--Imperial Oil Ltd. v. Quebec (Minister of the Environment), 2003 SCC 58, [2003]
2 S.C.R. 624, at para. 19
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Public Trust Doctrine
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Public Trust Doctrine
"[I]n the absence of any legislation, the executive
acting under the doctrine of public trust cannot
abdicate the natural resources and convert them
into private ownership, or for commercial use. The
aesthetic use and the pristine glory of the natural
resources, the environment and the ecosystems of
our country cannot be permitted to be eroded for
private, commercial or any other use unless the
courts find it necessary, in good faith, for the public
good and in public interest to encroach upon the
said resources."
--M.C. Mehta v. Kamal Nath, WP 182/1996 (1996.12.13) (para. 35)
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Nuisance and Trespass
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Trespass
Landowners awarded damages under
theory of trespass to compensate them
for drinking water contamination where
nitrates from animal manure leached
through groundwater from a
neighboring dairy operation.
--Concerned Area Residents for the Environment v. Southview Farm, 834 F. Supp. 1422, 1435 (W.D.N.Y.
1993)
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Environmental Rights are Human Rights
Soviet-era steelworks plant emitted polluting
substances 20-50 times higher than the maximum
permissible limits.
Residents, including
Nadezhda Fadeyeva,
lived in governmentowned apartment
buildings located right
next to the plant.
They suffered from
cancer, and blood and
respiratory diseases.
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Fadeyeva and other poor
residents sought to re-locate
away from the plant.
Russian court agreed with
her and ordered her placed
on the waiting list to be
relocated. She was on a
“general waiting list” of
6,820 people who wanted to
move. One person had
been “waiting” since 1968!
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Article 8 of the European Convention for the Protection
of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private
and family life, his home, and his correspondence.
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Lawyers used the Convention to link environmental
rights to human rights and relied on expert testimony
from ELAW U.S. scientists to make their case.
“I can hardly think of a more powerful
case for the importance of ELAW. The
case has the potential to fundamentally
shift thinking in Europe on the
connection between human rights and
the environment.”
Phil Michaels, UK attorney & ELAW partner
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Access to Information
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Access to Information
“[T]he Court has established that, according to the
protection granted by the American Convention, the
right to freedom of thought and expression includes
“not only the right and freedom to express one’s own
thoughts, but also the right and freedom to seek,
receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds.”
In the same way as the American Convention, other
international human rights instruments, such as the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
establish a positive right to seek and receive
information.”
--Inter-American Court of Human Rights
Claude Reyes et al. v. Chile, Judgment of September 19, 2006 (para. 76, fn omitted)
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
“[T]he Court finds that, by expressly stipulating the right to
‘seek’ and ‘receive’ ‘information,’ Article 13 of the Convention
protects the right of all individuals to request access to
State-held information, with the exceptions permitted by the
restrictions established in the Convention. Consequently, this
article protects the right of the individual to receive such
information and the positive obligation of the State to
provide it . . . . The information should be provided without
the need to prove direct interest or personal involvement in
order to obtain it . . . . The delivery of information to an
individual can, in turn, permit it to circulate in society, so
that the latter can become acquainted with it, have access to
it, and assess it. In this way, the right to freedom of thought
and expression includes the protection of the right of access
to State-held information, which also clearly includes the two
dimensions, individual and social, of the right to freedom of
thought and expression that must be guaranteed
simultaneously by the State.”
--Inter-American Court of Human Rights
Claude Reyes et al. v. Chile, Judgment of September 19, 2006 (para. 77, fn omitted)
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
“When State-held information is refused, the State
must guarantee that there is a simple, prompt and
effective recourse that permits determining whether
there has been a violation of the right of the person
requesting information and, if applicable, that the
corresponding body is ordered to disclose the
information. In this context, the recourse must be
simple and prompt, bearing in mind that, in this
regard, promptness in the disclosure of the information
is essential. According to the provisions of Articles 2
and 25(2)(b) of the Convention, if the State Party to
the Convention does not have a judicial recourse to
protect the right effectively, it must establish one. ”
--Inter-American Court of Human Rights
Claude Reyes et al. v. Chile, Judgment of September 19, 2006 (para. 137)
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
Mexico: Watershed
Management Law
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
From: "idea" <idea@cybercable.net.mx>
Querida Jen:
Mucho me interesar el conocer la legislación en materia
de aguas de los amigos de latinoamérica, y los del
Norte, asi como la de España, sobre todo aquellas que
contengan disposiciones relativas al manejo de cuencas
hidrológicas. Lo anterior, en virtud de que estoy
realizando una consultoria respecto a revisar la ley de
aguas nacionales de México. Qué paso con el esfuerzo que
estaban haciendo los amigos de panamá respecto a una Ley
de manejo de Cuencas?
De antemanos por la ayuda muchas gracias.
Raquel
Instituto de Derecho Ambiental, A.C.
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA
ELAW
www.elaw.org
U.S. Office:
1877 Garden Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA