Environmental Justice in France: Effectiveness and Challenges
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Themes
Environmental Justice, French Law, International Environmental Law, Barnier Law, Polluter Pays Principle, Precautionary Principle, Public Participation, Non-Regression Principle, Environmental Protection, Biodiversity Law, Maritime Law, Land Law, Forestry Law, Pollution Control
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Abstract
This document discusses the concept of environmental justice in France, its principles, and challenges. It explores the role of international environmental law and its impact on French legislation.
Extract
[...] How can we define environmental justice? Environmental justice (or environmental law) corresponds to the legal norms aimed at protecting fauna and flora, aquatic and terrestrial resources from the intricacies of human activity. The right to the environment is a specific branch of international law whose advent dates back to the era of the first wave of internationalization of the environmental protection theme. The Meadows Report, made public by the Club of Rome in 1972 under the name " The Limits of Growth had a wide echo with notably the possibility of depletion of terrestrial resources, the return to the forefront of Malthusian theses of decline (Illitch, Georgescu-Roegen, Alliès). [...]
[...] For example, environmental discrimination remains deeply rooted in the practices of the courts and other actors, particularly in the matter of waste sorting, extraction of all kinds of resources, seizure of land. There is a difference in treatment of environmental themes according to the strategic nature of the potential threat (we can take the example of the French nuclear sector). This difference in treatment generates conflicts between environmental defense associations, activists and large French companies involved or the State. The outcomes of these conflicts are increasingly converging towards the results of international environmental justice. Therefore, can we reconcile the imperative of environmental justice with that related to economic issues? [...]
[...] Can we reconcile the imperative of environmental justice with that related to economic issues? - Introduction International law defines the principle of effectiveness as the legitimacy and credibility of asserting a situation to third parties if and only if it demonstrates an adequate level of reality. Thus, our subject invites us to analyze whether and how environmental law, a branch of international law, is a reality. Moreover, it involves analyzing the concrete level of this reality. These questions concern only France and de facto involve French legislation; in other words, we must explain whether and how French legislation allows environmental justice to exist concretely. [...]
[...] Furthermore, the imperative nature of this seems to be increasingly taken into account by the highest national institutions (the example of the Council of State). Therefore, we can establish the fact of a real French legal framework dedicated to the protection of biodiversity. However, if there is a real willingness of political and legal actors to strengthen the effectiveness of environmental justice, the structural flaws (delays in processing files by the courts), the dramatization of environmental damage by the courts are among the main complaints of environmental associations in 20206. The legal mechanism for environmental protection is therefore largely imperfectible. [...]
[...] Air pollution generally comes from industrial activity, automobile traffic and contributes significantly to global warming. Thus, environmental justice in France (and more broadly internationally) is confronted with a plethora of challenges posed by human activity (economic activity). To meet these challenges, environmental law relies on its hybrid nature and its ability to be declined in several versions: a first version dedicated to the protection of the different components of nature, a second version dedicated to limiting the excesses of human activity and a third managing the moderation of human prerogatives on natural resources. [...]
