Environmental “Citizen Suits” in the Czech Republic

Abstract

For several decades citizens of the Czech Republic have endured a severely degraded environment, stemming partially from reportedly lax enforcement of environmental protection laws. During this period, Czech citizens have lacked the right to litigate citizen suits as a means of increasing environmental enforcement and have never initiated civil litigation against a polluter. However, since 1958, Czech citizens have exercised the right to use citizen correspondence as a means of pursuing their legal interests by alerting government agencies to environmental problems. By Czech law, citizen correspondence obligates government agencies to respond to the cited environmental problems. This paper analyzes how environmental authorities responded to citizen correspondence related to water problems (e.g., drinking water contamination) during the years 1988 to 1992. Since responses may include enforcement actions—monetary fines, remediation requirements (i.e., mandatory cleanup), and correction requirements (e.g., replacement of a leaky storage tank), this type of legal action on the part of citizens approximates a citizen suit. By examining enforcement actions taken in response to these “citizen suits,” this paper is able to test hypotheses regarding the relationships among the three different types of enforcement actions and empirically identify the liability rule guiding each type of enforcement action.