Market Actor's Regime in Spanish Jurisdiction from the Perspective of Sustainability Law

Abstract

In the first attempts to apply the concept of sustainability to legal systems, sustainability was understood as a unidimensional category aimed at protecting the environment. Nowadays, however, as will be seen in this paper, sustainability cannot be understood or reached if it is not the result of the intertwined harmony of all three internal dimensions which this concept is considered to include: the economic dimension, the environmental dimension, and the social dimension. We should not only desire, but rather demand that one of the goals of countries´ jurisdiction should be to promote sustainability. In this context, we can discuss the concept Sustainability Law, understood as the regulations which address circumstances that facilitate and promote sustainability. Given that sustainability, with its three dimensions, is a transversal concept, Sustainability Law must never become an isolated sector of legal systems, disconnected from the rest. The whole legal system must be inspired by sustainability as one of its multiple functions. Therefore, with a broad and all-embracing point of view of countries´ legal systems, it could be stated that a State has Sustainability Law, or, even better, Sustainable Law, if the regulations of that territory as a whole comply with the defence and promotion of sustainability. The purpose of this study is to analyse the state of Sustainability Law in branches of the Spanish legal system which are essential when attempting to achieve sustainable and responsible trade, especially focusing on the regulation of market actors.