Environmental Courts Research Articles

Can Domestic Environmental Courts Implement International Environmental Law? A Framework for Institutional Analysis

AbstractThe rapid and widespread establishment of domestic environmental courts and tribunals raises important questions regarding their implications for international environmental law and global environmental governance. I use an interdisciplinary, multi-method approach to consider the capacity of domestic environmental courts to identify and apply norms and principles of international environmental law in domestic opinions. I first review existing literature, identifying jurisdiction, judicial discretion, and a court's position in a legal system as key institutional determinants of this capacity. I then develop a typology of domestic environmental courts and tribunals, which suggests that, all else being equal, a court with national geographic jurisdiction that also enjoys attributes of broad subject-matter jurisdiction and discretion may be expected to be best equipped to implement norms and principles of international environmental law. Next, I integrate existing assessments of environmental court presence with original outreach and web research to identify all countries which possess environmental courts, and assess a subset of eight existing national-level institutions. The analysis of this subset highlights the diversity of institutional models that can incorporate theorized best practices. Based on these findings, I draw several theoretical conclusions: specifically (i) the relevance of environmental court research to individual- and institutional-level analysis in transnational and international environmental law, (ii) the need for further legal-institutional analysis in global environmental governance scholarship, and (iii) the opportunity for further interdisciplinary analysis of the role of domestic courts in environmental governance.

Environmental justice at the environmental courts? Mining, socioenvironmental conflicts, and environmental litigation in northern Chile

With the judicialization of politics and the creation of new environmental institutions, environmental litigation is now an increasingly common dimension of socioenvironmental conflicts. This study examines this pattern in the context of recently created environmental courts in Chile, focusing on lithium and copper mining litigation in the Atacama salt flats of the Antofagasta Region. I argue that while the courts are formally open to a wide variety of legal complaints, community groups face an uphill battle when using legal mobilization strategies due to the underlying political and economic power of the mining industry in northern Chile. Nevertheless, environmental litigation matters for environmental policy implementation because it reveals conflicts over environmental compliance, highlighting gaps between environmental laws on the books and actual practices. In this sense, environmental litigation activates environmental regulations and can provide communities with greater leverage to demand stronger enforcement, even as the long-term implications of judicial rulings for addressing current and past harms remain to be seen. The paper is based on documents from the Chilean environmental courts database, media sources, and twenty-two semi-structured interviews with activists and community leaders, lawyers, scientists, and government officials to better interpret and contextualize the court archival data.

Modern development of a system of specialized environmental courts in Latin America by example of Chile

The article considers the development of a system of specialized environmental courts by example of Chile. The paper describes the role of environmental courts in enforcing environmental laws, resolving claims, interpreting laws, and convening specialized meetings and forums to resolve environmental disputes. The authors analyze the formation of such courts in Chile and come to the conclusion about the creation of environmental courts of an interdisciplinary structure at the special jurisdiction level.

Actions speak louder than words: Environmental law enforcement externalities and access to bank loans

By exploiting the staggered city-level establishment of specialized environmental courts in China as exogenous shocks and using a difference-in-differences research design, we find that an increase in the efficiency of environmental enforcement leads to a decrease in companies’ access to bank loans. The channel tests show that these same shocks lead to an increase in environmental litigation, operational and reputational risk. The cross-sectional analyses also reveal consistent evidence. Collectively, our findings suggest that the environmental mandate has important externalities for bank lending decisions, indicating that the costs of environmental enforcement go beyond reducing environmental pollution.

Environmental Court and Principle of Good Environmental Governance in Enforcing Environmental Law

Environment dispute settlement carried out by general and administrative court, depends on the object of disputes. Government has to based on principle of good environmental governance when issue the permit and policies. The issues are the urgency to build environmental court and implementation of principle of good environmental governance. Method use is juridical normative, primary data used are regulations, secondary data are expert opinions, articles. Data analysis qualitatively and describe in descriptive analysis. Environmental court will be under Administrative Court as special court, which comprises of private, penal and administrative chamber. Implementation of principle of good environmental governance through issue permit, policies and supported by strengthen law enforcement. Regulations as based of law to build environmental court has to be synchronized with relevant regulations in order to enforce the environmental law enforcement and gives environmental justice. Novelty in this research is build environmental court to strengthen environmental law enforcement.

How to achieve emission reduction without hindering economic growth? The role of judicial quality

Existing literature has carried out fruitful research on the effects of environmental regulation policies. Due to differences in policies, regions, and data analysis methods, however, the previous studies have not reached a consensus on the effects of environmental regulation policies, especially on the effects of environmental regulation policies of developing countries from the perspective of environmental justice. This paper takes the establishment of the environmental court in China's intermediate people's court as a quasi-natural experiment and uses the multi-period difference-in-differences method to examine the effect of the establishment of the environmental court on environmental governance and economic performance, based on the panel data of 284 cities in China from 2003 to 2019. The results show that the establishment of the environmental court can significantly reduce the emission intensity of industrial SO2 in the short term. This reduction effect is resulted from the joint emission reduction effect of the establishment of the environmental court on local cities and adjacent cities. The mechanism analysis shows that the establishment of the environmental court has the dual effect of emission reduction without hindering economic growth. This effect is mainly achieved by improving energy efficiency, stimulating green technology innovation, increasing environmental investment, and improving the green finance level. Furthermore, the emission reduction effect of the establishment of the environmental court shows differential effects under the constraints of regional rule-of-law level, environmental awareness, fiscal pressure, and level of innovation and entrepreneurship. In addition, the establishment of the environmental court can facilitate the achievement of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals.

The role of environmental justice reform in corporate green transformation: Evidence from the establishment of China’s environmental courts

Purpose: The establishment of environmental courts in China provides a good opportunity to explores the economic effects of environmental justice reform. This paper investigates how the environmental justice reform can influence corporate green transformation from the perspective of green technology innovation and explores the potential mechanisms of how the environmental courts affect green technology innovation. The heterogeneous effects of environmental courts are also considered.Methodology: Using the establishment of environmental courts in China as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper adopts a difference-in-difference (DID) method to conduct empirical test based on data on Chinese listed A-shared firms from 2004 to 2019. Moreover, this paper use propensity score matching (PSM), tobit and negative binomial regression method to address possible estimation bias.Findings: The establishment of environmental courts significantly enhances green technology innovation among enterprises. The more effective judicial enforcement and better public awareness of the environment brought by the environmental courts will increase the cost of illegality and external supervision pressure for firms, which will lead firms to innovate in green technology. Furthermore, the positive and significant effect of environmental courts on green technology innovation is more pronounced in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and enterprises located in regions where local protectionism is more serious or regions with more ideal environmental legal system.

Application of the Principle of Truth to Judiciary Institutions: Discourse of Judges at the Makassar Religious High Court, Indonesia

The application of the formal truth concept in civil courts, particularly religious courts, ought to have been abandoned. In several civil disputes, judges are guided by the pursuit of formal truth, resulting in unjust verdicts. This study examines the situation of the principle of formal truth in the investigation of civil matters in the Religious Courts and the view of the Makassar Religious High Court Judge regarding its application. This study is a legal-empirical investigation informed by legal philosophy. Techniques for data collecting consisting of in-depth interviews with key informants and research of court decisions and relevant literature. The findings of the study indicate that, first, the principle of formal truth that is applied to religious courts is still legitimate today, just as the HIR/RBg approach of proving civil cases in Indonesian civil courts is still valid. Second, the opinion of the judges of the Makassar Religious High Court regarding the application of the formal truth principle in the environmental courts of the religious courts demonstrates that, in general, the Makassar PTA judges believe that this principle must be applied as a trial process provision. In their opinion, the formal principle of truth serves as a guide for parties and judges when reviewing cases. Several other judges, however, believe that the formal truth principle should be substituted by the material truth.

Law Reinforcement, Production Pattern and Enterprise Environmental Performance: Evidence from Environmental Courts in China

Law reinforcement agencies can be established to improve enterprise environmental performance, a determinant of sustainable growth, but their micropractical evaluation is unclear. This paper uses panel data (1998–2014) from the Chinese Industrial Enterprise Pollution Database and the Chinese Industrial Enterprise Database and adopts the multiperiod difference-in-differences (DID) method to investigate the impact of law reinforcement on enterprise environmental performance (measured by air pollutant emissions). Using the establishment of China’s city-level environmental courts (ECs) as an identification strategy, the study finds a strong positive effect of EC establishment on firms’ environmental performance and confirms the validity of law reinforcement. Furthermore, the effects are heterogeneous for firms with different characteristics (including scale, profit, ownership, pollution intensity and location). Notably, we find that firms improve their environmental performance by changing their production pattern and energy consumption structure. Additionally, ECs could influence firms’ environmental behaviors by enhancing judicial efficiency and generating a deterrence effect. These findings show the government could improve enterprises’ environmental performance through law reinforcement but should consider the heterogeneous effect on different firms.

Decentralizing Environmental Disputes in India

India lacks a comprehensive climate legislation, however, there are several environmental legislations to combat the effects of climate change. In relation to protecting the environment, the proactive efforts of the Indian judiciary that has often acted as a ‘lever of transformation’ has been recognized globally. However, it has been seen that in most climate change litigation in India, climate concerns that affect human well-being often take a backseat while these litigations usually get limited to enforcement of existing environmental laws. This paper highlights the role of India’s National Green Tribunal which was established as a dedicated environmental court under the National Green Tribunal Act 2010 using it is an example to underscore how far the decentralization of environmental justice has worked in India. The paper brings to attention the out the jurisdiction, powers, and functions of the tribunal for effecting environmental justice, the significant cases adjudicated by it, the principles applied, the accessibility and value addition to environmental jurisprudence through innovative application of law and the objectivity demonstrated by the tribunal in balancing the protection of the environment and sustainable development.

Environmental Justice, Local Governance and Corporate Green Innovation: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from the Establishment of Environmental Courts in China

Environmental Justice, Local Governance and Corporate Green Innovation: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from the Establishment of Environmental Courts in China

Legal institutional inefficiency and water pollution problem in Bangladesh

In recent years the economy of Bangladesh has increased significantly due to rapid industrialization. Despite economic prosperity, it causes serious damage to the environment by polluting water resources. Factors like discharging industrial effluents, urban runoff, and agricultural wastage are primarily responsible for polluting the water bodies in Bangladesh. This kind of pollution not only harms the environment but also severely affects human health, and in Bangladesh, nearly 80 percent of all diseases are related to water pollution, and arsenicosis is one of them. To prevent and control water pollution, the government has primarily enacted various laws and policies, including Environment Conservation Act 1995, Environment Protection Act (EPA) 1995, Environment Court Act 2000, and Bangladesh Water Act 2013. Despite numerous initiatives, legal loopholes, institutional weaknesses and lack of enforcement of Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) are the main obstacles to preventing and controlling water pollution in Bangladesh. Therefore, this paper addresses the legal shortcomings and functions of respective bodies in preventing and controlling water pollution.

Hakim Ad Hoc Pada Penyelesaian Perkara Lingkungan Hidup Dalam Sistem Peradilan Di Indonesia

This study aims to examine the concept of ad hoc judges in environmental courts. This research is normative legal research, the nature of prescriptive research. The results of this study indicate that environmental cases resolved in general courts have not been able to provide ecological justice and instead have resulted in decisions that are not in favor of the environment. The role of judges is necessary to protect human or non-human (environmental) interests that are violated. In protecting human and non-human (environmental) interests that are violated. Having an ad hoc environmental judge who understands environmental issues is expected to be able to give a fair and wise decision.

Environmental justice and green innovation: A quasi-natural experiment based on the establishment of environmental courts in China

Environmental justice is a more sustainable constraint on polluting behavior than administrative instruments. Previous literature has explored the impact of various administrative instruments applied to environmental regulation on green innovation but has neglected the possible role of environmental justice. This paper examines the effect of environmental justice on green innovation using the multi-period difference-in-difference (DID) approach by taking the establishment of the Chinese environmental court as a policy shock, thus filling the gap in previous studies. We conclude that: first, the establishment of environmental courts significantly contributes to the level of green innovation. This finding holds after a series of robustness tests. Second, environmental justice pushes polluters to engage in green innovation through the mechanism of pollution control. Third, the effect of environmental courts on green innovation is not significant in resource-based cities, which depend more on high-polluting industries for development. Fourth, a better legal environment can help improve the effectiveness of environmental justice in promoting green innovation. This paper not only supplements the existing literature on the factors influencing green innovation and explains the operational mechanisms and effects of environmental justice, but also provides theoretical support for promoting green innovation in practice.

The potential of the EU Water Framework Directive for reducing emissions of pollutants is limited: a case study on river basin specific pollutants in Swedish environmental permitting processes

River basin specific pollutants (RBSPs) are supposedly a key tool to fulfil the EU’s Water Framework Directive (WFD) goal of good ecological status in all European waterbodies. The RBSPs provide a tool to manage chemical pollution identified as a national priority. An important question is if the costly management related to RBSPs leads to reduced emissions, an issue we investigated here using Sweden as a case. Swedish measures implemented under the WFD mainly rely on environmental permitting and supervision. We, therefore, specifically assessed how RBSPs have influenced permit proceedings in the Land and Environment Court of Appeal, where precedents for judgements in lower courts and authorities is established, during the 2010s. Despite permit-review being an important measure highlighted in the WFD and in Swedish programs of measures, all cases appealed to higher court were initiated by the operators/permit holders. The permissibility of environmentally hazardous activities was not impacted by RBSPs in any instance. Permit conditions addressing RBSPs were discussed in ⁓1% of all environmental cases, mainly resulting in conditions demanding further inquiries regarding emissions and concentrations of a limited number of RBSPs (i.e., metals and nitrogen in the forms of nitrate and ammonia). Open-ended conditions and delegation allowing for updating permit conditions if additional RBSPs are identified were suggested but rejected by court as these conflict with fundamental principles of precision and predictability of permit conditions stated in Swedish and European law. We conclude that RBSPs as management tool has little impact on emissions from activities requiring environmental permits and thereby water quality.

The development of environmental case handling policy in Indonesian court

The lawsuit of the environmental dispute has long been discussed along with the phenomenon of environmental destruction. The actions that have an impact on environmental damage must be accounted for through a strict legal process. The Supreme Court issued a policy in 2011 related to the certification of environmental judges. This policy has been implemented for a long time and is in line with the development of issues of environmental change. Therefore, the objective of this research is to evaluate the certification policy of environmental judges so that they have competence in the development of environmental issues in the community. The research method used is qualitative with a normative approach. Data collection is carried out by reviewing laws and regulations and also collecting data on environmental cases that register in court over the last three years. Then analyzed descriptively to describe what policies need to be made to support the resolution of the current environmental issues. The result obtained is that the environmental judge certification policy must be supported by a renewal of the curriculum and training model. Then, there is the potential for having an environmental court due to the various types of violations against environmental management and preservation.

Probabilistic cost-benefit analysis for mitigating hydrogeological risks in underground construction

Leakage of groundwater into underground facilities can subsequently cause groundwater drawdown, subsidence and subsidence damages to the built-up environment. In order to reduce the risk of damage, measures to mitigate the risks must often be implemented. The aim of this paper is to describe and demonstrate a probabilistic cost-benefit analysis approach to assess the economic profitability of investing in different risk mitigation alternatives. Since underground construction is always associated with uncertainties, the analysis uses probability distribution functions for uncertain parameters and Monte Carlo simulations to quantify probabilities of damage and implementation costs. The proposed approach is exemplified with a case study, the road tunnel project Bypass (Förbifart) Stockholm in eastern Sweden, for which four risk mitigation alternatives were evaluated. In conclusion, the approach helps to highlight the economic effects of different risk mitigation approaches and constitute a transparent support for decisions on implementation of risk mitigation. For the case study, the analysis indicates that the implementation costs of ∼ 7000 MSEK (700 million EUR) for risk mitigation needed to fulfil the legal requirements, from the Swedish Land- and Environmental court, in the form of ambitious sealing strategies are disproportionate relative to the benefits of ∼ 50 MSEK (5 million EUR) gained in the form of reduced damage risk for the built-up environment. In other words, billions SEK of taxpayers' money are spent on unnecessary expenses to fulfill legal requirements without societal benefits. The novelty of the paper constitutes the coupling of models and combination of established methods for management of hydrogeological risks.

Could environmental courts reduce carbon intensity? Evidence from cities of China

Environmental courts play an important role in pollution control. It is unclear whether environmental courts could help to achieve China's carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals. This study investigates the impact of environmental courts on carbon intensity, using the data of 281 cities of China during 2003–2017. Using the multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) model, this study first evaluates the impact of environmental courts on carbon intensity taking the establishment of environmental courts as a quasi-natural experiment. Then, this study examines the influence mechanisms of environmental court on carbon intensity from the perspective of administrative enforcement, green innovation ability and cooperative effect of pollution control. Finally, this study analyses the heterogeneity test from the perspective of public participation, whether it is a low-carbon pilot city and geographical location. The main results are: (1) Environmental courts could reduce carbon intensity, which is supported by a series of robustness tests. (2) Environmental courts could reduce carbon intensity through improving administrative enforcement of local government and green innovation ability of firms and playing the cooperative effect in pollution control. (3) Heterogeneity test results show that in cities with high public participation, environmental courts could reduce carbon intensity more effectively. Compared with non-low-carbon pilot cities, environmental courts have a bigger role in reducing carbon intensity in low-carbon pilot cities. Compared with the middle cities of China, environmental courts also have a bigger role in reducing carbon intensity in eastern and western cities. This study provides new insights for China to reduce carbon intensity from the perspective of the establishment and implementation of environmental courts, and policy implications of how to effectively play the role of environmental courts in achieving carbon peaks and carbon neutrality goals are finally suggested.

(In)visible powers: witnessing the ‘tourist-waters’ of Nämforsen

This artistic research reflection explores Sweden’s legally-mandated ‘tourist-release’ at the Ångermanälven River’s storied site of Nämforsen. Against World Wars and calls for energy independence of the mid 1940s, the iconic Ångermanälven River was industrialised from a free-flowing salmon river to eventually a series of 44 dams and hydropower plants. Later, a unique environmental court legal judgement resulted in ‘tourist-water’ at Nämforsen that gives the illusion of a free-flowing river during summer months. Existing for solely aesthetic purposes, tourist-water is an unexplored example of the (in)visible powers perpetuating myths associated with hydropower and place in Sweden. Through text and images, this piece reflects on witnessing this tourist-water phenomena through place-based documentary arts practice. The fieldwork is part of a doctoral project in artistic practice focusing on how photography can mediate complex issues in places of environmental change through the case of Nämforsen. Strategies such as framing, time-scaling and montage have emerged from this practice at the same time as ethical concerns related to representation are raised. This case is especially pertinent as hydropower in Sweden comes under increased scrutiny, simultaneously as it is marketed as a sustainable energy solution. The piece furthermore highlights the lasting implications of conservation efforts centred historically on aesthetic rather than ecologic values.

JURISDICTIONAL PROBLEM IN ENVIRONMENTAL LITIGATION IN NIGERIA: LESSONS FROM NEW SOUTH WALES

An increase in industrial activities, especially in the oil and gas sector in Nigeria comes with the attendant rise in environmental abuses by multinational companies. Income from oil exploration is the major source of revenue for the Nigerian government. However, over the years, the activities of major oil companies in the oil-rich Niger Delta region have caused and continue to cause monumental damage to the local communities and indeed, the environment. Efforts by successive administrations to address this issue have yielded few results. This development means that victims of environmental abuse and indeed environmental activists have only the court to approach for any remedy. In Nigeria, it is only the Federal High Court that has exclusive jurisdiction to entertain any dispute arising from mines and minerals, including oil and gas exploration. Apart from the significant delay occasioned by congestion of cases, the composition of the Federal High Court has no regard for expert personnel in environmental science who are capable of giving informed decisions that would improve access to environmental justice. This article examines the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court in relation to environmental matters and argues that the court as presently constituted is not better placed to ensure access to environmental justice. This article employs doctrinal legal research methodology and content analysis of both primary and secondary legal sources relating to the practice of the Federal High Court of Nigeria, and Land and Environment Court of New South Wales of Australia. The article argues in favour of establishing a specialised environmental court in Nigeria as a superior court with a comprehensive jurisdiction to dispose of environmental-related matters.