The ECJ Rules Environmental NGOs Must Have Access to Justice in Water Law Procedures

elni Review ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 7-10
Author(s):  
Summer Kern ◽  
Gregor Schamschula
Keyword(s):  
Case Law ◽  
Water Law ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
United Nations Economic Commission ◽  
Member States ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
Economic Commission ◽  
Aarhus Convention ◽  
Environment And Development ◽  
The Eu

The Aarhus Convention was adopted in 1998 within the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, following Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. This principle states that “[e]nvironmental issues are best handled with the participation of all concerned citizens [...]”. The Convention is an international treaty with three pillars, namely (1) Access to Information; (2) Public Participation; and (3) Access to Justice. As the Implementation Guide makes clear: “The three pillars depend on each other for full implementation of the Convention’s objectives.” The Convention has as of the date of this publication 47 Parties. Austria ratified the treaty in early 2005, as did the EU. As made clear by the EU’s declaration upon ratification, implementation of the Aarhus Convention partly falls within the competence of the EU and partly within the competence of the Member States. With regards to Art. 9(3) in particular, the EU declared upon approval of the Convention that “the legal instruments in force do not cover fully the implementation of the obligations.” Yet the EU has recognized the drawbacks of this lack of implementation at the EU level repeatedly, and most recently issued a Notice on Access to Justice for the Member States so as to achieve better implementation and consistency within the Member States. This article assesses the current developments of implementation with regard to Access on Justice in Austrian Water Law. The ruling in question can certainly be seen as milestone in environmental case law.

The Aarhus Convention and Polish Regulations Concerning Parties to Proceedings for Issuing the eia Decisions

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 56-76
Author(s):  
Magdalena Michalak ◽  
Przemysław Kledzik
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Law ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
United Nations Economic Commission ◽  
The Public ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Economic Commission ◽  
Aarhus Convention ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Environmental Law And Policy

Abstract The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters was adopted on 25 June 1998 in the Danish city of Aarhus. According to its provisions each state Part shall, within the framework of the national legal order, ensure that members of the public concerned have access to a review procedure before a court of law or another independent and impartial body established by law. At the same time, it contains regulations specifying the criteria that constitute the basis for determining persons enjoying rights to access justice with respect to national legal orders. Poland, being one of the state Parties, introduced into national legal order special provisions enabling implementation of the Aarhus Convention, including regulations concerning parties to proceedings in environmental matters. The aim of the study is to analyse and assess these regulations in the light of the requirements adopted in the Aarhus Convention and to formulate general conclusions in the field of key issues of the international and European environmental law and policy.

Access to the transposition of EU environmental law by Member States: Only if no infringement proceedings initiated

elni Review ◽  
2015 ◽  
pp. 24-29
Author(s):  
Anaïs Berthier
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
European Commission ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Member States ◽  
General Consensus ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
Aarhus Convention ◽  
The Eu

Ensuring a better implementation and enforcement of EU environmental law by Member States is one of the well-established commitments of the European Commission. One reason for this is the general consensus about the fact that the non-implementation of environmental law has huge repercussions, not only on the environment itself but on public health as well as the economy. However, Case C-612/13P shows that the way in which the Commission approaches this commitment is in contradiction with its goal. This article analyses the ruling of the Court of Justice and addresses the legal reasoning behind the refusal from the EU courts to apply the Aarhus Convention to EU institutions. Furthermore, the article elaborates on the concept of investigation under Article 4(2). It also deals with the Regulation 1049/2001 and the limits the Court placed on the presumption of confidentiality established by previous case-law for documents pertaining to administrative files.

European Union Plant Variety Protection

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gert Würtenberger ◽  
Martin Ekvad ◽  
Paul van der Kooij ◽  
Bart Kiewiet
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Patent Infringement ◽  
Practical Relevance ◽  
Member States ◽  
Plant Variety Protection ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Plant Variety ◽  
Variety Protection ◽  
The Eu

This book explains how the Community plant variety rights system works and provides guidance regarding the field of law relating to the Basic Regulation and other implementing regulations. It gives an idea of how the grant system works, the advantages of Community plant variety rights, and the aspects to be considered in exploiting and defending. It also explains the mechanisms in the Basic Regulation on how infringements of Community plant variety rights should be dealt with, including certain enforcement systems of the EU Member States. This book analyses major aspects that are considered of practical relevance in infringement proceedings under the applicable national law. It elaborates how the case law is limited in comparison with patent infringement proceedings throughout the EU Member States.

Mixed Agreements: The EU Law Fundamentals

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joni Heliskoski
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Case Law ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
Basic Characteristics ◽  
Mixed Agreements ◽  
The Eu

Whatever terminology one might wish to employ to describe the form of integration constituted by the European Union and its Member States, one fundamental attribute of that arrangement has always been the division, as between the Union and its Member States, of competence to conclude international agreements with other subjects of international law. Today, the fact that treaty-making competence—as an external facet of the more general division of legal authority—is divided and, to some extent, shared between the Union and its Member States is reflected by some of the opening provisions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Notwithstanding the changes to the scope and nature of the powers conferred upon the Union, resulting from both changes to primary law and the evolution of the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the basic characteristics of the conferment as an attribution of a limited kind has always been the same; there has always existed a polity endowed with a treaty-making authority divided between and, indeed, shared by, the Union and its Member States. In the early 1960s mixed agreements—that is, agreements to which the European Union

scholarly journals The ‘Territory of the Union’ in EU Citizenship Law: Charting a Route from Parallel to Integrated Narratives

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niamh Nic Shuibhne
Keyword(s):  
Case Law ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
Member States ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
Union Citizenship ◽  
Union Territory ◽  
The Eu

Abstract This paper examines the growing significance of the ‘territory of the Union’ in EU citizenship law and asks what it reveals about Union citizenship in the wider system of the EU legal order. In doing so, it builds on scholarship constructing the idea of ‘personhood’ in EU law by adding a complementary dimension of ‘place-hood’. The analysis is premised on territory as a place within—but also beyond—which particular legal qualities are both produced by and reflect shared objectives or values. In that respect, the paper offers a comprehensive ‘map’ of Union territory as a legal construct, with the aim of uncovering what kind of legal place the territory of the Union constitutes as well as the extent to which it is dis-connectable from the territories of the Member States. It also considers how Union territory relates to what lies ‘outside’. It will be shown that different narratives of Union territory have materialized in the case law of the Court of Justice. However, it is argued that these segregated lines of reasoning should be integrated, both to reflect and to progress a composite understanding of Union territory as a place in which concerns for Union citizens, for Member States, and for the system underpinning the EU legal order are more consistently acknowledged and more openly weighed.

Higher Education, Equal Access, and Residence Conditions: Does EU Law Allow Member States to Charge Higher Fees to Students Not Previously Resident?

2005 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gareth Davies
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Social Effects ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
Financial Benefit ◽  
Member States ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
The Eu

This article looks at the law and policy issues surrounding the practice of charging uniform fees for higher education to home students and students coming from other EU Member States. It begins with the observation that within the EU such fees are heavily subsidised by governments and therefore amount to a financial benefit (or a disguised grant) to students. In the light of this, this article suggests that restricting that subsidy to students resident prior to their studies would be not only compatible with recent case law on non-discrimination but would also fit better with the underlying logic of free movement, which denies any right to benefits for non-economic recent migrants. Secondly, it looks at the policy, and finds that while equal fees have a number of very positive social effects, they also carry moral and economic risks. A better approach, less distorting of the market for higher education and more consistent with the wider EU approach to welfare migration, might be to require exportability of subsidies from the student's state of origin.

Public Security Derogations to the Free Movement of EU Citizens and Preventive Criminal Law: A Collision between Ever-Expanding Concepts?

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 293-319
Author(s):  
Alejandro Sánchez Frías
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Free Movement ◽  
Public Security ◽  
European Level ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Directive ◽  
The Eu

The threat of foreign terrorist fighters has led to the development of preventive criminal law on an international and European level. The EU Directive on combating terrorism can have two impacts on the free movement of EU citizens. It directly calls upon Member States to criminalise the act of travelling, as well as other conduct that may be connected to a terrorist offence. In addition, ecj case law accepts EU criminal law as a basis for public security derogations against free movement. Therefore, the commission of any of the acts criminalised in the EU Directive on combating terrorism could be used as a reason to restrict the exercise of free movement by EU citizens. When Member States begin to adopt these measures, litigation on the balance between preventive criminal justice and free movement of EU citizens will increase.

scholarly journals The Limits of Agencification in the European Union

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (7) ◽  
pp. 1223-1255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miroslava Scholten ◽  
Marloes van Rijsbergen
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Lisbon Treaty ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Road ◽  
European Court ◽  
On The Road ◽  
The Eu

Although not explicitly regulated by the EU treaties, EU agencies not only exist but also have increased in number and power. In addition, while EU agencies may exercise very similar functions to those of the Commission, Articles 290 and 291 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) do not list agencies among the possible authors of non-legislative acts. The existing situation raises the questions of the extent to which the ongoing agencification in the EU is legitimate and what its limits are. This article addresses these questions in the light of the old and new Treaties and case law, including the just releasedESMA-shortsellingcase. It shows that while the Lisbon Treaty made a few steps forward on the road of legitimizing EU agencies and delegating important powers to them, the scope of powers that EU agencies can have remains unclear. In this respect, the European Court of Justice's lenient approach in theESMA-shortsellingcase is unfortunate because it neither clarifies the issue nor pushes the Union Legislator and the Member States to address it. Consequently, in the absence of clear limits, further agencification is likely to persist at the risk of increasing the democratic legitimacy deficit and remaining accountability gaps.

The Relationship between the EU and Member States in Constitutional Case Law: A Comparison between Western and Eastern Europe

2008 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 189-198
Author(s):  
Constance Grewe
Keyword(s):  
Turning Point ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
European Law ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
Constitutional Courts ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Constitutional Identity ◽  
The Eu

It is indeed a crucial moment now that Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries have begun to join the EU. The Maastricht Treaty was itself, in several respects, a turning point in European construction; Member States then became aware of the increasing influence of EU law and started to defend their autonomy against the ‘attacks’ stemming from it. With the accession of the CEE states, the ‘Solange story: a story about national constitutional courts resisting a straightforward surrender of national legal sovereignties, and insisting on their own role as guardians of any further transfer of powers from the national to the European level’, can now enter into ‘its chapter 3’. National or constitutional identity is the main arm of resistance, and these national reactions require a rethinking of the relationship between national and European law.

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