The European Commmission aims to review the Seveso II directive 96/82 EC on industrial accidents. For that purpose the Commission started preparations for a review process starting with an assessment of the directive’s impact, strengths and weaknesses and prelimanary discussions with stakeholders. We expect the official consultation procedure to start in the next months.

Justice and Environment made a first check of the directive with regard the direcive’s compliance with the Aarhus Convention. Our findings are pretty clear: the SEVESO II directive is in stark contradiction to the Aarhus Convention. This means both the European Union and its member states are in legal non compliance with the Convention. The review process must thus strive to overcome these shortcomings and make the directive compatible with the Convention by providing rights on public participation, information and justice.

J&E’s position paper:  Aarhus and SEVESO J&E 2010-02-16

Over 80 million Europeans are exposed to harmful noise levels. The EU acquis, Environmental Action Programmes and finally the 2002/49/EC3 Environmental Noise Directive (END) described and targeted noise as one of the basic environmental problems. In year 2009, following upon a 2006 needs assessment, the legal experts of the Justice & Environment (J&E) Network compiled the comprehensive “Make Some Noise” shadow report about the – in our assessment, rather low level – implementation of the Directive. Among the findings and recommendations the development of Noise Maps and Noise Action Plans, delays and quality problems, low level of public involvement and non-cohesion with other regulations and plans are listed. The international comparative report and the National reports are presented and available on the J&E homepage.

Download

• Make some Noise! (2009) -International shadow report on the Implementation of the Environmental Noise Directive
• Make some Noise! (2009) – Austria
• Make some Noise! (2009) – Czech Republic
• Make some Noise! (2009) – Estonia
• Make some Noise! (2009) – Hungary
• Make some Noise! (2009) – Slovakia
• Make some Noise! (2009) – Slovenia
• Air and Noise Needs Analysis (2006)

Justice for All, or those who can afford?!

National researchers of the J&E network examined the costs of legal remedies both in administrative and judicial proceedings. The “Loser Pays Principle” sounds like a disincentive for public interest litigation but is that really such big a hurdle for achieving environmental justice at the government or before the court. Findings based on a research done by experienced environmental lawyers, using open sources as legal databases, case law and numerical data, combined with justified opinions are to be found in another fresh study of J&E called PRICE OF JUSTICE - International Comparative Analysis on Costs of Administrative and Judicial Remedies.

• PRICE OF JUSTICE  – INTERNATIONAL COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
• Price of Justice in Austria
• Price of Justice in Czech Republic
• Price of Justice in Croatia
• Price of Justice in Estonia
• Price of Justice in Hungary
• Price of Justice in Romania
• Price of Justice in Slovakia
• Price of Justice in Slovenia
• Price of Justice in Spain

Request for internal review (RIR) – preach or practice ?!

In the realm of environmental law, controversial decisions both on the national and supra-national levels spur the public to seek for legal remedies. Such remedies are available on the said levels; however, their applicability – let alone their effectiveness – are widely questioned by the public.  To what extent this skepticism is true was in the focus of research of Justice and Environment, European Network of Environmental Law Organizations in 2009. One of the areas assessed by J&E lawyers was to what extent the Aarhus Regulation adopted by the EU in 2006 is a real opportunity to challenge environmental decisions made by European Community institutions.  The statistics derived by desk research from data available on the Commission’s dedicated website so far seem quite discouraging: only one out of eight such requests was considered procedurally eligible. Whether it is due to the wrong interpretation of this legal instrument or to a restrictive policy of the Commission, can be found out in the recent study of J&E called: RIR IN PRACTICE, The Functioning of the Legal Instrument of Request for Internal Review under the Aarhus Regulation.

A new  J&E Access To Justice Collection is available on the Justice and Environment Website. The collection is based on practrical experiences and court cases of J&E member organisations in seven countries. The national studies discuss the definition of terms for access to justice by individual members of public (standing conditions); the scope of the court review of act and omissions; the effectiveness of a court review, particularly the requirement of its timeliness; the position of the Convention in legal system of its parties and the (non)unity of application of the Convention in individual states (parties) and the consequences therein. The collection of legal studies has been sponsored by International Visegrad Fund and Ministry for Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment of the Netherlands (VROM)

On 16 and 17 April, an international conference on access to justice in environmental matters was held at the Supreme Administrative Court in Brno, Czech Republic, organised by the Ministry of Environment of the Czech Republic in the scope of the Czech EU presidency. More than 80 experts from 17 European countries, judges and assistants form higher courts, lawyers of ministries, university pedagogues, attorneys and others addressed the experience with practical application of the “Aarhus Convention” at courts in individual EU countries.

(more…)