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Heringa, Aalt Willem --- "Human rights and general principles and their importance as a legislative technique. Do they matter in legislation? An analysis with specific reference to environmental protection" [2006] ELECD 501; in Faure, Michael; Niessen, Nicole (eds), "Environmental Law in Development" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Environmental Law in Development

Editor(s): Faure, Michael; Niessen, Nicole

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845425197

Section: Chapter 2

Section Title: Human rights and general principles and their importance as a legislative technique. Do they matter in legislation? An analysis with specific reference to environmental protection

Author(s): Heringa, Aalt Willem

Extract:

1. Introduction
Michael Faure and Nicole Niessen

1. PROBLEM DEFINITION: REASONS FOR THIS BOOK
Many legal systems, both in the north and in the south have for decades been
struggling with the question what the optimal legal and policy instruments are
to implement environmental policy. In the north, stimulated by international
conventions and (especially in the EU) by European directives one could
discern a tendency to refine the use of legal instruments. On the one hand envi-
ronmental policy today in the north is no longer merely based on the command
and control type instruments of regulation, but is moving increasingly to the
more market-oriented instruments such as environmental taxes and emission
trading. Also environmental liability gains increasing importance. A second
trend is undoubtedly that environmental law has moved away from the mere
sectoral approach towards a more integrated approach. This integration can on
the one hand be seen in the legal process where, for instance, the licensing
procedure needs increasingly to take into account the effects of an activity on
various components of the environment; on the other hand integration in some
cases also means a tendency towards changing the form of legislation. Hence
one can see many consolidated environmental acts and in some cases even
environmental codes.
The question which is rarely addressed in the literature is to what extent
these tendencies in environmental law and policy in the north are also typical
of the development of environmental law in the south and more particularly in
developing ...