Bautista, BJ G.
only allowed for private actions for damages or
BS Crim 3-B
Environmental Laws & Protection
Chapter VII
What is Environmental Law?
Environmental law, also known as environmental
and natural resources law, is a collective term
describing the network of treaties, statues,
regulations, common and customary laws
addressing the effects of human activity on the
natural environment. The core environmental law
regimes address environmental pollution.
What do environmental laws regulate? -
Environmental laws cover a wide range of topics
including the following:
1. Air Quality – Air quality laws protect the air
from pollution and may include measures to protect
the air from things like ozone depletion.
2. Water Quality – Environmental laws may
protect water from pollution.
3. Waste Management – Municipal waste,
hazardous substances and nuclear waste all fall in
the category of waste management.
4. Contaminant Cleanup- Not all environmental
law focuses on preventing pollution.
5. Chemical Safety- Chemical safety regulations
manage things like pesticide use and chemicals in
products like plastic bottles.
6. Hunting and Fishing- Environmental laws may
regulate and protect wildlife populations.
7. Major environmental legislation.
History of Environmental Law
Early examples of legal enactments
designed to consciously preserve the environment,
for its own sake or human enjoyment, are found
throughout history. In the common law, the primary
protection was found in the law of nuisance, but this
injunctions if there was harm to land. Thus smells
emanating from pig sties, strict liability against
dumping rubbish, or damage from exploding dams.
From Environmental law to Environmental
Order
The concepts of economic order and social order as
well known the term environmental order is
however largely unknown and is common neither as
a set phrases of as a concept. By giving the
examples of economic order and social order.
Law and Care of the Environment
Environmental law: the “ecological nuancing” of
law
During and after the First World War, law was
given an “economic nuance” and thus became
economic law; today environmental law has, with
the newly created concept of nuance” to legal norms
in public law, criminal law, private law, and
international law, designed to protect and look after
the natural foundations of human life, in other
words care of the environment.
Principles and functions of Environmental Law
Principles of prevention, polluter-pays principle,
principle of cooperation
Firstly, let us look at the principles of prevention,
the material leitmotiv for environment policy. The
early application of measures founded on this
principle is designed not only toward off danger and
remove damage, but also to prevent potential
negative environmental impacts from arising at all-
if possible at source and by means of risk-reduction
– so as to achieve sustainable use of the
environment, providing care for the assets at stake.
The second concept, the polluter-pays principle
must be understood as a fundamental allocation of
costs but not automatically also as a principle of
allocation of responsibility. Costs incurred to avoid,
remove and compensate damage should be allocated
to the party responsible. This also serves to avoid
distortions in competition.
The third principle that of cooperation, means that
care of the environment is a common task of both
the State and Citizens and must, as far as possible,
be affected in cooperation between the two.
The principle of emissions and the principle of
emissions
The standards to be met either now or in the
future by the environment or a part of a certain
environment or a part of a certain environment both
as regards quality and quantity may be subsumed in
the term environmental quality.
Threefold function
In taking on the task of caring for the
environment, law has a threefold function, the most
significant being its existential function in care of
the environment. Law is designed to secure
mankind’s life, survival and health and give men
and women an existence worthy of human dignity.
PRINCIPLES INFLUENCING
ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS
1. Environmentalism
2. Ecology
3. Conservation
4. Stewardship
5. Responsibility and Sustainability
Pollution Control
Water quality laws govern the release of pollutants
into water resources, including surface water,
ground water, and stored drinking water. Some
water quality laws, such as drinking water
regulations, may be designed solely with reference
to human health.
Waste Management
Waste management laws govern the
transport, treatment, storage, and disposal of all
manner of waste, including municipal solid waste,
hazardous waste, and nuclear waste, among many
other types. Waste laws are generally designed to
minimize or eliminate the uncontrolled dispersal of
waste materials into the environment in a manner
that may cause ecological or biological harm, and
include laws designed to reduce the generation of
waste and promote or mandate waste recycling.
Contaminant Cleanup
Environmental cleanup laws govern the
removal of pollution or contaminants from
environmental media such as soil, sediment, surface
water or ground water. Unlike pollution control
laws, cleanup laws are designed to respond after-
the-fact to environmental contamination, and
consequently must often define not only the
necessary response actions, but also the parties who
may be responsible for undertaking (or paying for)
such actions.
Chemical Safety
Chemical Safety laws govern the use of
chemicals in human activities, particularly man-
made chemicals in modern industrial applications.
As contrasted with media-oriented environmental
laws (e.g., air of water quality laws), chemical
control laws seek to manage the (potential)
pollutants themselves.
Resource Sustainability
What is Sustainability?
The terms Sustainable and Sustainability are used to
describe many different approaches toward
improving our way of life. Sustainability means
reducing our harm on the environment and
ultimately reversing the harm we have already
caused.
 Mineral Resources- Mining Law
Mineral resource laws cover several basic
topics, including the ownership of the mineral
resource and who can work them. Mining is also
affected by various regulations regarding the health
and safety of miners.
Forest Resources – Forestry Law
Forestry laws govern activities in designated forest
lands, most commonly with respect to forest
management and timber harvesting. Ancillary laws
may regulate forest land acquisition and prescribed
burn practices.
Wildlife and Plants
Wildlife laws govern the potential impact of human
activity on wild animals, whether directly on
individuals or populations, or indirectly via habitat
degradation. Similar laws may operate to protect
plant species. Such laws may be enacted entirely to
protect biodiversity, or as a means for protecting
species deemed important for other reasons.
Fish and Game
Fish and Game laws regulate the right to
pursue and take or kill certain kinds of fish and wild
animal (Game). Such laws may restrict the days to
harvest fish or game, the number of animals caught
per person, the species harvested, or the weapons or
fishing gear used.
Principles
Environmental law has developed in response to
emerging awareness of and concern over issues
impacting the entire world. While laws have
developed piecemeal and for a variety of reasons,
some effort has gone into identifying key concepts
and guiding principles common to environmental
law as a whole.
Sustainable Development
Development that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs, sustainable
development may be considered together with the
concepts of integration (development cannot be
considered in isolation from sustainability) and
interdependence (social and economic development,
and environmental protection, are interdependent).
Equity – Intergenerational Equity
The right of future generations to enjoy a fair level
of the common patrimony and intragenerational
equity- the right of all people within the current
generation to fair access to the current generation’s
entitlement to the Earth’s natural resources-
environmental equity considers the present
generation under an obligation to accurse for long
term impacts of activities, and to act to sustain the
global environment and resources base for future
generation.
Transboundary Responsibility
The international law context as an obligation to
protect one’s own environment, and to prevent
damage to neighboring environments, UNEP
considers transboundary responsibility at the
international level as a potential limitation on the
rights of the sovereign state.
Public Participation and Transparency
Identified as essential conditions for accountable
governments, industrial concerns and organizations
generally public participation and transparency are
presented by UNEP are requiring effective
protection of the human right to hold and express
opinions and to seek, receive and impart ideas… a
right of access to appropriate, comprehensible and
timely information held by governments and
industrial concerns on economic and social policies
regarding the sustainable use of natural resources
and the protection of the environment, without aims to protect human health and the environment
imposing undue financial burdens upon the against the adverse effects of hazardous wastes:
applicants and with adequate protection of privacy
and business confidentiality and effective judicial
and administrative proceedings. 1. Generation and Management
2. Trans- Boundary Movements
Precautionary Principle 3. Disposal
In order to protect the environment the
precautionary approach shall be widely applied by
Convention on Biological Diversity
States according to their capabilities.
Resulted from the recognition that damage to
biodiversity can only be effectively dealt with in a
Prevention comprehensive manner (not dealing with specific
species or habitats)
The concept of prevention can perhaps better be
considered an overarching aim that gives rise to a
multitude of legal mechanisms, including prior
[end]
assessment of environmental harm, licensing or
authorization that set out the conditions for
operation and the consequences for violation of the
conditions, as well as the adoption of strategies and
policies.

Polluter Pays Principle

The polluter pays principle stands for the idea that
the environmental costs of economic activities,
including the cost of preventing potential harm,
should be internalized rather than imposed upon
society at large.

Theory
Environmental law is a continuing source of
controversy. Debates over the necessity, fairness,
and cost of environmental regulation are ongoing,
as well as regarding the appropriateness of
regulations vs. market solutions to achieve even
agreed-upon ends.

Treaties/Convention/Protocol
The most comprehensive global environment
agreement on hazardous and other wastes which