Contenu du sommaire

The adoption and entry into force of the Escazú Agreement represent a major step toward environmental democracy and a better implementation of the principle 10 of the Rio Declaration in Latin America and the Caribbean. This agreement results from a similar process to the one settled, at the European level, for the adoption of the Aarhus Convention, and its content is also widely inspired. This contribution assesses, from a comparative perspective, the effects of this agreement for the public's right to access environmental information. This right proves to be protected in an extensive way, but States Parties hold a wide margin of interpretation and hence flexibility in its implementation. Thus, the impacts of the agreement for environmental democracy still depend on the will of the States and remains to be confirmed.

Since the Italian Framework Law on Protected Areas of 1991, the organization of the Park Authority is centered around a prominent figure for legal action and representation, the president, which is accompanied by the technical governance of the director, competent in administrative, managerial and “non-general” actions of conservation of nature. However, it was not until 2016 that the concrete methods for assessing the qualifications for the exercise of activity by the director of the Park Authority were defined. The responsibilities of the Directors of protected areas imply a wide set of qualifications, ranging from the management of public affairs to environmental law, within the global framework of the challenge of sustainable development.

On June 30th of 2020, the Assembly of the Loyalty Islands Province in New-Caledonia adopted two important and complementary deliberations, one on protected natural areas and the second on the issue of access to nature. They were drawn up in accordance with the ambition that has prevailed since the beginning of the project. The environmental Code of the Loyalty Islands Province (CEPIL) is designed by a participative approach. Integrating the local cultural context was made possible by the institutional mechanisms that free New Caledonian law from the French national legal frame. The texts adopted propose a hybrid law in their content by handling the principle of subsidiarity to the benefit of local authorities, the respect of the hierarchy of norms and the constraints resulting from international law.

Fifty years later, the balance sheet theory, enshrined in the Ville Nouvelle-Est decision, suffers from a real anachronism. The development projects regularly attacked on environmental grounds seem to be just as authorized. On the one hand, the difficulty of the right relationship emerges and crystallizes in the judge's refusal to review the optimal public utility, even though an environmental legal basis may underpin it. On the other hand, with a view to sustainability, fine attempts to revalue the environmental interest in the light of the Charter of the Environment are emerging in controls upstream of the assessment. But the weakness of the environmental interest in the face of the general interest or even the public necessity of the projects remains obvious. This necessity goes so far as to impose a detour of their impact study, at the heart of the assessment, in order to justify their ecological acceptability. Moreover, the current tensions within the planning policy are increasingly perceptible. These tensions arise between the actors involved in the process of defining the public interest and are reflected in the control carried out by the judge.

The European Convention on Human Rights celebrated its 70th anniversary on 4th November 2020. In 2019-2020, the Strasbourg Court dealt with a significant number of environmental claims. The most relevant cases are listed and commented in this contribution. All these demonstrate the inventiveness of both of the parties to the disputes in some instances, but more often of the European Court, which goes beyond the conventional framework and advance it in small or large steps to respond to environmental issues arising today and to those that will inevitably emerge tomorrow.

Two main series legislation and regulation were adopted in the field of industrial plants: on the one hand, several governmental regulations in reaction to the blast of the Lubrizol factory; on the other hand, the movement towards a more and more flexible legal framework was increased with the ASAP law. Furthermore, administrative jurisdictions confirm the extent of their specific rule in the field of industrial plants and environmental permits. Other areas of pollution law are marked by a weakening of protections, the development of derogatory regimes unfavorable to the environment, and a boom in disputes in the areas of climate, air and pesticides. As for wastes, their legal framework is the subject of a reform that will supposedly to integrate their management into a circular economy.