Interpreting Environmental Offences

The Need for Certainty
NIPPOD
ISBN: 978-1-5099-1603-0
Verlag: Hart Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 256 Seiten, Paperback, Gewicht: 367 g

This book analyses the interpretation of environmental offences contained in the waste, contaminated land, and habitats' protection regimes. It concludes that the current purposive approach to interpretation has produced an unacceptable degree of uncertainty. Such uncertainty threatens compliance with rule of law values, inhibits predictability, and therefore produces a scenario which is unacceptable to the wider legal and business community.

The author proposes that a primarily linguistic approach to interpretation of the relevant rules should be adopted. In so doing, the book analyses the appropriate judicial role in an area of high levels of scientific and administrative complexity. The book provides a framework for interpretation of these offences. The key elements that ought to be included in this framework-the language of the provision, the harm tackled as drafted, regulatory context, explanatory notes and preamble, and finally, purpose in a broader sense-are considered in this book. Through this framework, a solution to the certainty problem is provided.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lees, Emma

Fachgebiete

• Rechtswissenschaften Ausländisches Recht Common Law (UK, USA, Australien u.a.)

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction

I. Structure

II. Motivation, Scope and Methodology

2. Environmental Criminal Law in Context

I. Property and Environmental Law

II. Human Rights and the Environment

III. Questions of Risk

IV. Jurisdictional Overlap-National Law and EU Law

V. Interpretation and Judicial Reasoning

VI. Criminal Law and Environmental Law

VII. Conclusion

3. Legal Certainty

I. Defining Legal Certainty

II. Transparency and Accessibility in National and European Case Law

III. Certainty in Environmental Law

IV. Conclusions

4. Waste, Nature Conservation and Contaminated Land: The Offences
I. Waste

II. Contaminated Land

III. Nature Conservation
5. Uncertainty in Interpretation

I. Uncertainty in Practice

II. The Teleological Approach in the Courts

6. Identification of the Cause of Uncertainty: The Regulatory Culture

I. Approach of the ECJ

II. Administrative Approach

III. The Ambiguous Role of the Courts

IV. Academic Approaches

V. Conclusions

7. The Solution: A Change in Approach to Interpretation

I. Linguistic Analysis

II. Mischief

III. Seeing the Rules as Part of a Framework

IV. Explanatory and Pre-Legislative Materials

V. Ambiguity-Aims as a Last Resort

VI. Conclusions

8. Practical Implementation of the Solution

I. Environmental Principles

II. Legal Barriers to Taking Such an Approach and Overcoming Them

III. Examples in Practice

9. Conclusions

I. Property/Environmental Law

II. Human Rights and the Environment

III. Question of Risk

IV. Jurisdictional Overlap

V. Interpretation and Legal Reasoning

VI. Environmental/Criminal Law

VII. Conclusion

Über Autor(innen)

Lees, Emma
Emma Lees is Professor of Transnational Law at the European University Institute, Italy, and Professor of Environmental and Property Law, University of Cambridge, UK.

Photograph courtesy of University of Cambridge.

Emma Lees is a University Lecturer in Property and Environmental Law in the Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge.