ENVIRONMENTAL LAW

International Constitutional Law (ICL) represents a paradigm shift away from the General Theory of Law and State (Allgemeine Staatslehre) to research on constitutions in general, thereby transcending state frontiers regarding both regional and international organizations. International Constitutional Law in its role as legal discipline combines aspects of constitutional law, public international law, European law and legal theory.

International Constitutional Law is based on a broader understanding of constitutional law. Constitutional Law in an ICL perspective integrates also fundamental international or European treaties as constitutional law. In federal state also subnational constitutions can be identified. Within this multi-level approach of constitutional law there exists various relations between these constitutions (network of constitution law).

Environmental law is a complex and interlocking body of treaties, conventions, statutes, regulations, and common law that, very broadly, operate to regulate the interaction of humanity and the rest of the biophysical or natural environment, toward the purpose of reducing the impacts of human activity, both on the natural environment and on humanity itself. The topic may be divided into two major subjects: pollution control and remediation, resource conservation and management. Laws dealing with pollution are often media-limited - i.e., pertain only to a single environmental medium, such as air, water (whether surface water, groundwater or oceans), soil, etc. - and control both emissions of pollutants into the medium, as well as liability for exceeding permitted emissions and responsibility for cleanup.

Laws regarding resource conservation and management generally focus on a single resource - e.g., natural resources such as forests, mineral deposits or animal species, or more intangible resources such as especially scenic areas or sites of high archeological value - and provide guidelines for and limitations on the conservation, disturbance and use of those resources. These areas are not mutually exclusive - for example, laws governing water pollution in lakes and rivers may also conserve the recreational value of such water bodies. Furthermore, many laws that are not exclusively "environmental" nonetheless include significant environmental components and integrate environmental policy decisions. Municipal, state and national laws regarding development, land use and infrastructure are examples.

Environmental law draws from and is influenced by principles of environmentalism, including ecology, conservation, stewardship, responsibility and sustainability. Pollution control laws generally are intended (often with varying degrees of emphasis) to protect and preserve both the natural environment and human health. Resource conservation and management laws generally balance (again, often with varying degrees of emphasis) the benefits of preservation and economic exploitation of resources. From an economic perspective environmental laws may be understood as concerned with the prevention of present and future externalities, and preservation of common resources from individual exhaustion. The limitations and expenses that such laws may impose on commerce, and the often unquantifiable (non-monetized) benefit of environmental protection, have generated and continue to generate significant controversy.

Given the broad scope of environmental law, no fully definitive list of environmental laws is possible. The following discussion and resources give an indication of the breadth of law that falls within the "environmental" metric.
Pollution does not respect political boundaries, making international law an important aspect of environmental law. A plethora of legally binding international agreements now encompass a wide variety of issue-areas, from terrestrial, marine and atmospheric pollution through to wildlife and biodiversity protection.

While the bodies that proposed, argued, agreed upon and ultimately adopted existing international agreements vary according to each agreement, certain conferences - including 1972's United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, 1983's World Commission on Environment and Development, 1992's United Nations Conference on Environment and Development and 2002's World Summit on Sustainable Development have been particularly important.

International environmental law's development has included the statement and adoption of a number of important guiding principles. As with all international law, international environmental law implicates questions of sovereignty, comity and even perhaps the Golden Rule. Other guiding principles include the polluter pays principle, the precautionary principle, the principle of sustainable development, environmental procedural rights, common but differentiated responsibilities, intragenerational and intergenerational equity, the "common concern of humankind", and the common heritage.

International environmental agreements are generally multilateral (or sometimes bilateral) treaties (a.k.a. convention, agreement, protocol, etc.). The majority of such conventions deal directly with specific environmental issues. There are also some general treaties with one or two clauses referring to environmental issues but these are rarer. There are about 1000 environmental law treaties in existence today; no other area of law has generated such a large body of conventions on a specific topic.

Protocols are subsidiary agreements built from a primary treaty. They exist in many areas of international law but are especially useful in the environmental field, where they may be used to regularly incorporate recent scientific knowledge. They also permit countries to reach agreement on a framework that would be contentious if every detail were to be agreed upon in advance. The most widely known protocol in international environmental law is the Kyoto Protocol.
Customary international law is an important source of international environmental law. These are the norms and rules that countries follow as a matter of custom and they are so prevalent that they bind all states in the world. When a principle becomes customary law is not clear cut and many arguments are put forward by states not wishing to be bound. Examples of customary international law relevant to the environment include the duty to warn other states promptly about icons of an environmental nature and environmental damages to which another state or states may be exposed, and Principle 21 of the Stockholm Declaration ('good neighbourliness' or sic utere).

Laws from every stratum of the laws of the United States pertain to environmental issues. The United States Congress has passed a number of landmark environmental regulatory regimes, but many other federal laws are equally important, if less comprehensive. Concurrently, the legislatures of the fifty states have passed innumerable comparable sets of laws. These state and federal systems are foliated with layer upon layer of administrative regulation. Meanwhile, the U.S. judicial system reviews not only the legislative enactments, but also the administrative decisions of the many agencies dealing with environmental issues. Where the statutes and regulations end, the common law begins.

The common law of tort is an important tool for the resolution of environmental disputes that fall beyond the confines of regulated activity. Prior to the modern proliferation of environmental regulation, the doctrines of nuisance, trespass, negligence, and strict liability apportioned harm and assigned liability for activities that today would be considered pollution and likely governed by regulatory regimes. These doctrines remain relevant, and most recently have been used by plaintiffs seeking to impose liability for the consequences of global climate change.

Environmental law courses are offered as elective courses in the second and third years of JD study at many American law schools. Curricula vary: an introductory course might focus on the "big five" federal statutes - NEPA, CAA, CWA, CERCLA and RCRA (or FIFRA) - and may be offered in conjunction with a natural resources law course. Smaller seminars mights be offered on more focused topics. Some U.S. law schools also offer an LLM or JSD specialization in environmental law. Additionally, several law schools host legal clinics that focus on environmental law, providing students with an opportunity to learn about environmental law in the context of real world disputes involving actual clients. U.S. News & World Report has consistently ranked University of Oregon School of Law, Vermont Law School, Lewis & Clark Law School, UC Berkeley School of Law, Pace University School of Law, Tulane University School of Law, and Georgetown University Law Center as among the best Environmental Law programs in the United States.

Many law schools host student-published law journals. The environmental law reviews at Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia and NYU law schools are regularly the most-cited such publications.

The IUCN Academy of Environmental Law is a network of some 60 law schools worldwide that specialise in the research and teaching of environmental law.
International environmental lawyers often receive specialized training in the form of an LL.M. degree after having a first law degree – often in another country from where they got their first law degree.