WHAT IS ECOLOGICAL LAW? - ENVIRONMENT - 2024

The ecological law is a complex combination of international and federal laws and treaties that deal with the problems of the environment and protection of natural resources.

For example, environmental laws are often related to problems such as soil, air, and water pollution, global warming, and the depletion of fuel, coal, and drinking water.

Violations of these ecological laws are handled in a civil manner, with the imposition of fines and civil damages to the affected parties.

But there is an emerging trend in this field in favor of the imposition of state laws that criminalize ecologically destructive behavior.

This has led to those who violate the laws in law-protected environments, and managers who allow their companies to pollute, face chains in jail.

In the late 20th century, ecological law developed from a modest accompaniment of public health regulations to a universally recognized independent field.

This area of ​​the law seeks to protect both the nature of human and non-human health.

History

Throughout history, national governments have implemented occasional laws to protect human health from environmental pollution.

Around 80 AD. C., the Senate of Rome implemented legislation to protect the supply of clean water for drinking and bathing.

In the 14th century, England banned both the burning of coal and the disposal of waste on the London waterways.

In 1681, the leader William Penn of the English colony of Pennsylvania in the United States, ordered that one acre of forest be preserved for every five acres that were deforested for settlement purposes.

In the following century, American founding father Benjamin Franklin led several campaigns to reduce waste disposal.

In the 19th century, in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, the British government passed regulations to reduce the damaging effects on public health and the environment of burning coal and chemical manufacturing.

Before the 20th century, few international environmental treaties existed. The agreements that were reached focused primarily on border waters, navigation, and fishing rights along shared waterways; they basically ignored pollution and other ecological problems.

Twentieth century

At the beginning of the 20th century, agreements to protect commercially valuable species were reached. Some examples include:

The Convention for the Protection of Birds Useful for Agriculture (1902) signed by 12 European governments; the Convention for the Preservation and Protection of Seals (1911), signed by the United States, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom; and the Convention for the Protection of Migratory Birds (1916), adapted by the United States and the United Kingdom, and later extended to Mexico (1936).

During the 1930s, Belgium, Egypt, Italy, Portugal, South Africa, Sudan and the United Kingdom adapted the Convention Relative to the Preservation of Fauna and Flora in their Natural State, which committed these countries to preserve flora and fauna. natural wildlife in Africa by creating national parks and reserves. Spain, France and Tanzania joined.

Beginning in 1960, ecology became a major political and intellectual movement.

After several studies on the harm of CHC pesticides, their use was reconsidered and over the next several decades many green laws were passed on water and air pollution, solid waste disposal, and the protection of endangered animals.

The Environmental Protection Agency was also created to monitor compliance with its agreements.

These new ecological laws dramatically increased the role of the national government in an area previously left to the states and its local regulation.

In 1971 the Ramsar Convention was adopted, which today has been signed by more than 100 countries and has to do with the protection of wetlands.

In 1972 UNEP, the United Nations program for ecological organization, was established. Since then, hundreds of agreements have been drawn up on ecological law.

Levels of ecological law

Ecological law exists at many levels and is only partially constituted by international declarations, conventions and treaties.

Most ecological law is statutory (for example: covered in the norms of legislative bodies) and regulatory (for example: generated by the agencies in charge of environmental protection).

Additionally, many countries have included some kind of environmental quality in their national constitutions.

For example, environmental protection has been included in Germany's Basic Law, which states that the government must protect the natural foundations of life for future generations.

Similarly, the Chinese Constitution, the South African Constitution, the Belgian Constitution and the Chilean Constitution also declare that their citizens have the right to live without pollution.

Most environmental laws also include the decisions of local international courts.

Types of ecological law

Legislation I order and command

Most of these laws fall into the general category known as command and command. Such laws typically involve three elements: identification of a type of activity harmful to the environment, imposition of specific conditions on that activity, and the prohibition of forms of that activity that fail to meet those conditions.

For example, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (United States, 1972) regulates the 'removal' of 'pollutants' in 'navigable waters'.

The 3 terms are defined in the statute and regulations of the Agency and identify a type of activity harmful to the environment that must be regulated.

Environmental mandates

These mandates serve three functions: identifying a level of environmental impact that requires assessment, setting specific goals for the assessment, and ensuring that the assessment will be considered in order to proceed with action.

Contrary to command-and-command legislation, these mandates protect the environment indirectly by increasing the amount and quality of public information about the environmental consequences of actions that is available to the public.

Economic incentives

The use of economic instruments to create incentives for environmental protection is a popular form of ecological law.

These incentives include pollution taxes, subsidies for clean technologies and practices, and the creation of markets in both environmental protection and pollution.

Withdrawal regime

Another method of ecological law is to set aside land and water in their natural state. For example, Europe has large canals of national parks and reserves on public and private lands; It is also the case in Africa, where wildlife is protected.

References

1. Environmental law. Recovered from britannica.com
2. Best environmental law programs (2017). Recovered from usnews.com
3. Environmental law. Recovered from law.cornell.edu
4. Environment law- environmental and natural resources law. Recovered from hg.org
5. Environmental law. Recovered from wikipedia.org.