DO2PVPSAB4 Current Issues of Environmental Law in European Area

Faculty of Law
Spring 2022
Extent and Intensity
0/0/0. 2 credit(s). Type of Completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
JUDr. Vojtěch Vomáčka, Ph.D., LL.M. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
doc. JUDr. Ilona Jančářová, Ph.D.
Faculty of Law
Contact Person: Zuzana Suchá
Supplier department: Faculty of Law
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
This course focuses on trends of environmental law, challenges that the EU and EU Member States’ face in their task to tackle both regional and global environmental problems. In particular, it aims to trace and describe a new phase of environmental law-making which has evolved in the European area after command and control regulation and the parenthesis of market-based instruments and voluntarism, with its most important features being regulatory flexibility and meta-regulation, pluralistic regulation and collaborative governance. On completion of the course, diligent students should have a better understanding of the motives behind the shift in environmental policy and law, involving the governments of both business and civil society, on the pathway to the common goals to turn the EU into a resource-efficient, green, and competitive low-carbon economy, to protect, conserve and enhance the EU’s natural capital and to safeguard EU citizens from environment-related pressures and risks to health and wellbeing.
Learning outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course student: • should be able to identify legislative tools tackling the current environmental threats at the EU level • gain extended knowledge about the application and enforcement mechanisms of the EU environmental law • should be able to critically examine, analyse, interpret and assess the effectiveness of laws, institutions and practices in the field of EU environmental law
Syllabus
  • 1. Collaboration between a diversity of private, public and non-government stakeholders in tackling environmental challenges.
  • 2. Leaders, learners, and laggards in EU environmental law and policy.
  • 3. Shaping public opinion, fostering public environmental awareness through information gathering and successful campaigns, influencing consumers and markets through strategies in favour of green products.
  • 4. The encouragement of broader public participation, environmental justice and rights of future generations in the European context.
  • 5. Wider use of economic and fiscal instruments, and co-ordinated moves to apply them at the EU level to offset competitive disadvantages.
  • 6. A systematic approach to industrial pollution, the development of integrated pollution prevention and control.
  • 7. The phasing out of unsafe installations and intensified action to develop energy efficiency programmes and renewable sources of energy.
  • 8. Elements of enforcement and the value of emerging networks of enforcement bodies.
  • 9. The use of appropriate sanctions and the added benefit of a compliance assurance conceptual framework reflecting the interaction between compliance promotion, compliance monitoring (inspections/surveillance) and enforcement.
  • 10. Protection of the environment as a legal and intellectual challenge for national and EU courts.
Literature
  •  KINGSTON, S. European Perspectives on Environmental Law and Governance. Routledge, 2013, 245 s. ISBN 9780415500067
  •  ORR, S. K. Environmental Policymaking and Stakeholder Collaboration: Theory and Practice. CRC Press, 2013, 225 s., ISBN 9781482206401
  •  GOURITIN, A. EU Environmental Law, International Environmental Law, and Human Rights Law: The Case of Environmental Responsibility. Brill, 2016, 428 s. ISBN 9789004302143
  •  ATKINSON, R., GEORGIOS, T., ZIMMERMANN, K. Sustainability in European Environmental Policy: Challenges of Governance and Knowledge. Routledge, 2010, 224 s. ISBN 9781136900655
  •  LANGLET, D., MAHMOUDI, S. EU Environmental Law and Policy. Oxford University Press, 2016, 386 s. ISBN 9780198753926
  •  DIMITROV, R., S. Science and International Environmental Policy: Regimes and Nonregimes in Global Governance. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 225 s. ISBN 9781461642770
  • DE SADELEER, Nicolas. EU environmental law and the internal market. 1st ed. pub. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, lv, 499. ISBN 9780199675432. info
  • Environmental policymakingassessing the use of alternative policy instruments. Edited by Michael T. Hatch. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2005, x, 265 p. ISBN 9780791483817. info
Teaching methods
Current issues of environmental law will be addressed by a visiting legal scholar or a representative of the judiciary, administrative or civil society. The students will be required to analyse particular elements of the topic and present their results. Reading assignments and case law necessary for discussions will be provided by the course co-ordinator during the course.
Assessment methods
Colloquium, in which the students demonstrate their ability to conduct a professional discussion on the topic, based on their participation in the lectures and the corresponding reading assignments.
Language of instruction
Czech
The course is also listed under the following terms Spring 2021.
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
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