ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION

1. ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION

2. LEGISLATION Legislation (or “statutory law ") is law which has been promulgated (pasludināt) by a legislature (likumdevēja vara) or other governing body, or the process of making it. Another source of law is judge-made law or case law. Before of legislation becomes thelaw, it may be known as a bill (likumprojekts). Legislation can have many purposes: to regulate, to authorize, to proscribe, to provide funds, as well as to sanction, to grant, to declare or to restrict.

3. LEGISLATION Case law(precedentu tiesības) is the set of reported judicial decisions of selected appellate courts which make new interpretations of the law and, therefore, can be cited as precedents in a process known as stare decisis (legal principle by which judges are obliged to respect the precedents established by prior decisions). These interpretations are distinguished from statutory law which are the statutes and codes enacted (ieviest) by legislative bodies. Regulatory law which are regulations established by government based on statutes. In some states, common law are the generally accepted laws carried to the colonies and former colonies of England (USA, Australia, etc.). Trials (tiesas process) and hearings (uzklausīšana) which are not selected as “courts of first impression” do not have rulings (tiesas lēmums) that become case law, therefore, these rulings cannot be precedents for future court decisions.

4. LEGISLATION Statutorylaw (ar likumu noteikts) or statute law(parlamenta likumdošanas akts) is written law, as opposed to oral or customary (parasts) law, set down by a legislature or by a legislator (in the case of an absolute monarchy). Statutes (parlamenta likumdošanas akts) may originate with national, state legislatures or local municipalities. Statutes of lower jurisdictions are subordinate to the law of higher. An oral law is a code of conduct in use in a given culture, religion or community application, by which a body of rules of human behaviour is transmitted by oral tradition and effectively respected, or the single rule that is orally transmitted.

5. LEGISLATION Legislation is regarded as one of the three main functions of government, which are often distinguished under the doctrine of the separation of powers. Those who have the formal power to create legislation are known as legislators. Judical branch of government will have the formal power to interpret legislation. The executive branch of government can act only within the powers and limits set by the law.

6. LEGISLATION The Westminster system is a democratic parliamentary system of government, modelled after the politics of the United Kingdom. This term comes from the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the Parliamentof the United Kingdom. The system is a series of procedures for operating a legislature. It is used in the national legislatures and sub national legislatures of most Commonwealth and ex-Commonwealth nations upon being granted responsible government, beginning with the first of the Canadian provinces in 1848 and the six Australian colonies between 1855 and 1890. There are other parliamentary systems whose procedures differ considerably from the Westminster system.

7. The Houses of Parliament are situated within the Palace of Westminster, in London.

8. GermanParliament (Reichstag)building in Berlin. The dedication DemDeutschen Volke, meaning‘For the German people’, canbe seen on the architrave.

9. ENVIRONMENTAL LAW Environmental law means a body of legislativeprovisions, regulating the public rules of conductin the area of environmental protection. criminal law administrative law Environmental law constitutional law administrative procedure law 9

10. ENVIRONMENTAL LAW Environmental law belongs to public law, which means that, to protect the environment, the state prescribes for the public certain requirements that must be followed. If a person fails to comply with theserequirements, the state may use coercive(piespiedu)measuresagainst such a person, imposing a correspondingpenalty or ordering to eliminate the adverse effectson the environment resulting from the violation. Aims of the environmental protection Environmental law

11. SOURCES OF LAW Environmental law consists of several types of legal sources representing the written law (legislation) and the unwritten law (general legal principles and customary law). The sources of environmental law can be divided into the basic sources orlaws and ancillary (palīg-) sources (caselaw or the rights of judges and jurisprudence – legal science or jurists’ law). written law – legislation Sources of the law ancillary sources– case law or the rights of judges and jurisprudence unwritten law– general legal principles and customary law

12. EU Parliament Parliament building in Brussels The EU Parliament in Strasbourg

13. EU Parliament’s parties Socialists & Democrats (S&D) – 185 European People’s Party (EPP) – 265 European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) - 56 Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) – 84 The Greens – European Free Alliance (Greens-EFA) – 55 EU Left & Nordic Green Left Alliance (EUL-NGL) – 35 European Alliance for Freedom (EAF) – 27 (eurosceptics) Non-Inscrits - 29

14. National apportionment of Members of the European Parliament seats (total 736) Sweden 18 (2.4%)  Austria 17 (2.3%)  Bulgaria 17 (2.3%)  Finland 13 (1.8%)  Denmark 13 (1.8%)  Slovakia 13 (1.8%)  Ireland 12 (1.6%)  Lithuania 12 (1.6%)  Latvia 8 (1.1%)  Slovenia 7 (1.0%) Cyprus 6 (0.8%)  Estonia 6 (0.8%) Luxembourg 6 (0.8%)  Malta 5 (0.7%)  Germany 99 (13.5%)  France 72 (9.8%)  Italy 72 (9.8%)  United Kingdom 72 (9.8%)  Spain 50 (6.8%)  Poland 50 (6.8%)  Romania 33 (4.5%)  Netherlands 25 (3.4%)  Belgium 22 (3.0%)  Czech Republic 22 (3.0%)  Greece 22 (3.0%)  Hungary 22 (3.0%)  Portugal 22 (3.0%)

15. BASE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION LEGISLATION EU legislation – including regulations, directives and decisions – is binding to the European Union Member States. EU environmental legislation is developed mainly in the form of directives that the Member States must then integrate into their national law. Regulations Binding legislative documents of the EU National environmental legal protection is also based on international legislation. For the most part, they are international agreements (conventions, protocols) to which the Member State is a party. Directives Decisions

16. THE EUROPEAN UNION ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION Primary legislation documents, issued based on European Community establishment treaties EU acquis communautaire (“community heritage”) are: Secondarylegislation documents – regulations, directives, decisions, conventions, declarations Two core functional treaties, the Treaty on European Union (originally signed inMaastrihtin 1992) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (originally signed in Rome in 1958 as the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community), lay out how the EU operates, and there are a number of satellite treaties which are interconnected with them. EU aims of environmental policy are: • preserve, protect and improve environmental quality, • provide a high-quality living environment, • sustainable use of natural resources.

17. Treaties of the European Union

18. Protocols, annexes and declarations There are 37 protocols, 2 annexes and 65 declarations that are attached to the treaties to elaborate details, often in connection with a single country, without being in the full legal text. Protocols: on the role of National Parliamentsin the EU, on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality , on the statute of the Court of Justice of the EU, on the statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank, on the statute of the European Investment Bank, ... Annexes Annex I lists agricultural and marine produce covered by the Common Agriculture Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy. Annex II lists the overseas countries and territories associated with the EU.

19. Acquiscommunautaire Acquis communautaire is a French term referring to the cumulative body of European Community laws, comprising the EC’s objectives, substantive rules, policies and, in particular, the primary and secondary legislation and case law – all of which form part of the legal order of the European Union. This includes all the treaties, regulations and directives passed by the European institutions, as well as judgements laid down by theEuropean Court of Justice.The acquis is dynamic, constantly developing as the Community evolves, and fundamental. All Member States are bound to comply with the acquis communautaire. The term is most often used in connection with preparations by candidate countries to join the Union. They must adopt, implement and enforce all the acquis to be allowed to join the EU. As well as changing national laws, this often means setting up or changing the necessary administrative or judicial bodies which oversee the legislation. That part of the acquis communautaire, which is concerned with regulation of employment and industrial relations, constitutes the foundation for Europeanisation of employment and industrial relations in the Member States of the EU, and the basis for a European system of employment and industrial relations. 19

20. European Court of Justice The European Court of Justice (officially the Court of Justice), is the highest court in the European Union in matters of European Union law. The Court of Justice of the European Union is tasked with interpreting EU law and ensuring its equal application across all EU member states. The Court was established in 1952 and is based in Luxembourg. It is composed of one judge per member state — currently 28 — although it normally hears cases in panels of three, five or thirteen judges. The court has been led by President.

21. BASE OF THE NATIONAL LEGISLATION IN LATVIA Laws approved by Saeima (Latvian Parliament) Regulations approved by the Cabinet of Ministers (state government) National legislation include: Binding regulations approved by local authorities Hierarchy of the legislation in Latvia

22. Saeima - Parliament of the Republic of Latvia

23. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AS ACONSTITUTIONAL NORM Article 115 of theConstitution of the Republic of Latvia stipulates: ”The State shall protect the right of everyone to live in a benevolent environment by providing information on environmental conditions and by promoting the preservation and improvement of the environment”.

24. Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Latvia

25. Riga Town Hall

26. AIMS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION POLICY IN LATVIA • water protection, • soil protection, • protection against noise, • ambient air protection, • nature and biodiversity conservation, • waste management, • turnover of chemical substances and products, • turnover of genetically modified organisms, • emissions and releases into the environment, • environmental impact assessment, • access to environmental information, • public participation in environmental decision making. Environmental legal protection is associated with both environmental and natural resource protection and sustainable use, and the protection of human health from harmful environmental factors in the following environment-related areas:

27. LEGISLATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION In general, environment refers to: • the surroundings of an object, • the natural environment, • all living and non-living things that occur naturally on Earth. For the purpose of the law, ‘the environment’ istaken to mean an aggregate of natural, anthropogenic and societal factors. Obviously, ‘the environment’ includes not only natural factors (the natural environment), but also human beings and their impact on the natural environment.

28. UNDERSTANDING OF THE LAW The countries that belong to the continental European civil law system have codified laws, which are often referred to as codes. In several countries, there are civil and criminal as well as environmental law codifications. For example, Germany, France and Sweden have environmental codes. Latvian environmental regulatory standards are included not just in one but in several laws: the Environmental Protection Law, the Law on Pollution, the Law on the Conservation of Species and Biotopes, the Law on Specially Protected Nature Territories, the Protection Zone Law, the Waste Management Law. The laws of such countries as the United Kingdomand United States, in turn, belong to another groupof Western law – the English-Saxon common law system. In this group of laws, the basic recognisedsources of law are both the laws adopted bythe parliament (legislative statutes) and judicialprecedents. Therefore, in these countries, the socalledrights of judges have significantly greaterweight than in continental Europe.

29. UNDERSTANDING OF THE LAW Human behaviour is governed by different types of rules – from etiquette and morality to legal provisions. However, only the legal provisions are containedin the sources of law and are binding. Environmental laws are primarily focused on solving environmental problems and include measures that should be taken in order to prevent known environmental problems. Compliance with the requirements of legal provisions makes possible to eliminate environmental damage or to reduce its impact.

30. STRATEGICAL CHARACTER OFRIGHTSAND RESPONSIBILITIES To prevent human-created environmental problems successfully, we need to develop a strategy to change human behaviour, making it more environment-friendly. In general, environmental law is primarily rules ofconduct in environmental legislation • The law may set a binding framework, within which • economic, • technical, • informative, • educational • and • othermeasures • are often implemented for their environmental value. Since law is the most effective regulator of social behaviour, it is widely applied in order to change social behaviour patterns in the use of the environment.

31. STRATHEGICAL METHODS FORIMPLEMENTATION OF LAWS The desired behaviour can be achieved with twokinds of methods, working as a ‘pie’ or a ‘whip’. The ‘whip’ strategy, in contrast, provides for measures prevent Specific, environmentally harmful actions. The ‘pie’ strategy means that the law stimulates the implementation of environment-friendly behaviour in a way that compliance with environmental protection requirements is beneficial. These measures have to be such that the disadvantageous consequences of environ mentally unfriendly actions would inhibit people from these actions. The ‘whip’ strategy is most commonly used in the provisions that impose penalties or other coercive measures for non-compliance with environmental protection requirements.

32. IMPLEMENTATION OF LAWS AND REGULATIONS adopted by thelegislator implemented by specialised state or municipal environmental protection authorities executive powers or politicians Usually, environmental law drafts are developed by courts exercise control over the compliance with these laws Unlike it is with other social norms, the compliance with legal provisions can be enforced by compulsion. Therefore, only the law has a specific implementation process – the legal provision.

33. LEGAL PROVISION Legal provision is a mechanism for ensuring the compliance with legal provisions or their fulfilment. courts In order to make this process work, the state hascreated relevant institutions (authorities) which have been granted amonopoly of coercion: police prosecutor’s office specialised state environmental departments The coercion mechanismgrants the state (the law enforcement bodies) the lawful right to apply coercive measures against theviolators or non-observers of the law. The coercivemeasures themselves are established by the law, and they are quite different.

34. CONTROL OF THE COMPLIANCE WITH ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION The state has the right to monitor the compliancewith environmental legislation. Such control canbe exercised by state environmental inspectors. If non-conformities with the requirements of environmental legislation are found during inspections, state environmental inspectors may, for example: • issue binding injunctions (administrative acts) for temporary suspension of the company’s operations, • draw up statements of the cases for less grievous (administrative) violations, • impose statutory administrative penalties for these violations. Although the law also provides for criminal liability for environmental legislation offences, in practice the environmental regulatory violations are classifiedprimarily as less serious violations. The most common punishment for environmental violation is an administrative fine, whose amount is usually fixed by the law.

35. LAW AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE Environmental science and environmental law each has its own specific tasks. Environmental science explains and forms understanding about the processes taking place in the natural environment, interaction going on among the elements of nature and between humans and the natural environment. The task of the law is to regulate social relations for the purpose of protecting and improving the environment and to solve the related disputes. Although the environmental science and law are quite different areas, they are at the same time closely related. Regulation of social relationsin such a way that human activity would not have any destructive environmental impact is possible only if both the legislature and general public have an understanding of the processes in the environment and their causes.

36. LAW AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Regulating social relations, the law as such is silent on ethical issues Is it acceptable to degrade the natural environment and to consume a large part of the planet’s natural resources during one generation ? What is the moral value of nature ? Answers to these questions should be sought in environmental ethics. What kinds of actions in relation to nature should be regarded as good or bad ?

37. CONCEPTIONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Environmental law is based on two main conceptions of environmental ethics – anthropocentrism and ecocentrism. Ecocentric approach: the environment (nature) has an intrinsic value in itself; therefore, the human responsibility is to protect it without regard to the benefits humans could obtain from it, and to provide for the possibility to exist not only for humans but also for other living beings. Anthropocentric approach: the environment should be protected in the interests of human welfare – today’s environmental protection conserves environmental resources for future consumption. Contemporary environmental law is primarily anthropocentric !

38. LEGAL PRINCIPLES OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION Environmental protection principles are guiding ideas on the basis of which the state develops its environmental policy. Compared with legal provisions as sufficiently clear rules of conduct, the environmental protection principles are more abstract. Principles are often considered as an intermediate stage between environmental policy and environmental law. principle of high level of environmental protection There are several environmental protection principles effective in the European legal space principle of preventive action precautionary principle ‘polluter pays’ principle

39. PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE The precautionary principledoes not allow to start on an environment-affecting action until the information has been obtained as to how high arisk exists and what measures have to be taken to reduce it. The aim of the precautionary principle is not to permit certain actions only when the risk to the environment or human health is equated to zero,but to assess the magnitude of the risk and, in case of need, take the necessary measures. If the research process reveals a threat, the precautionary principle calls for precautionarymeasures, despite the fact that there is some uncertainty as to whether the risk is indeed real. Now the European Union law has brought new binding requirements based on the precautionary principle – over 30 thousand existing and new chemical substances will have to be tested with regard to their effect on human health. Example It is no longer the country but manufacturers and importersof chemical substances who must obtain certaininformation on the properties of these substances and test them to determine their impact on the environment and humans. Manufacturers and importers of chemical substances guarantee their product safe use, that is, prove that the substance is not hazardous.

40. THE PRINCIPLE OF PREVENTIVE ACTION The principle of preventive action requires toprevent pollution or other harmful impacts on theenvironment or human health as much as possible, or, if it is unfeasible, then at least to prevent furtherspreading of these harmful effects and their negativeconsequences. The principle of prevention combinestwo EU environmental protection principles – theprinciple of preventive action and the principle ofcausation. Each state or local government should, as far as practicable, by itself treat and manage in an environmentally sound manner the waste generated at its territory (the self-sufficiency principle). Waste should be processed and disposed of as close to its place of origination as possible (the proximity principle). Example

41. THE ASSESSMENT PRINCIPLE The assessment principleprescribes: if the consequences of an action or project can significantly affect the environment or human health, they must be assessed before such an action or project is permitted (commenced). If it becomes evident after the assessment that the action or project in question will adversely affect the environment or human health, the government may allow it on condition that the expected positive result for society as a whole will exceed the harm that the respective action or project will have caused to the environment and society. “The expected positive result for society as a whole” may be related to the implementation of economic interests, such as the construction of roads, dams, pipelines, nuclear power plants.

42. “THE POLLUTER PAYS” PRINCIPLE “The polluter pays” principlerequires that the costs of assessment, prevention and mitigation of pollution as well as the costs of elimination of its effects are borne by the person whose activity has caused the pollution in question. Persons – individuals or companies – whose actions have caused harm to the environment, i.e., such detectable changes in the environment that are likely to have significant negative impacts on both human health and also the environment (e.g., waters, specially protected areas, species, habitats) are required to restore the previous state of the environment, covering the pollution removal and environment restoration costs. If the actual polluter does not exist anymore, and the contaminated site does not have another owner, the clean-up of the contaminated site has to be covered from the state budget. To put ‘the polluter pays’ principle into effect, it is important to determine who is the polluter and for what the polluter must pay.

43. DeepwaterHorizon off-shore drilling rigon fire, Gulf of Mexico, 2010.

44. LEGAL REGULATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION Environmental quality is affected by different factors: • pollution, • excessive deforestation, • land cultivation and unreasonable fertilisation, • use of substances or organisms foreign to the natural environment. To encompass all these and otherfactors, several approaches and measures are usedin the legal regulation of environmental protection: 1) state exercises control over the polluting activities, 2) the ecosystem approach, 3) regulations for various state and local government decision-making processes.

45. DEVELOPMENT OF THE APPROACHES All three approaches are used in the normative regulation of environmental protection. However, going back to the beginnings of environmental laws, it is possible to trace their changes and developments over time. Initially, environmental legislation was focused on controlling the pollution from industrial enterprises. Then it became clear that other economic activities also degrade the environment. Therefore, the legislature began to set forth the objectives to be attained within specified periods of time and to require complex measures: - gathering and analysis of information, - planning and execution of measures, - making transparent planning process by involving the community.

46. LEGAL REGULATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION LEGAL REGULATION INSTRUMENTS: Binding regulatory requirements– standards Voluntarily made commitments– self-regulation 46

47. ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION INSTRUMENTS Binding regulatory requirements are also called standards. Often they are regarded as the core of environmental law, because they, as the means of ‘command and control’, directly set forth certain requirements (standards) for environment-polluting activities, substances and products, as well as for the implementation and application of environmental regulations. There are several categories of standards: emission standards for the permissible pollution that can be released from the end-of-pipeof industrial facilities into the environment; the environmental quality standards for such environmental components as air, surface and ground water and soil; standards for different processes, requiringthe use or abandonment of specific technologies, materials or practices. For example, there are requirements to use the ‘best available technologies’ or specific fishing gear and dragnets with specific mesh sizes in fishery.

48. ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION INSTRUMENTS Voluntarily made commitments (self-regulation).Self-regulation is rooted in the idea that enterprisesvoluntarily assume additional commitment forenviron mental protection. • Another forms of self-regulation are: • environmental audit, which is carried out within the framework of the environmental management and audit system established by law; • eco-labelling, whichprovide consumers with information on the environmental impact of products. In Europe, a transition to a new publicmanagement model took place in the 90s of the20th century. In accordance with this model, public management takes over the management styletypical to the private sector, i.e. it is aimed ateconomy and effciency. 48

49. ECO-LABELLING Ecoproduct by Latvia Scandinavian eco-label Nordic Swan – Scandinavian eco-label by Nordic Council European Union official eco-label Blue Angel – German environmental label 49

50. DIALOGUE WITH SOCIETY The authority of public opinion is crucial in environmental protection. Environmental laws can have the necessary support and effect only if the majority of society understands the importance of favourable environment for human life and the need to preserve the environment. Public pressure often expedites the drafting and adoption of laws. There are such legal provisions today, whose implementation is not even possible without public activities. A vivid example is the Aarhus Convention on public rights in environmental matters. Aarhus Convention deals with environmentalprotection in close relation with humanrights.