Environmental law and sustainable development [DROIB330]

Learning outcomes

Specific skills

a. To appropriate the concepts, rules and principles of the Belgian, European and international law sources applicable to the environment and sustainable development;

b. Understand the interweaving of legal disciplines (private law, public law, European and international law) in the protection of the "environment";

c. To conduct a critical and interdisciplinary reflection on the way in which the law, associated with the economy, protects the environment and compensates for market failures;

d. To take the measure of the place occupied by international law and European law in the protection of the environment;

e. To be aware of the relative and evolving nature of legal solutions that are dependent on scientific progress and expertise, economic constraints and political power struggles;

f. To grasp the potentialities, qualities and shortcomings of the legal instrument in the protection of the environment and the implementation of sustainable development policies.

Transversal skills (soft skills)

a. Communicate in writing or orally a precise, nuanced, convincing and intelligible legal reasoning;

b. Defend a point of view in an argumentative and rigorous manner in a complex field;

c. Enhance the material taught by personal intervention and reflection (orally, in class and on the exam);

d. Develop a critical sense of a legal rule, a jurisprudential solution, a policy proposal or any other resource seen in the course;

e. Understand the reasoning of disciplines related to law, such as economics, physics and political science;

f. Demonstrate independence and responsibility in implementing tools leading to success.

Objectives

Content

The climate catastrophes that have struck the planet, put into perspective by the latest IPCC report, suggest that the course on "Environmental Law and Sustainable Development", while traditionally an optional course, will occupy a central place in the training of current and future students, whether they are lawyers or not.

After identifying the sources of environmental law and sustainable development, the course highlights the major principles that structure the subject-matter (precautionary principle, polluter-pays principle, integration principle, etc.), while emphasising two new founding trends: the construction of an environmental democracy and the emergence of the notion of sustainable development in law (first part).

These teachings are reviewed in the light of interventions by experts from non-legal disciplines (climatology, economics, etc.) in the context of two lecture courses (second part).

Finally, current issues are addressed in a third part from the perspective of the teachers' research fields.

Table of contents

Introductory Part: The environment, a new object for law

Chap. 1. Emergence of environmental law

Chap. 2. A legal discipline under construction

Chap. 3. From environmental protection to sustainable development

Part I: Foundations of Environmental Law and Sustainable Development

Title I. Sources of environmental law

Title II. General Principles of Environmental Law

Title III. The construction of an “environmental democracy”

Title IV. The emergence of sustainable development in law

Part II: Environmental and sustainable development issues: a cross-disciplinary approach

Chap. 1. Why to act?

Chap. 2. How to act?

Part III: Specific issues in environmental and sustainable development law: capita selecta

Chap. 1. Environment and Human Rights

Chap. 2. Environment and CSR

Chap. 3. The law as an instrument in the fight against climate change