Pregledni rad

Climate Change Litigation and EU Environmental Liability Directive

Vanesa Vujanić

Sažetak

In 2001, the administration of the U.S. president George W. Bush completely pulled out from the possibility to adopt the Kyoto Protocol. This, as well as the lack of the adequate policy and legislation necessary to tackle the issue of global warming and impacts of climate change caused the shift of creating the appropriate legislative regime from the regulatory and executive levels of political power to the courts, hence causing important development of the climate change litigation. Subject litigation is not only the U.S. but also a global phenomenon. It can be encountered in Europe in spite of its very advanced environmental and climate change legal regimes. The validity of this statement is however questionable, particularly with respect to the level of effectiveness and applicability of the EU Environmental Liability Directive (the “ELD”) in the climate change litigation. Unfortunately, ELD does not provide for the complete and comprehensive liability regime that would ensure proper liability regulation related to the environmental issues. In fact, some say that its name should be Environmental Responsibility Directive. The aim of this paper is to determine the level of the applicability of the ELD in the climate change litigation, its limits and potential problems. For that purpose, the author examines the existing legislative regimes and climate change litigation cases in the U.S. and at the EU level. The paper will end with a short study on the status of the climate change litigation and potentially applicable regime in Croatia (including the ELD). Overall conclusion is that the applicability of the ELD in the climate change litigation is very limited.

Ključne riječi

Climate change; litigation; EU directive

Hrčak ID:

66445

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/66445

Datum izdavanja:

5.4.2011.

Podaci na drugim jezicima: hrvatski

Posjeta: 2.339 *