Principles of enviromental protection

responsibility
1.2 The principle of proportionality
Conclusions
Bibliography

under all its forms, ranging from conservation of ecosystems to sustainable development, is gaining more and more influence upon our daily activities. Environmental organizations appear every day and promote all sorts of theories regarding the necessity to protect the environment in which we live. It is also clear that not only was the public opinion receptive to these ideas, but so were the political parties, since environmental claims appear in nearly all of the current political agendas.
Taking these aspects into consideration, the main objectives of this paper will be, on the one hand, to analyze the environmental legislation (viewed as a result of the environmentalists’ claims) in light of five universally valid ethical principles and on the other hand, to propose a better juridical alternative for solving conflicts regarding environmental protection. Based on the works of W. Block (2008, p. 42-62) and M. N. Rothbard (1997, p. 121-170), I will underline the necessity of a better definition and enforcement of private property rights. I will also mention the disadvantages of the current environmental legislation versus the advantages of the former Anglo-Saxon method of private individuals pressing charges in court against polluters. Moreover, in this paper I will try to interpret the unbelievable success of the current environmental movement in light of the decay of natural rights theory.

the fact that in order to solve any legal dispute regarding environmental aspects one must start from the distribution of property rights involved. Thus, the statement A claims that B “pollutes the environment” must necessarily involve the following: a certain action undertaken by B has as an effect the invasion and damaging of A’s property. In this case, it seems just that B must compensate A for the damages that he is responsible for. We can ask now a fundamental question: is it possible in the above mentioned case for a certain individual C to accuse B of polluting, even though the actions of B have not affected C’s property in any way? If we want to respect private property rights, the answer would be no.

legislation), in nearly all the cases, do not have any property rights in the polluted areas. An interesting example here would be the claims made by Greenpeace and Agent Green that the road 66A is “destroying the last forest landscape left intact in Europe” and therefore it must be stopped (Stop DN 66A – Salvaţi munţii Retezat de Asfalt 2010). If we stick to the property right paradigm, this claim has no substance because the environmental NGOs do not have any property in the respective forest. Their claims are thus null and void.

simplest and most obvious of them all. It can be best expressed in the words of Ludwig von Mises „Only individuals think. Only individuals act.” (Von Mises 1951, p. 133). Thus, the principle of individual responsibility is nothing more than the application of the concept of methodological individualism in juridical matters. If we would elaborate on this point we could say that the individual must be held responsible strictly for his own actions before the law. However, the above mentioned principle, although intuitively correct, is totally ignored when it comes to pollution. The best examples in this case are global warming and the depletion of the ozone layer (Reisman 2002)

can invoke the principle of restitution. According to this principle, if a certain individual A damages through pollution the property of B, A is obliged to pay B the value of the damages he has caused. The method of pressing charges in court remains in the paradigm of restitution and proportionality while environmental legislation does not. Although legislation puts forward the correct idea that “the polluter pays”, we can go further and ask who does the polluter pay? According to the principle of restitution the polluter must repay the victim for the damages he has caused, but according to almost every environmental law the money taken from the polluters automatically goes to the state budget

ethical principles, underlining the advantages and disadvantages of the actual environmental legislation. As alternative I have proposed the legal method used in the former Anglo-Saxon countries between 1820 and 1830 – the right of every individual to press charges against the polluter – thus treating pollution as a conflict between two or more individuals. Furthermore, the paper observed that the current legal system does not always respect the principle of private property, that the polluter is not obliged to pay damages to the victims and that the plaintiff is not held responsible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that a strict causality relation exists between the actions of the polluter and his victimization.