Kapitelvorschau

Kapitelvorschau

Abstract

Until 1990, Hungary’s environmental legislation had been broadly incomprehensive. Since then, several laws and judicial decisions were passed, and scholarly literature on this topic exists in abundance. However, as yet, there is no exhaustive evaluation of the development of the legal and legislative development of the country’s environmental law of the past thirty years. This article provides a historical overview of Hungary’s environmental law, followed by an outline of the developments of the 1990 s; it then presents Hungary’s post-millenial environmental law, shedding light on the first decade. The next chapter covers Hungary’s environmental law after 2010, which was a turning point in the country’s environmental policies, associated with the FIDESZ party’s accession to power and several controversial environmental policies. The article concludes that environmental law cannot be observed separately, but must always be reviewed in conjunction with, and in the context of, changes in the entire legal system and the political changes taking place in a country at large. Despite EU approximation of environmental law, there are still cases of Hungarian environmental law contradicting European domestic market fundamental freedoms and competition law.

Abstract

After 40 years of a totalitarian regime, the state of the environment in Czechoslovakia was catastrophic. The revolutions that swept through Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in 1989/1990, including Czechoslovakia, sparked enthusiastic hopes for a better, democratic and perhaps “greener” future for this region. The major strategic goal of all the post-communist CEE countries was to join the European Union. The “eastern” enlargement was to take place under strict conditions in order to ensure that the EU does not suffer the negative consequences of an ill-prepared expansion. In the light of joining the EU, Czechoslovakia managed to adopt the whole series of progressive environmental legislation. However, after the parliamentary elections in June 1992 and the split of Czechoslovakia, environmental protection had to give way to economic growth and the overall transformation of society. This paper describes the development of Czech environmental law from a legal and a political perspective, providing examples illustrating the Czech Republic’s performance in implementing the EU environmental law and policy. After 17 years of membership in the EU, the Czech Republic and the implementation of the EU environmental law is still in conditional mode - the availability of the EU funds is the main leverage and motive to comply with the EU law.

Abstract

The analyzed thirty years of development of environmental law begin with the economic transformation of the country. This article treats this topic as a point of reference. In the first part of the article, the development of environmental law in Poland was presented by distinguishing time periods. The accession to the European Union has led to a rapprochement of Polish legislation with the EU, but the period that elapsed between the change of the political system and the accession to the EU was too short to catch up with the significant backlog in environmental protection. The second part of the article presents the development of the doctrine of environmental law. Among many considerations, one of the basic ones is to find the place of environmental law in the system of Polish law. The next part - the shortest one - presents the structure of the environmental protection public authorities. In its essential core, it was shaped in the 90 s. In this period, the division of tasks in environmental protection into governmental and self-governmental took place. In the subsequent years, authorities dealing with environmental impact assessment and nature protection were separated. The last change concerned the bodies of water protection. The last issue discussed in the paper concerns current problems in environmental protection. The main challenge is the quality of air - despite fairly extensive legal instruments, the improvement is insufficient. Polish policy on climate change is still burdened with historical negligence. Basing the energy sector on coal-fired installations, even if the share of RES in energy production increases, makes the transformation difficult. This part ends waste management issue. Here, too, the landfilling - a basic principle of waste management before the transition period, has changed significantly, but again the pace of change is too slow.

Abstract

This article provides an overview of the formation and development of environmental law in Ukraine. The review covers the period from the early 90 s of the 20th century to the present days. The paper reveals the essence and the significance of the basic law "On Environmental Protection", as well as special laws aimed at regulating certain issues. The reasons and results of the environmental law new institute formation - the institute of environmental impact assessment - are highlighted separately. The authors concluded that the development of environmental law in Ukraine in the coming years would be carried out in two main directions. First, it is the systematization of a large number of legislative acts in the field of nature protection. Secondly, it is the approximation of Ukraine's environmental legislation to EU environmental law.

Abstract

The authors of the article have analyzed the history of environmental legislation in the Russian Federation as a comprehensive industry, including laws on natural resources and nature conservation, the development of this branch as an independent one, and trends of its further improvement in modern conditions.

Kapitelvorschau