Introduction
I’m dice to be going this warning by dr.Marcus Goering whose university lecturerin sustainable development law andinternational and European law and youteach European environmental law andsustainable development so Marcus couldyou define for me your field ofexpertise what is it and why exactlydoes it matter so thank you very muchfor having me I’m researching andteaching European environmental andsustainable development law and havebeen for the last 15 years my maininterest is in looking at the regulationon the environment and the European andin the international level and toexplore their interactions so I’m alsothat coast convener for the EU ExternalRelations course for that matter the
The evolution of environmental law
field has been evolving so it’s a verynew field of law we’ve have beendiscussing environmental protectionissues really seriously at theinternational level since 1972 andsustainable development issue since 1992the Rio summit and European law hasreally developed in tandem with theinternational level it used to be thecase that a lot of innovations andmomentum all came from the United Stateswhich was the first country to adopt aClean Air Act and to adopt various otherstatutes on the protection of theenvironment but in the last 15 to 20years that global leadership hasactually changed nowadays the mostinnovative instruments actually comefrom the European Union level which isnot very surprising becausein a way you’re not developing theserules completely in a vacuumthere are countries within the EuropeanUnion that have a long history ofenvironmental protection and thesecountries bringing their best practicesto the European level and then jointlyEuropean Union countries decide to adoptthese rules okay so what does the EU’s
EU contribution to environmental law
contribution being one of some of themajor impacts of EU policy in this fieldyeah this is a really interestingdevelopment because you know sometimesthe European Union is accused of being areally ideological kind of project buton the environmental law side there wasreally not the casethe the first rules at the EuropeanUnion level developed out of a necessitybecause Member States realized that ifthey wanted to protect say an animalbird species or or a nature or theenvironment in general they couldn’t dothat without a certain level ofcooperation from from their neighbors so
Birds directive
the first directive was the birdsdirectivebesides waist directives and moreeconomically related directives but thethe first real environmental directivewas the burst directive becauseespecially the Netherlands and theUnited Kingdom two nations that reallyvalue their their bird life and and havelarge groups of entities yes to gobird-watching and really protect birdsrealize that some of the migratory birdsweren’t coming back and that was due tovery different levels of birthprotection laws across the EuropeanUnion so the European community at thetime decided that they really neededcommon rules in order to reach theprotection objectives that were promotedin countries like the Netherlands andthe United Kingdom so it they adoptedthis law on the basis of harmonizationlegislation and it’s still one of themost effective directives that we havefurther for the protection of of wildbirds when we issued a couple of timesand it creates basically special birdprotection zones so that migratory birdsregardless of their there are theirflight routes I’m no longer in danger offor example being hunted or faced withwith other environmental challenges soit comes from realization that we’reactually in Europe living in a sharedenvironmental space we need thecooperation of other countries and andyou know a problem such as climatechange is is is in effect a sharedmental problem so to have common rulesat the European level makes good sensebecause at the same time we’re operatingin it in a single market so we don’tactually want we do want a level playingfield but that also means that if youhave vastly different environmentalprotection laws you might actually putyour own academic sector at adisadvantage and that’s also not theobjective so it’s rather than thinkingoh this is all ideological that weprotect the environment it is actuallyit makes your own rules much more muchmore efficient and and that’s the themain impetus the main driver for yousuppose migratory birds and air qualitydon’t respect national borders or theSchengen Agreement no absolutely notright so you you will easily realizethat the if you want to achieve anenvironmental quality outcome and yourneighbor really doesn’t care or doesn’thave similar approaches to the sameproblem you will you will get nowhereright and we’re we’re faced with this atthe international level but we’ve come amarch further way within the Europeancontinent so what do you think that the
Impact of Brexit
impact of a brexit of a vote to leavewould be in your field yeah that’s athat’s a good question I don’t thinkanyone has a decisive answer I know as Ihad said on the previous point that weneed to collaborate with our neighborseven as an island nation we need the thethe buy-in if you want from from othercountries so we need to cooperate whichare with our European neighbors if youwant to achieve any environmentalprotection outcomes of course if wewanted to leave the European Union thenget rid of all the environmentalprotection laws that would be the thethe only the only possibility thenprobably all our neighbors wouldcomplain about our own behavior and thatwould lead to international disputes Ithink realistically the at least for theenvironmental field just like no wayjust like Switzerlandmany of the far-reaching environmentaldirectives and regulations such as thecarbon emission trading directive or thereachedactive on chemicals will be willcontinue to be in force and will beupdated and adopted even post praxisbecause those are also some of the lawsthat neighborhood corporation partnersin the east and our North Africanpartners often subscribe to right sothey will so in in other words even ifyou are outside the European Union thethought that you wouldn’t have to complywith any of the environmental rules sentby that body is in my view completelyillusionary rather we would lose a lot
Impact on environmental law
of impact on the development of theserules and there are often very verytechnical pieces of legislation right soit matters whether you have an exceptionfor an issue that you feel very stronglyabout in the fist annex but if you’renot sitting around the negotiation tableit’s very hard to get those kind ofissues into the directive the Norwegiansare on the receiving end they’reparticipating to largest end in theinternal market so they often have tobeg their Swedish Finnish and Danish EUMember State partners among the nordiccountries to please also bring theNorwegian issue to the table I don’tthink that would be a very comfortableposition for the United Kingdom to bebecause I think the the devil is oftenwith these rules is is in the detail andif for lack of compliance withenvironmental rules entire industries ofthe UK would be shut out of the internalmarket I think that would be a miserableoutcome so there’s almost negotiation byproxy in some sectors exactly so that’swhat my Norwegian friends tell me it’svery uncomfortableyes during independent nation yes youcare about environmental protection butyou’re not really at the negotiationtable and you’re not there for theeleventh hour when the last-minute dealsare made and whether we like it or notthe U is also about negotiation it’sabout core collaboration with yourEuropean partners and if you just on theoutside you just yeah you’re not part ofthat you know negotiation so it’s their
UK influence on environmental law
one key message or fact that you wouldlike to be communicated more clearly aspart of the referendum debate in yourfield yeah I think I think what isimportant is that the United Kingdomalready has a lot of internationalobligations that we’re not going toshared regardless whether United Kingdomis a member state of the European Unionor not but making this work in a waythat is efficient and really effectivefor environmental protection objectivesit’s just easier and morestraightforward if we are part of theEuropean Union however if your objectiveis to really scale down on environmentalprotection if you really don’t careabout the quality of your air or thequality of your drinking water then yeahyou might vote in favor of leaving theEuropean Union the sometimes theargument is made oh if we are if we werenot part of the European Union we couldhave much stronger environmental lawswell there’s a specialty in you becausethe environment is one of those fieldswhere you can always have strongerenvironmental protection rules so if youwanted much stronger EnvironmentProtection rules in the United Kingdomyou couldn’t really do that under the EUtreaties I haven’t seenin doing that in the last 25 years so Iwouldn’t expect them to suddenly becomethe the world champion on environmentalprotection laws outside the EuropeanUnion on the other hand I’ve seen theUnited Kingdom contributing in a verydirect fashion to the development ofenvironmental law for example theintegrated the IPCC director of theintegrated Perdition and iron preventioncontrol directive is a piece oflegislation that was first trialed inthe United Kingdom this integratedthinking that you shouldn’t move onearea of pollution to another so youshouldn’t move air pollution to waterpollution to ground soil pollution is isa direct innovation that was introducedinto law by by the british negotiatorsand i think i think there are many moreexamples where Britain has actually beenfantastic for environmental protectionobjectives all over the European Unionand I would hate to to lose that kind ofinfluence thank you very much forspeaking to us today thank you.
