Environmental Law Short Note
Micky Smart Short Note Center
, Chapter One : Meaning of environment
Why we define environment?
✓ A legal definition of the environment helps delineate the scope of the subject, determine the
of legal rules, and establish the extent of liability when harm occurs.
What is environment?
✓ The word environment is derived from an ancient French word environner, meaning to enci
✓ By broadly applying to surroundings, environment can include the aggregate of natural
cultural conditions that influence the life of an individual or community.
✓ Caldwell remarks ‘it is a term that everyone understands and no one is able to define’.
✓ the Declaration of the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment (UNC
referred obliquely to man’s environment adding that ‘both aspects of man’s environment,
and man-made, are essential for his well-being and enjoyment of basic human rights.
✓ The world commission on environment and development (WCED) relied on an even m
approach; it remarks that ‘the environment is where we live’.
✓ The 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development nowhere identifies what th
Interestingly it eschews the term entirely in principle 1, declaring instead that human
entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.’
, Continued…
What is environment under Ethiopian law?
✓When we come back to our legal system, the Environmental Protection Organs Es
Proclamation 295/2002 under art 2(3) defines the environment as
✓The totality of all materials whether in their natural state or modified or changed by h
external spaces and interactions which affected their quality or quantity and the welfare o
other living beings, including but not restricted to, land, atmosphere, weather and climate,
things, sound, odor, taste, social factors, and aesthetics.
Is Environmental Law a self-contained discipline?
✓To call any law self contained it shall fulfil the following requirements;
a. Shall have its own sources and
b. methods of law-making deriving from principles peculiar or exclusive to environmental c
Is there international environmental law?
• A number of preliminary problems arise in any attempt to identify “international environmen
• Some scholars have avoided the use of the term, arguing that there is no distinct body of
environmental law with its own sources and methods of law-making deriving from principles peculia
to environmental concerns.
, • Rather, they stress that such relevant law as does exist originates from the application of gene
principles of classical or general international law and its sources;
provided that, international environmental law is nothing more, or less, than the ap
international law to environmental problems
• Moreover, international environmental law also includes not only public international law, but
aspects of private international law, and in some instances has borrowed heavily from national law.
If so, what is the meaning of international environmental law includes?
• international environmental law is merely part of international law as a whole, rather than so
self-contained discipline.
• International Environmental law is thus used simply as a convenient way to encompass the e
of international law, public and private, relevant to environmental issues or problems, in the s
the use of the terms law of the sea, Human Right law, and International Economic Law is widel
• Thus, It is not intended thereby to indicate the existence of some new discipline based ex
environmental perspectives and strategies, It has become common practice to refer to i
environmental law in this way.
Micky Smart Short Note Center
, Chapter One : Meaning of environment
Why we define environment?
✓ A legal definition of the environment helps delineate the scope of the subject, determine the
of legal rules, and establish the extent of liability when harm occurs.
What is environment?
✓ The word environment is derived from an ancient French word environner, meaning to enci
✓ By broadly applying to surroundings, environment can include the aggregate of natural
cultural conditions that influence the life of an individual or community.
✓ Caldwell remarks ‘it is a term that everyone understands and no one is able to define’.
✓ the Declaration of the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment (UNC
referred obliquely to man’s environment adding that ‘both aspects of man’s environment,
and man-made, are essential for his well-being and enjoyment of basic human rights.
✓ The world commission on environment and development (WCED) relied on an even m
approach; it remarks that ‘the environment is where we live’.
✓ The 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development nowhere identifies what th
Interestingly it eschews the term entirely in principle 1, declaring instead that human
entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.’
, Continued…
What is environment under Ethiopian law?
✓When we come back to our legal system, the Environmental Protection Organs Es
Proclamation 295/2002 under art 2(3) defines the environment as
✓The totality of all materials whether in their natural state or modified or changed by h
external spaces and interactions which affected their quality or quantity and the welfare o
other living beings, including but not restricted to, land, atmosphere, weather and climate,
things, sound, odor, taste, social factors, and aesthetics.
Is Environmental Law a self-contained discipline?
✓To call any law self contained it shall fulfil the following requirements;
a. Shall have its own sources and
b. methods of law-making deriving from principles peculiar or exclusive to environmental c
Is there international environmental law?
• A number of preliminary problems arise in any attempt to identify “international environmen
• Some scholars have avoided the use of the term, arguing that there is no distinct body of
environmental law with its own sources and methods of law-making deriving from principles peculia
to environmental concerns.
, • Rather, they stress that such relevant law as does exist originates from the application of gene
principles of classical or general international law and its sources;
provided that, international environmental law is nothing more, or less, than the ap
international law to environmental problems
• Moreover, international environmental law also includes not only public international law, but
aspects of private international law, and in some instances has borrowed heavily from national law.
If so, what is the meaning of international environmental law includes?
• international environmental law is merely part of international law as a whole, rather than so
self-contained discipline.
• International Environmental law is thus used simply as a convenient way to encompass the e
of international law, public and private, relevant to environmental issues or problems, in the s
the use of the terms law of the sea, Human Right law, and International Economic Law is widel
• Thus, It is not intended thereby to indicate the existence of some new discipline based ex
environmental perspectives and strategies, It has become common practice to refer to i
environmental law in this way.
