Legal perspectives on new instruments in environmental law : agreements in the European Union

Abstract

In the last two decades, it became clear that traditional “command-and-control” environmental legislation was insufficient to meet the need of protecting the environment. Industry attacked the myriad of regulations, complaining that while the largest companies were in compliance, they continued to be over-regulated. Meanwhile, the limited government resources meant that public authorities were unable to properly enforce regulations against the small and medium-sized firms which, in many cases, were the major polluters. Thus, the search began for alternative, cost-effective methods of enforcing environmental law. Among the many approaches developed was the environmental agreement, a type of contract regarding pollution control between public authorities and industry (and on occasion, public stakeholders). However, the role of the environmental agreement remains unclear and its efficacy untested. Accordingly, this thesis poses the following hypothetical: Can an environmental agreement be used as effective complement to or substitute for traditional command-and-control legislation?