Environmental Principles: From Political Slogans to Legal Rules

Environmental law has always responded to risks posed by industrial society but the new generation of risks have required a new set of environmental principles, emerging from a combination of public fears, science, ethics and established legal practice. This book shows how three of the most important principles of modern environmental law grew out of this new age of ecological risk: the polluter pays principle, the preventive principle and the precautionary principle. The author examines the legal force of these principles and in the process offers a novel theory of norm formation in environmental law by unearthing new grounds of legality.

Nicolas de Sadeleer teaches environmental law at the Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis in Brussels, where he is Director of their Environmental Law Centre, CEDRE. He was awarded a PhD with distinction in 1998 by Saint-Louis for his work on the application of environmental law principles to positive law. An updated version of the thesis was published in November 1999 in Belgium and Paris (Les principes du pollueur-payeur, de prévention et de précaution, Brussels, Bruylant/ Paris, AUF, 1999, 437 pp.). He is a guest lecturer in Université catholique de Louvain.

He is also a member of the IUCN and sits on the board of Environment Law Network International.