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• The Role of Non-Governmental Organisations in the Enforcement of Environmental Liability

  113-127

  Attila Pánovics

  Views:

  266

  Public participation is an essential part of the mechanism of dealing with environmental problems. Both the Aarhus Convention and Union law stipulate that citizens and environmental NGOs should be guaranteed access to justice that includes providing legal standing for environmental NGOs individuals and directly affected by a breach of environmental law. In accordance with the Environmental Liability Directive, persons adversely affected by environmental damage are entitled to ask the competent authorities to take action. However, there are major chellenges to the implementation of environmental legislation, faced by environmental NGOs in obtaining standing to bring legal challenges on environmental issues. 

• Dark Waters? The Place of Environmental Liability in the Environmental Policy Toolkit (Issues of Regulatory Methodology and Environmental Principles)

  42-66

  László Fodor

  Views:

  280

  The starting point of the study is that environmental liability is not only a tool of ex-post sanctioning and remediation, but also helps to enforce the principles of prevention and precaution. It examines the rules on liability for environmental damage in a broader context and links the various instruments of environmental policy by presenting their relationship to the environmental policy principles and typifying the policy instruments of environmental protection.

• Public Procurement Issues in the Field of Environmental Liability

  175-188

  Andrea Gyulai-Schmidt

  Views:

  175

  In public procurement, the principle of responsible management of public funds applies (Section 142 of the Public Procurement Act). This does not mean that only the techniques of fast-acting, quasi-abbreviated announcements or accelerated public procurement procedures are preferred, but on the contrary also direct tenders without general public procurement procedures are possible. The basis for efficient and transparent public expenditure at least are public procurement procedures that adhere to minimum procedural deadlines and create competition, i.e. facilitate the participation of as many bidders as possible. On the other hand, remedying environmental damage caused by third parties requires that the award of appropriate protection and remedial measures to the relevant contractors and the associated compliance with public procurement procedures do not cause delays that could contribute to extreme environmental degradation. In these cases, it is necessary to check whether there is a case of extreme urgency (imminent danger) and whether the award procedure can be omitted in whole or in part. In line with the above considerations, the present study, with reference to the Hungarian and EU regulations for public procurement, as well as comparative law with the inclusion of German and Austrian examples, examines whether the Hungarian legislator has additional leeway to prevent and quickly eliminate urgent or permanent serious environmental damage in accordance with procurement law.

• The Observation, Review, and Possible Modification of the EU Environmental Liability Directive in Hungary

  29-41

  Gábor Kecskés

  Views:

  173

  The main secondary legal source of environmental liability in the European Union is the Directive 2004/35/CE of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 April 2004 on environmental liability with regard to the prevention and remedying of environmental damage. Even though it was modified several times since then, it still remains the basic norm in the environmental field by establishing the regulatory frames by means of the polluter pays principle and the principle of prevention. The present study makes an overview of recent and potential further legislative steps in Hungary with regards to its implementation.

• The Responsibility of the State in the Prevention and Management of Environmental Damage with Regard to Spatial Planning

  156-174

  Ilona Agócs

  Views:

  242

  The study aims to examine the constitutional responsibility of the State for environmental damage from a specific new perspective; it analyses its constitutional framework with regard to recent regulatory tools on spatial planning of the contaminated areas. To this end it briefly outlines the history of the remediation of areas falling within the State’s responsibility, its different regulatory and institutional models to date and the extent to which the newly introduced legal instrument in the act on formation and protection and of the built environment of brownfield action areas reflects this quarter-century process.

• The New Hungarian Act on Irrigation in the Light of a Landscape-Orientated and Land-Use-Based Water Management

  42-66

  János Ede Szilágyi

  Endre Dobos

  Péter Szűcs

  Views:

  380

  The present article relates to water governance, and within that a specific Hungarian problem, namely, the cumulative water-related damage occurring in the Great Plain (floods, droughts and inland water) and the ambiguous situation of environmental services. Due to the complexity of the problem, the solution itself can only be systematic and can therefore only be solved in the context of integrated and adaptive water management. In Hungarian, this water management is defined as landscape-oriented water management by a research group connected to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The possible implementation of landscape-oriented water management has recently emerged in connection with the development of agricultural irrigation. The novelty of this study is the assessment of the new Hungarian Act concerning the irrigation taking into account the different aspects of hydrology, pedology and jurisprudence.

• Possible improvements of the water law concepts

  38-54

  János Ede Szilágyi

  Views:

  146

  The present article concentrates on the so-called water law concepts. As regards water law concepts, the article especially deals with the challenges of the Hungarian water management. The article has five main chapters. In the first chapter, the author focuses on the basis of the water law concepts, namely on natural, social and engineering sciences, furthermore, the author also determines the legal instruments which are able to provide proper links among the different water law concepts. The further four chapters analyse the water law concepts one by one; i.e. (a) ruling over waters, (b) water as an environmental component, (c) water as the subject of commercial deals (good or service), (d) water as cause of damage a.k.a. defence against water.