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Dark Waters? The Place of Environmental Liability in the Environmental Policy Toolkit (Issues of Regulatory Methodology and Environmental Principles)
42-66Views:286The 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.
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The Role of the Local Goverments in the Changed System of Environmental Public Administration
79-93Views:185This study investigates the transformation of environmental protection as a specialized administrative duty in Hungary, with special attention on the (changing) roles of local self-governments in this area. Following the outline of the general correlations within the topic, the study inspects several individual administrative fields, with attention given to the relationship with environmental protection policies. Our plan is to extend this analysis in the future, in hopes of covering additional specialised administrative areas as well. Our firm opinion is that the solutions provided by the sectorial approach inherent in our administrative system proved to be ineffective insolving today’s global issues. To ensure an effective environmental protection strategy, the organizations of public administration must be involved with larger roles assigned to them. Although the methods of regulation in this area are diverse, the most widespread approach proves to be the direct administrative intervention, even nowadays.
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Environmental Liability Law: Environmental Civil Experts’ view
86-112Views:138Environmental liability legislation, both the ELD in Europe and CERCLA in US, is burdened with significant compromises, but even if so, they are too leniently implemented. Moreover, rather scarce data are available on the liability cases and on the status of polluted sites, therefore the system is unable to amend itself. There is no reason to be surprised: expenses of protection or remedy of the polluted sites are enormous, the concerned industries would get into a poor competition position in the market if faced with too stringent liability. In the exceptional cases when their deeds are revealed and enforcement actions start, they still might retreat behind the bastions of limited responsibility of their companies. In such situations public participation is a vital element of any progressive outcomes. In the present study we examine the efforts of J&E, a network of public interest environmental lawyers to contribute to moving out the European environmental liability systems from their stalemate position and enhance their effectiveness.
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In Contrast: Responsibility for Environment and Regulation in Finance
128-155Views:257The more environmental policy comes into the focus of fiscal policies of governments, the more prevailing are the interests in it influencing the governance as a whole. In the context of the European Union, the governmental role of the Member States’ increased less for initiating the (often invoked) environmental protection but such an increase is rather an end in itself. The responsibility for environment seems to represent the bright side, while the reality of financial regulations shows the dark side of government priorities.
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Balancing Work and Life: New Developments in the Field of Legal Protection of Workers
25-44Views:171The present study deals with the current labour law questions of balancing work and private life. The topicality of the study is supported by Directive (EU) 2019/1158 which, built on the existing legislative basis, brings several novelties in this regulative area refreshing the key elements of the criteria of equal employment referring to the employees raising children. The researched regulation fits into the high level, socially motivated; worker-protection Directive designated by the European Pillar of Social Rights, consequently, this aspect also plays a role in elaboration. In my analysis, I concentrate on the regulative background, subject of the new Directive, as well as its connection to fundamental social rights and the new norms describing the potentially strengthening legal protection of workers. I draw conclusions based on their synthesis about the predictable future effects of the new regulation.
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Right to a Healthy Environment in the Theory
24-38Views:216To protect the environment with the help of human rights is one possible way among others to fight against environmental degradation. Yet, does this idea fit into the system of human rights, taking into consideration the fact that the upmost goal of human rights is the protection of human dignity? Is the connection between the environment and the human dignity strong enough to protect the environment by human rights? The following conceptual paper searches for reasonable answers to these questions by analyzing the so-called right to a healthy environment. By doing so the links between human and environmental rights and the specialties of human rights will be examined in order to show why the right to a healthy environment could in theory fit into the system of human rights protection.
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The right to take collective action in EU law based on the European Pillar of Social Rights and the recent case law of the CJEU
9-24Views:216This paper is built around the workers’ fundamental right to take collective action and collective bargaining. Although, this right is firmly embedded in the majority of labour law systems in the social policy (meaning labour law, too) of the European Union, it is worth analysing it separately with an independent meaning. We can approach this right from the fundamental rights, the fundamental treaties or from certain directives, so we can find several questions that are difficult to answer properly. These problems are mostly catalysed by the necessary collision between the need for socially motivated legal protection and the fundamental economic freedoms. In my research, I analyse this right – along with some other connected ones – with the help of the recent case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Pillar of Social Rights because the latter highlights the holistic approach in the current reforms of EU social policy.
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Public Procurement Issues in the Field of Environmental Liability
175-188Views:177In 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.
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The Financial Intermediation System in the Service of Environmental Protection or Green Financial Solutions
129-140Views:205In the present study, we have presented the activities and measures of the financial sector that support environmental protection and take into account climate change. To this end, existing international organizations have adopted documents to promote the use of climate-neutral green financial solutions by consumers, and new international organizations have been set up specifically for this purpose. The most successful of such organizations is NGFS, which currently has more than a hundred members. We have seen that the Hungarian National Bank has also taken a number of measures, announcing a program to green the financial sector.
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Paradigm shift in management of enviromental problems: The ecosystem services concept and its legal aspects
98-113Views:147The majority of global environmental problems has remained unresolved mostly due to inadequate communication between natural and social sciences. This paper reviews the origin of the ecosystem services concept and presents the main valuation methods and emergence of that in legal terminology. The concept has ecological and economical roots thus can bridge environmental protection and development needs. It is clear that valuation and integration in decision-making of these essential ecological processes is one of the recent greatest scientific challenges.
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Municipal Environmental Protection from a German Point of View
159-165Views:194Book review on Hebeler, Timo–Hendler, Reinhard–Proelβ, Alexander–Reiff, Peter (Hrsg.): Kommunaler Umweltschutz. 30. Trierer Kolloquium zum Umwelt- und Technikrecht vom 4. bis 5. September 2014. UTR Band 128, Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin, 2015.
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The Indigenous Peoples’ Right to Cultural Identity in the Case-law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
145-163Views:247The present paper examines the protection of cultural identity in the case-law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), where this question has primarily been dealt with in connection with the rights of indigenous peoples. Although not expressly guaranteed in the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR), the right to cultural identity is found to be protected in the treaty due to the IACHR’s evolutionary interpretation of the right to life and the right to property, as well as other first-generation human rights contained in the ACHR. Issued in the Spring of 2020, the IACHR decision in the case Lhaka Honhat vs Argentina puts into a new perspective the protection of the right to cultural identity. Unlike before, it was clearly established that cultural rights are autonomous and judicially enforceable under Article 26 of the ACHR. At the same time, the ICHR’s revolutionary approach provides new opportunities for the judicial protection of environmental rights claims based on Article 26 of the ACHR as well.
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Groundwater protection in the light of a judgment of the Supreme Court of Hungary
178-191Views:231In the study the author analyses a judgment of the Supreme Court of Hungary, in which a progressive judicial interpretation is included concerning the obligation of fact-finding in connection with the protection of groundwaters. Before this, the author presents the legal doctrine regarding groundwater regulation. The regulation is not only drawn up on the national level, but also on the level of European Union. After the detailed presentation of the case, the author makes some conclusions.
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The Responsibility of the State in the Prevention and Management of Environmental Damage with Regard to Spatial Planning
156-174Views:250The 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.
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Two saddles by one bottom only? The road transport regulation of the European Union concerning energy efficiency and energy conservation
23-34Views:113This article analyses and criticises regulation of the European Union (hereinafter: EU) in the field of energy consumption of road transport sector from ecological point of view. Three main regulatory tools are in the focus: EU CO2 -emissions requirements, energy efficiency labelling of vehicles and passenger car related taxes (Annual Circulation Taxes, Registration Tax). Changes are proposed in order to develop the efficiency of this EU level regulation.