ELEMENTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND CIRCULAR ECONOMY
- Overview
- Assessment methods
- Learning objectives
- Contents
- Full programme
- Delivery method
- Teaching methods
- Contacts/Info
No specific prerequisites are required. A first part of the course will provide the basics of public law to enable even non-lawyers to understand the typical institutions of environmental law.
The examination is conducted through an oral interview.
All topics covered in the lecture will be examined.
During the oral interview, three general questions are normally asked (aimed at introducing a topic, e.g. the principles of environmental law, or a sector of environmental law, e.g. waste management regulations, or the 2022 constitutional reform of Articles 9 and 41), followed by some more specific questions that open up further avenues for in-depth study and allow the level of knowledge attained by the student to be assessed. Attending students will have the opportunity to study a specific examination topic in greater depth through the study of cases and materials provided and/or indicated by the lecturer in class and uploaded onto the E-learning platform; in this case, the first examination question will focus on the topic to be examined.
The examination aims to assess, in particular, the student's ability to
- find their way around environmental legislation, identifying the main reference regulations and the Authorities to which they must turn to obtain the various environmental permits
- understand and correctly use specialist terminology
- understand the purpose of the tools provided by environmental legislation
- identify technical/operational issues and the risks of sanctions underlying the application of environmental legislation.
The course aims to examine the main issues traditionally covered by Environmental Law, with particular reference to the controversial relationship between environmental protection and economic activities, according to the paradigm of "sustainable development".
Expected Learning Outcomes
a) Knowledge and understanding
• principles of environmental legislation
• the basic concepts of environmental legislation
b) Skill in applying knowledge and understanding
• how to identify the applicable law and to understand a legislative text on environmental matters
• how to understand an administrative measure adopted by an environmental authority or control body (e.g. an environmental permit, etc.)
• ability to deal with doubts about the interpretation of environmental legislation, also by referring to the general principles and case law
• how to grasp the sanctioning risks associated with feasible technical solutions
c) Communication skills
• to be able to use the correct specialist terminology in the preparation of technical documents to be used in administrative proceedings (e.g., to apply for the issue of an environmental permit or to speak with supervisory bodies during an inspection) and in court (e.g., for an expert opinion or a technical consultancy);
• to be able to dialogue effectively with experts in the field, even in interdisciplinary contexts involving lawyers and technicians from other backgrounds.
To this end, the illustration of the (fragmentary and changing) environmental legislation is supplemented by the study of practical cases and the examination of some fundamental jurisprudential pronouncements.
Particular attention is given to the impact of the rules imposed by environmental legislation on the activities of economic operators and the issue of circular economy.
The course also aims to provide the basic knowledge to be able to play effectively and knowingly, in environmental matters, the role of technical consultant in administrative proceedings and in court.
The goal of the course is to provide students with the following skills:
(a) to be able to find the environmental regulations applicable to a specific sector and/or to a particular activity through the consultation of institutional websites and/or specialized databases, and to correctly apply the criteria aimed at identifying the regulation to be referred to in a concrete case;
(b) to know the main Authorities (State, regional and local authorities) in charge of issuing authorizations, carrying out controls and adopting repressive and/or sanctioning measures in environmental matters;
(c) to be able to understand an administrative measure (e.g. an environmental permit, an order, etc.) and, specifically, be able to correctly interpret the technical and/or legal prescriptions;
(d) to be able to prepare autonomously a technical document, within which to use the relevant concepts derivable from the environmental legislation in force and the correct legal terminology;
(e) to be able to identify, assess and weigh up the economic effects of the various technical options, in the light of the "polluter pays" and proportionality principles, as well as the concepts of "bearable cost", "sustainability" and "economic feasibility", and taking into account the financial and/or fiscal burdens and benefits provided for by current environmental legislation.
For the ‘Contents’ of the Course please consult the ‘Extended Programme’ below.
The Course will be divided into three main parts or subject areas.
1) Public law and its rules: the ‘toolbox’ for the future engineer
Precisely because the Course is addressed to students who are studying law for the first time in their university education, a first part of the lessons will necessarily be aimed at familiarising them with the fundamental tools, typical institutes and essential categories of Italian public law and European law, on which the subsequent analysis of environmental law, which will be carried out in Parts II and III of the Course, can then be grafted. A sort of ‘toolbox’, therefore, for the non-lawyer and in particular for the future environmental engineer.
The macro-topics that will be covered in this first thematic area of the Course, in a number of hours equal to 16, are the following:
- How law, and in particular public law, comes into being in the pluralism of legal systems;
- State organisation, the international legal system, the European legal system;
- The Italian State and territorial autonomies and in particular the Regions;
- The system of the sources of law in the Italian constitutional order: the Constitution; constitutional revision laws and constitutional laws; State law and other primary sources (in particular government acts with the force of law: legislative decrees and decree-laws); secondary sources (regulations and in particular government regulations and ministerial regulations); non-regulatory ministerial decrees; civil protection ordinances; guidelines.
- The regional sources: regional statutes and regional laws;
- The sources of European law: treaties, European regulations and European directives;
- The criteria for resolving contradictions between sources of law: hierarchy, temporal criterion, competence. The Constitutional Court and the role of case law.
2) Environmental law ‘in the book’: the development of doctrine, law makers, case law
In this second part of the lectures, environmental law will be analysed from a purely theoretical point of view, trying to give an account of how the concept of environment and its protection have developed in the light of the elaboration of doctrine, the activity of the European and national legislator, and case law, especially constitutional case law.
The macro-topics that will be covered in this second thematic area of the Course, in a number of hours equal to 16, are as follows:
- The genesis of environmental law as a subject and object of study of Italian legal science.
- The regulatory framework of environmental law at international level, the European Union and national constitutional and legislative discipline.
- The environment in European law: a history of more than 50 years. The lack of reference to the environment in the early wording of the Treaties.
- The 1948 Constitution: the reasons for the natural absence of an explicit reference to environmental protection. Articles 9 and 32 of the constitutional text. The birth of the ordinary Regions and the assumption of competence in environmental matters in the folds of the original division of competences between State and Regions.
- Environmental law in the constitutional and ordinary jurisprudence of the 1980s.
- Environmental protection enters the Constitution ‘through the window’: the 2001 constitutional reform and the distribution of legislative power between State and Regions. Environmental protection is assigned to the exclusive legislative power of the State. The crucial role of constitutional jurisprudence.
- Environmental protection enters the Constitution ‘through the front door’: the constitutional reform of 2022. The interest of future generations in Art. 9. The new environmental limits to freedom of enterprise and economic activity in Art. 41. Constitutional Court ruling no. 105 of 2024 and a comparison with previous case law on ILVA in Taranto.
- European environmental principles: a) the polluter pays principle; b) the principle of prevention; c) the precautionary
Lectures, with possible seminars on practical cases in the third part of the course.
Professor Grasso will schedule an in-person student reception at the beginning of the course.
To contact him, however, you can use his e-mail address: giorgio.grasso@uninsubria.it
All course materials will be uploaded on the e-learning platform.