Articulating environmental statutory texts in Europe

Instability, unpredictability, illegibility... The awareness that the law is complex is widely shared". This observation was made by the Conseil d'État in its 2016 annual study on the simplification and quality of the law. The Conseil d'État shows that the measures taken over the past 25 years have failed to halt the deterioration in the quality of the law. As early as 1991, the administrative judge observed that "when the law chatters, the citizen lends it only a distracted ear".

And yet, for over ten years, there has been a desire to simplify the regulatory and administrative environment for businesses. Several simplification processes have followed one another with varying degrees of success, and ten simplification laws and ordinances were published between 2003 and 2017. Each of these laws included a section devoted to environmental law. The European Commission, aware that Community law is not immune to complexity, has also taken up the subject. It turned to SMEs to find out which European laws were the most restrictive. In the top 10 of these laws, environmental law holds pride of place, with the REACH regulation on chemical substances and the regulation on waste shipments. A technical law, influenced by international law, environmental law is subject to change as a result of evolving technologies and practices, social pressure and the public's need for transparency.

Identifying a company's legal requirements is therefore an obstacle course. It is very difficult for an environmental engineer or technician not only to understand the complex provisions of legislation, but also and above all to assess the degree and cost of regulatory compliance for an activity. It's up to them to identify what they can be held responsible for, and on what regulatory basis. Whereas contracts are only enforceable against the parties who have signed them, all legislative and regulatory texts are unilateral acts that are applicable and enforceable against everyone, provided they have been published (in particular in the Journal Officiel).

After presenting the various environmental texts (international, European and national), we will show that environmental law is a cross-disciplinary body of law that has its roots in both public and private law. We will examine the Community influence on French environmental law. We will present the hierarchy of texts, from the Constitution to circulars, and decipher the Environmental Code, which contains laws and decrees, before detailing the fundamental principles of environmental law that guide public environmental action.