Specific skills
a. To appropriate the concepts, rules and principles of the Belgian, European and international law sources applicable to the environment and sustainable development;
b. Understand the interweaving of legal disciplines (private law, public law, European and international law) in the protection of the "environment";
c. To conduct a critical and interdisciplinary reflection on the way in which the law, associated with the economy, protects the environment and compensates for market failures;
d. To take the measure of the place occupied by international law and European law in the protection of the environment;
e. To be aware of the relative and evolving nature of legal solutions that are dependent on scientific progress and expertise, economic constraints and political power struggles;
f. To grasp the potentialities, qualities and shortcomings of the legal instrument in the protection of the environment and the implementation of sustainable development policies.
Transversal skills (soft skills)
a. Communicate in writing or orally a precise, nuanced, convincing and intelligible legal reasoning;
b. Defend a point of view in an argumentative and rigorous manner in a complex field;
c. Enhance the material taught by personal intervention and reflection (orally, in class and on the exam);
d. Develop a critical sense of a legal rule, a jurisprudential solution, a policy proposal or any other resource seen in the course;
e. Understand the reasoning of disciplines related to law, such as economics, physics and political science;
f. Demonstrate independence and responsibility in implementing tools leading to success.
The aim of the course is to analyse and explain to the lawyer and non-lawyer alike how the law responds to and can contribute to the protection of the environment using its own principles and techniques.
The course also aims to show how environmental law, and law in general, is evolving to make room for a new imperative, sustainable development.
More broadly, the course aims to make students aware of the importance of the environmental and sustainable development issues facing us to help them become committed citizens and responsible actors in society.
The climatic catastrophes that have struck the planet, put into perspective by the latest IPCC report, suggest that the "Environmental Law and Sustainable Development" course, although traditionally an elective, will occupy a central place in the training of current and future students, whether they are lawyers.
After having listed the sources of environmental law and sustainable development, the course highlights the major principles that structure the subject (precautionary principle, polluter-pays principle, integration principle, etc.), while emphasizing two new founding trends: the construction of an environmental democracy and the emergence of the concept of sustainable development in law (first part).
These teachings are reviewed in the light of interventions by experts from non-legal disciplines (climatology, economics, etc.) in the context of two lecture courses (second part).
Finally, the responsibility of public and private authorities in environmental issues is discussed from a human rights perspective (third part).
Partie introductive : L’environnement, un nouvel objet pour le droit
Titre I. Émergence du droit de l’environnement
Titre II. De la protection de l’environnement au développement durable
Titre III. Du développement durable à la transition ?
Partie I : Fondements du droit de l’environnement et du développement durable
Titre I. Les sources du droit de l’environnement
Titre II. Les principes généraux du droit de l’environnement
Titre III. La construction d’une « démocratie environnementale »
Titre IV. L’émergence du développement durable en droit
Partie II : Etude interdiscipinaire d’une problématique liée à l’environnement et au développement durable : Développement durable et numérique (2022-2023)
Partie III : Environnement, droits humains et responsabilité
Titre I. La responsabilité des Etats
Titre II. La responsabilité des entreprises
The examination is oral and lasts about 20 minutes. It takes place in January and/or August-September. The student may use any legislative or jurisprudential text seen in class as long as it is not annotated.
The examination consists of three types of questions on different parts of the subject:
i. Tests (True or False + justification)
ii. Commentary on a legal decision seen in the course
iii. Cross-curricular question or problem proposed by the student to be validated by the teacher linking a lecture to the course