Conflits de valeurs et police(s) de l’eau : quelle place pour l’ordre public écologique ?

• Main Author: Marie-Caroline Vincent-Legoux
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: L’Harmattan 2014-12-01
• Series: Droit et Cultures
• Subjects: Ecological public order; Economic public order; Environment; Law and order; Natural heritage; Public order
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/droitcultures/3418

Water policies, justified by water protection, are also aimed at other social values of public order. Public health and public safety are priority goals, in particular concerning drinking water and the fight against floods. The concern for economic development, which must be conciliated with water protection, often prevails. In addition, water, protected in quantity and quality by rules about scarcity and pollution risks and the will to protect the free flow of water and the quality of the aquatic environment, is weakly protected as an element of the ecological public order, a natural heritage to pass on to the future generations: on the one hand, water protection, if explicitly targeted, may finally be useful for «law and order» (public safety and public health). On the other hand, the idea of vital resource and living environment often comes after the idea of economic resource. Yet, water, which is of vital importance, is a condition of social life. As a consequence, its protection governs other values of public order, which protect social peace or promote social harmony, such as «law and order» or the economic public order. Therefore, this element of the ecological public order deserves to be ranked at the top of protected social values.