Environmental protection policies: Economic and legal aspects

• Main Author: Popov Đorđe
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Law 2011-01-01
• Series: Zbornik Radova: Pravni Fakultet u Novom Sadu
• Subjects: economic and legal aspects; sustainable development; economic analysis of law; environment; transition; privatization; cost-benefit analysis; taxes for pollution emission; prohibitions; penalties
• Online Access: http://scindeks-clanci.ceon.rs/data/pdf/0550-2179/2011/0550-21791103023P.pdf

Every nation, no matter how poor, will find it in its own national interest to assert public control over some facets of the relation between its economy and natural environment. Many economists would prefer to see the analysis of prospective environmental policy integrated in the benefit-cost framework as a way of checking on the economic rationality of political decision. In the economic analysis of law, much attention has been paid to the instruments to be used for the control of environmental pollution. The combination of environmental legal doctrine and law and economics has a huge potential. However, the historic evolution clearly shows and increasing reliance on criminal law as an instrument of environmental policy. The polluter-pays principle stipulates that the person who damages the environment must bear the cost of such damage. A number of developing countries and countries in transition have recently extended this principle to create an obligation on the state to compensate the victims of the environmental harm. The EU is a successful example how to implement policies of sustainable development and environmental protection on the supranational level. The example of the EU shows that is necessary for success in the realization of sustainable development to encouraged measures addressed simultaneously at national, regional and global level. Measures that would prefer a model of sustainable development and a higher degree of protection of the environment should discourage materials- and energy- intensive economic activity.