Chapter 1 - Environmental Law and its Evolution in Canada Flashcards
Define Environmental Law:
The body of legislated statute and common law that can be used to protect and improve environmental conditions.
Define Common Law:
A system of law based on the English legal tradition, which relies on precedent rather than on codified rules.
Define Jurisdiction:
The power to legislate or make a decision.
What is ‘Tort’?
Civil wrong other than a breach of contract, for which damages may be sought to compensate for any harm or injury sustained.
Environmental law aims to ___________ and _________ the environment.
protect, restore
What are the two types of law at the core of Environmental Law?
- Environmental Regulatory Law
- Environmental Assessment Law
What is the difference between Regulatory and Assessment Law?
- Regulatory: The law regulating the discharge of harmful substances into the air and water.
- Assessment: The law requiring careful attention to environmental considerations in the planning and approval of new undertakings.
What is the ECCC?
Environment and Climate Change Canada
What is the ‘Precautionary Approach’?
An approach to evaluations and decision making that recognizes uncertainty and favours steps to anticipate and avoid or mitigate that are potentially significant but not fully delineated.
What definition of Sustainable Development does the textbook use?
“Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”
What are the three main understandings in environmental law in the new world?
- We are permanently dependent on a natural environment.
- We will never control nature.
- We must find better ways to live in and with the rest of nature.
What two categories can environmental law be classified within?
- Laws of General Application
- Sectoral Laws
What is a key indicator of Phase 1 (Common Law Rights and Early Statutes) of Canadian environmental law?
The decade (1960) when legislators began to give serious attention to the environment.
What are some of the initial tools in environmental law?
- Causes of Action
- Civil Law
Define “Causes of Action”:
Legal grounds for a civil lawsuit.
___________ law: The law between citizens, even in a common law jurisdiction.
Civil
What is a key indicator of Phase 2 (Waste Control and Cleanup Laws) of Canadian environmental law?
Governments established regulatory systems to identify waste sources and require permits to control the quantity and quality of substances being discharged.
What are Cleanup Laws?
Laws designed to minimize discharge of human and industrial waste into the environment.
__________________: The ability of air, water, or soil to receive contaminants and cleanse itself without deleterious effects.
Assimilative Capacity
What is the CEPA?
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
What is the PCPA?
Pest Control Products Act
In Phase 4 (Comprehensive approaches to environmental assessment and planning and management regimes) of Canadian environmental law, what are 4 key tools used?
- Environmental Assessment
- Planning and Management
- International Influences
- Effective and Efficient Application of the Law
Explain Environmental Assessment:
The identification and evaluation of actual or potential effects of an undertaking on the environment.
What are Planning and Management Regimes?
Legislative schemes that govern a sector with the purpose of maximizing the long-term benefits obtainable from the resource while minimizing the detrimental effects.
What is considered in an Environmental Assessment?
- Cumulative Effects
- Combinations of factors (social, natural, etc.)
- Implications of Uncertainties
- Effects of strategic undertakings
What are the two associated trends in environmental law?
- Regional Continental and Global Effects
- Transparency and Citizen Participation
What is the “Dilution Solution”?
The idea that air or water pollution do not pose a problem if they are spread out widely enough.
What were some of the demands from the public for the government to be more transparent and include greater citizen participation?
- Timely and convenient access to info
- Opportunities for direct involvement
- Public access to regulatory requirements
- Rights to demand action
What main factors drive effective and efficient application of the law?
- Ideological predispositions and corporate interests.
- Concerns about the costs of government programs
- Doubts about effectiveness
Define Voluntary Compliance:
An approach that relies on industry and individuals to do the right thing.
What are the three big challenges for environmental law?
- How best to promote steps toward sustainability.
- How best to respect complexity and uncertainty
- Transformation
Define a Complex System:
Systems composed of many interdependent components with properties that arise from dynamic internal interactions and engagement with other overlapping and larger systems.
The implications for law involve what three interconnected themes?
- Respecting Uncertainty
- Acting with precaution
- Embracing complex system behaviour as a practical basis for understanding and action.
What is the IPCC?
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
True or False: Environmental law is highly normative.
True, because it encompasses the statutory and common law that can be used to protect the environment .
First-stage waste control laws of the _______s led to toxics control laws and eventually to environmental assessment, planning, and management as well as modern laws that incorporate ideas of sustainability and, to a degree, precaution against environmental threats even where the likelihood of harm is not fully known .
1970
True or False: The four evolutionary phases in the development of environment law are sequential.
False, these four phases are not sequential, nor have they taken place at the same time in all jurisdictions .
Environmental laws play a key role not only in reducing _______ to nature and human health but also in moving toward sustainability in a world of rich _________ and unavoidable __________ .
threats, complexity, uncertainty
What are the four evolutionary phases in Canadian Environmental Law?
- Common Law Rights & Early Statutes
- Waste Control and Cleanup Laws
- Toxic Control Laws
- Comprehensive Approaches to Environmental Assessment & Planning
