“Do judges have the tools to respond to the ambitions of civil society on environmental issues? »

2023-04-29 07:00:22

FFaced with ever more alarming scientific reports on the state of the planet and biodiversity, the news bears witness to unprecedented citizen mobilization in France, as in many other countries. This mobilization, which is expressed in particular through the action of associations and NGOs, is all the stronger as the response of the States to meet the major environmental challenges is considered to be largely insufficient.

Thus, many are those who will retain from the citizens’ convention on the climate, launched in 2019, a timid resumption of the proposals, like the refusal to consecrate the crime of ecocide, which has become a simple offense within the framework of the Climate law. and resilience. The recent clashes in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres) between the police and opponents of the mega-basins project, resulting in the initiation of the procedure for the dissolution of the Les Uprisings of the Earth collective by the Minister of Interior, testify to the difficulty in setting up a constructive dialogue between citizens and the executive power.

The “Erika” precedent

Faced with this observation, civil society and in particular NGOs, fully playing their role of sentinels, are increasingly turning to the judiciary. This is evidenced by the appearance, first of all, of numerous so-called “climate” disputes initiated against the States, following, in particular, the founding Urgenda decision handed down in the Netherlands in 2019, at the end of which the Netherlands was condemned to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25% in 2020 compared to 1990. But the private sector is not to be outdone, with a growing number of procedures initiated against companies in all sectors.

Judges are now in the spotlight. But do the latter have the tools, and the legitimacy, to respond to the ambitions of civil society on these subjects? The question clearly deserves to be asked.

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NGOs and associations unquestionably have good reasons to expect concrete answers from judges to respond to environmental issues, with regard both to the legislative tools recently created in France and to the audacity they have been able to demonstrate in the past.

In fact, it was the courts that recognized, in 2012, the “pure ecological harm”defined as an attack on the environment, without repercussion on a human interest, in particular within the framework of the business ofErika. This damage was consecrated four years later by the legislator. Finally, recent decisions, rendered in France but also abroad, suggest that judges are ready to assume this role.

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