Environmental Laws

Over the past several decades, growing public awareness of threats to the environment, informed by warnings of scientists, has led to demands that law protect the natural surroundings on which human well-being depends. Under growing pressure from national and international public opinion, governments began to demonstrate concern over the general state of the environment during the 1960s and introduced legislation to combat pollution of inland waters, ocean, and air, and to safeguard certain cities or areas. Simultaneously, they established special administrative organs, ministries or environmental agencies, to preserve more effectively the quality of life of their citizens. Developments in international environmental law paralleled this evolution within states, reflecting a growing consensus to accord priority to resolving environmental problems. Today, national and international environmental law is complex and vast, comprising thousands of rules that aim to protect the earth’s living and non-living elements and its ecological processes.