In recent years, there has been a great focus on the relationship between people and our environment. The tremendous growth in the number of lawyers practising environmental law depicts that people are taking climate change and pollution control more serious than ever. Environmental law: an area of law that tries to cover every human activity that somehow leads to affect the mother earth. If you’ve got a keen curiosity on how human activities pan out on a global scale, you have come to the right blog. This blog intends to provide you with every bit of information which you are going to need before pursuing environmental law as your main career approach.
INTRODUCTION
Environmental law existed for more than a century, but it was invisible on the legal radar for most of its time. The 18th century and mostly 19th century brought a revolutionary advancement to America and British agricultural equipment’s which marked new inventions and farming techniques. This led to massive outburst in food production and created a ripple effect throughout Europe. People were then more inclined to leave their farms and production and move into urban cities as there was enough food to sustain life away from the farm.
The easy life of cities created a cultural change and demands of clothing and non-essential items. Quality of life improved within 10 years and demand for non-essential products and different lines of clothing increased. Soon industrial factories emerged with day to day inventions often termed as the industrial revolution.
The 19th century emerged as a great change in the lifestyle of people. People were consuming and wasting more than ever. A pile of garbage was humped over oceans and cities were polluted with rapid growth in coal factories. In a race of becoming a superpower, humans adopted unfair means that directly affected our environment. Ozone started depleting and global warming increased. Various scientific researches indicated an outbalance of geological environment.
These reports created an outrage in public and many organisations formed to protest against industries and big corporations. Most of the countries formed new regulations for industries to produce under Eco-friendly means. Many Eco enthusiast lawyers are practising environmental law to save the mother earth from a big corporation who tries to alter the atmosphere in order to attain more profit.
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Scope
Environment Protection act from 1990 marked the United Kingdom’s first step towards increasing focus on global warming, climate change and other issues. Though it is still hard to find certain law practices that rely purely on environmental law. In most law firms, lawyers who hold a specialized distinction in environmental issues are usually seconded from construction and project finance or property departments.
Solicitors who take an interest in the private sector and went to study environmental law usually works as an external consultant to other enterprises. The task completion of due diligence in big corporations, project and property deals is an integral part of these job roles. These activities as an environmental law involve keep in check the illegal waste dumping, waste disposal methods and to scope out wildlife conservation and environmental protection.
Duties
Other duties as an environmental law include essential advice to clients in compliance with environmental regulations. He/she have to preempt investigations by government authorities and defend their clients against the claim on conversion methods, emission, pollution, general health and safety and criminal negligence.
As an environmental lawyer, you might be assigned works that relate to different matters such as pollution levels, planning and infrastructure and emission controls. A federal attorney’s responsibilities include environmental concerns, maintenance of sanitation and health, identifying renewable energy resources and ensure clean water supply. Further, in your career, you might also involve in the prosecution of an organisation that have committed environmental crimes and flouted the regulations.
If one is interested in pursuing a career in environmental law, various opportunities are available to work for big corporations and NGOs. If you are looking to work in a public domain, you might be working in government authorities. food and Rural affairs, department of environment and environmental agencies keep looking for bright lawyers who aim to serve the earth.
Skills
This field of law is very complex and pace changing, you, therefore, need to have certain skills. You need to have excellent academics and knowledge of environmental regulations as well as a genuine interest in the environment. having a genuine urge to save the environment will help you to keep up with the demands of legalization.
It is a relatively new stream of law, where the previous legal precedents may be thin online. So you need to follow your intuitions and sound your own judgement calls against prosecution.
One needs to have a higher level of commercial awareness and pragmatism to flow a good judgement. You need to comprehend your client’s business and his operations in order to tailor your advice to the corporation.
You will also to cope up with a big amount of corporations: given the scope of work and a background in environmental science and various data analysis is useful.
Current environmental issues
There are various ongoing initiatives which one needs to be aware before practising legalization which is connected to:
- Climate Change: Climate change includes carbon reduction techniques and energy efficiency scheme which tries to place a limit on the total amount of emission and pollution an enterprise can emit.
- Energy solution covers and identify all the sources of energy and focus on alternative and renewable sources.
- Corporate responsibility towards environmental: Companies and big corporation often requires legal advice from environmental law specialist in order to minimize the total risk, insurance and so on.
Debates over Environmental Law
Environmental law is a continuous topic for debate and controversy. Debates over the fairness, cost and necessity of environmental law seems like never going to end. People and corporations are furious over the appropriateness of market solutions in comparison to the regulations. Allegations of research uncertainty fuel the current debate over gas regulations and is a key factor from large corporations over whether to ban specific pesticides.
In cases of adequate scientific discoveries, the corporation is found to intentionally distort or hide the fact or saw confusions. In general regulated industries tries to argue over the environmental acts on the basis of production and waste disposal cost. It is challenging to perform cost-benefit analysis as it is hard to find quantify the value of the ecosystem. Even so, there are many campaigns and efforts underway to systematically identify environmental assets and cost and account them adequately in economic terms.
While many affected industrialists sparks controversy in fighting the regulations, there are much public interest group and environmentalists who believe that the ongoing scenario is inadequate. An additional debate is also going on which determines the extent environmental law are fair to all of the regulated parties.
Importance of the Environmental Law
Protect the environment and living beings
One of the primary functions of environmental law is to protect the environment and living beings. Due to excessive industrialization and technological advancements, the focus of global mass has no longer centred to the procurement of nature. This is why, every day, our planet adds more to the deterioration of our habitat. We are being careless and irresponsible towards Mother Nature, which in turn is emitting negative results. In order to bring the balance between growth and healthy nature, environmental laws act as a bridge. They exist to ensure sustainable development. The practices that violate the health of living beings and environments are controlled by these laws. For example, the use of harmful weedicides is something that environmental law takes care of. The environmental laws have been made to protect environmental, humans, flora and fauna from harmful activities.
Effective waste management
Half of the environmental issues can be easily ended if proper waste management rules would be followed all around the globe. Every other day, the headlines show poor disposal of non-biodegradable waste causing deadly effects to flora and fauna. This is a serious issue which sadly pertains to our growing modern world. However, there are still many countries who have total control over their waste management procedures. Environmental laws help in efficient and environment-friendly management of waste. This is certainly a large contribution to protecting the environment. These laws ensure that the process of waste management does not coincide with the environment or human health. Furthermore, it set standards of disposal of waste as well.
Regulate industries and manufacturing
If you have even slight knowledge of sustainable development, you may already know how important it is for the industries to work as per related factors. The environment is one of those factors that have to be taken care of. Environmental law ensures that the industries meet the legal obligations so that the environment stays protected. Students who aspire to become an environmental lawyer have to study the laws and regulations proposed for industries. In the absence of these laws, it would be tough to control harmful industrial activities. It would not be an exaggeration to assert that the environment can be brought to its worst stage due to rapid industrialization if the laws did not exist.
Safeguards environment officers
The people working for the betterment for procurement of environment face a number of adversities and issues. The environmental laws protect their rights which in turn makes them able to do the job in the best possible manner. They can take actions on strong grounds because they are backed with a legal framework. In this era, where forestation, wildlife and climate change is going through its worst, these officers need strong law to keep things positive in their specific areas. Environmental law safeguards the officers and enforcers to ensure that they have the required power in their hands to do their job without external interference.
Combats environmental issues
Apart from all these points, environmental laws can actually curb every environmental issue prevailing in the globe. Some of the many problems are air pollution, water pollution, deforestation, climate change, invasive species, land and soil degradation, ozone depletion, population pressure, persistent toxins, nuclear risks, ocean and freshwater deoxygenation, adverse effects of mining, loss of biodiversity and habitat fragmentation and degradation and depletion of non-renewable energy sources. These problems and issues traverse administrative and national boundaries. They traverse natural resources too. These transboundary challenges throw light on the need for procedures for dispute resolution, decision-making processes that may reach beyond the borders. The environmental laws illustrate the necessity of building administrative structures which give a boost to socially acceptable development.
Conclusion
The vast field of environmental law covers a broad range of vocabularies such as bottle-return state laws in the US, initiatives in the great china to create The Great wall greener and shelter belt of trees to protect Beijing from sandstorms and coal-fired power plants regulation in Germany.
It is necessary to find an approach towards sustainable development to foster economic growth while preserving the quality of the atmosphere for the upcoming generation. Sustainability was the primary focus of the 1992 earth summit and later became the central key to a multitude of environmental law.
Memorizing all the regulations involving environmental acts formed in various summits can be pretty challenging for a law aspirant. However, they can take assistance from Assignment help UK portal for any kind of case studies and projects.