The idea of rights to institute legal proceedings given to environmental protection organisations challenges the idea of protection of individual rights given only to an individual and not to an organisation. It is therefore not surprising that Germany in the past was not very willing to guarantee rights to institute legal proceedings to organisations protecting nature and environment. The German legislator only created such rights because of European and public international law provisions and the jurisdiction of the ECJ and has further developed this right in recent years. This article presents the main features of this development.