Klaus F. Gärditz

Zeitschrift für Europäisches Umwelt- und Planungsrecht, Volume 20 (2022), Issue 3, Page 267 - 279

Positive environmental law knows numerous references to relevant natural sciences. Scientific knowledge is a common motive for legislation and is needed for the application of environmental law. Nevertheless, there is practically no interdisciplinary cooperation between legal scholarship and natural sciences. This article outlines interdisciplinary perspectives from which all subjects would benefit.

Klaus F. Gärditz, Ekkehard Hofmann, Alexander Proelß

Zeitschrift für Europäisches Umwelt- und Planungsrecht, Volume 20 (2022), Issue 3, Page 247 - 247

Klaus F. Gärditz

Zeitschrift für Europäisches Umwelt- und Planungsrecht, Volume 19 (2021), Issue 2, Page 147 - 161

Regulation (EC) No. 1907/2006 concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) established the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). The ECHA is, under certain requirements according to the Regulation, the competent authority with regard to the registration, evaluation, and admission of chemical agents used within the European Union. The essay discusses the administrative procedures of the EU agency encompassed by the Regulation and the subsequent judicial review of administrative decisions, including the administrative appeals provided by the Regulation.

Klaus F. Gärditz

Zeitschrift für Europäisches Umwelt- und Planungsrecht, Volume 18 (2020), Issue 3, Page 276 - 291

Some town and country planning decisions prepare the permission of infrastructure projects, which may contain certain scientific research risks, like a nuclear power plant for scientific research, a virus research centre, or a large hadron collider. German town and country planning law – in particular, the Federal Building Code (Baugesetzbuch) and the Federal Country Planning Statute (Raumordnungsgesetz) – does not provide specific instruments, which deal with scientific risks. Nonetheless, general instruments ensure effective administrative flexibility to deal with potentially dangerous emissions and accidents. Planning decisions by local or state authorities can, in particular, select the site where an infrastructure should be placed and secure minimum distances to vulnerable environment. Finally, planning scientific infrastructure requires planning authorities to consider the scientific needs in the light of academic freedom as a fundamental right.

Martin Kment, Klaus F. Gärditz

Zeitschrift für Europäisches Umwelt- und Planungsrecht, Volume 18 (2020), Issue 3, Page 237 - 237

Klaus F. Gärditz

Zeitschrift für Europäisches Umwelt- und Planungsrecht, Volume 18 (2020), Issue 4, Page 359 - 359

Klaus F. Gärditz

Zeitschrift für Europäisches Umwelt- und Planungsrecht, Volume 16 (2018), Issue 2, Page 158 - 173

The German Act on Remedies in Environmental Issues (Environmental Remedies Act – ERA) implements the provisions of the European directives on Environmental Impact Assessment and on Industrial Emissions, which require national legislation to provide sufficient remedies to challenge specific administrative actions concerning the environment. Additionally, the Act also implements Article 9 (2) (3) of the Aarhus Convention. In its short history, the ERA has been amended abundantly, mostly to comply with recent decisions of the European Court of Justice. Gradually, the ERA became more and more technical and almost incomprehensive. The last amendment from May 2017 (ERA Amendment Act 2017) has inflated the ERA with detailed corollary provisions, which I will analyse in this essay. As ECJ found the common substantive preclusion provisions in administrative law incompatible with EU law, the ERA Amendment Act 2017 introduces a new procedural preclusion, forcing plaintiffs to substantiate their claim within a strict time limit after filing a lawsuit. Another provisions allows the court to suspend judicial proceedings, enabling the administration to repair procedural errors, which occurred during the administrative procedure. Finally, a new type of lawsuit allows environmental associations to challenge specific planning decisions, which were not subject of direct (but mere indirect) judicial review, hitherto.

Klaus F. Gärditz

Zeitschrift für Europäisches Umwelt- und Planungsrecht, Volume 16 (2018), Issue 4, Page 487 - 497

Under German environmental law, representative actions, which allow environmental nongovernmental organizations to challenge acts or omissions of environmental authorities, have been established and expanded for some decades. Recently, some German states have issued legislation which grants civil associations committed to the protection of animals standing in administrative courts to file representative lawsuits to enforce animal protection law. While these developments have not been considered thoroughly in academic doctrine and jurisprudence, yet, two books on this topic have been published, recently. An edited volume and a dissertation present a broad scope of substantive and procedural issues inherent in representative actions with regard to animal protection cases. This essay takes the opportunity of a joint book review and discusses major issues of representative actions and its transfer to the law of animal protection. In particular, it is demonstrated that salient procedural consequences still remain obscure and should be put under further scrutiny.

Klaus F. Gärditz

Zeitschrift für Europäisches Umwelt- und Planungsrecht, Volume 13 (2015), Issue 3, Page 196 - 213

Under the influence of European Union law, judicial review in matters of environmental administrative law has become a subject of highly dynamic and sweeping developments that might unhinge the basic structures of traditional models of judicial review in German procedural law. Concepts encapsulated in EU law are: a significant enhancement of administrative procedural law, a supplementary regime of objective complaints that can be filed by environmental organisations as member of the public concerned, and, finally, a functional ‘subjectivization’ of objective environmental law in order to make its enforcement more effective. This essay analyses these (partly disparate) developments and the impact on judicial review under German procedural law, which is deeply rooted in effective protection of individual rights.