Norm Evolution in EC Environmental Law

Abstract

Will the next generation experience the same quality of natural environmental beauty as that of former generations? Environmental protection is one of the most serious tasks to be dealt with in the days and years ahead, and in tackling this issue, the question of how environmental norms evolve is an essential topic for consideration. With regard to the above, the EC has demonstrated a number of interesting institutional practices. This paper illuminates a role of law in the EC institutional practices, which have brought about the evolution of environmental norms. This role is argued in terms of the discursive power of law. In order to elucidate this discursive viewpoint, this paper offers a conceptual framework as follows: 1) Law catalyses normative discourse during the process of the creation, application and interpretation of norms. Laws in and of themselves are also normative discourses; 2) The concept of governance frames is referred to as the shared meanings of core norms, key concepts and regulative principles in a specific issue-area; 3) The accumulation of discourses around and of laws (re)creates a frame, and these discourses are contextualised within the preceding frames. This interaction causes norms to evolve; Lastly, 4) the concept of regime is referred to, and the institutional setting that supports normative discourses and frames is described. Regimes are defined as institutional complexes which procedurally reproduce normative discourse and substantively establish a policy agenda upon which a frame is built. In this way, this paper understands the development of EC environmental law as an example of norm evolution in a regime, in which the interaction of normative discourses and governance frames occurs. Building on this conceptual framework, this paper describes the norm evolution in EC environmental law. Before the legal base for environmental secondary legislation was provided by the SEA in 1987, the institutional practices of the EC had already led to: the ECJ judgments concerning environmental matters; legislation orientated towards environmental protection; and international environmental conventions to which the EC is party. On the basis of normative discourses around and of these laws, a governance frame has been transformed from a market supporting frame into a holistic and ecosystem-oriented frame. This paper thus illuminates a role of law in EC institutional practices which have brought about the evolution of environmental norms, from the viewpoint of discursive power of law in issue-framing.environmental policy; European law; neo-institutionalism; governance; European Court of Justice