The law of sustainable development : general principles

Abstract

The interest of the European Union in sustainable development grew in parallel with the initiative of the United Nations on the same issue, which culminated in the World Conference of Rio (1992) on the Protection of Environment and Sustainable Development. The output of this conference was two documents, fundamental for understanding the philosophy and strategy of sustainability, namely the Rio Declaration and the Agenda '21. Equally important was the outcome of the European initiative, ie the Fifth European Action Plan on the Protection of the Environment and Sustainable Development under the title Towards Sustainability. The Greek national experience in sustainable development, as reflected in the case law of the Fifth Section of the Council of State (Conseil d'Etat), makes this Court a pioneer in the field. The decisions of this Court on matters of sustainable development have a great theoretical and practical value. For that case law is successfully realising the vision and spirit of both the Rio Declaration and the Treat of Amsterdam on a wide spectrum of sustainability problems. The aforementioned Court has succeeded in creating a legal system of general principles of sustainable development which have enabled it to penetrate deeply into all public policies and harmonise them with a view fo protecting natural, cultural and social resources. This book, written by Justice Michael Decleris, the Founder and President of the Fifth Section of the Greek Council of State for the last ten years, draws heavily on the case law, but at the same time uses the methodology of large scale systems as the necessary link between abstract models and principles on the one hand and concrete problems on the other. Chapter 7 outlines twelve general principles of the Law of Sustainable Development.

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