Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Undertaking a journey into the past addresses many of the unknowns that gravitate around a certain subject. At the same time, it can also be said that, from an analytical perspective, travelling through the timeline that is drawn over history by a specific question offers a holistic vision of the issue. Therefore, in order that future events take the desired course and finally achieve the crystallisation of ecocide in international law, it is essential to understand the background and those paradigmatic cases that placed in the first row the urgency to build a whole theoretical framework to sustain this crime, and the conceptual odyssey that ecocide has experienced to date.  

The European Commission and the Court of Justice of the European Union consider that an emergency measure only can be adopted in accordance with Article 34 of Regulation (EC) No. 1829/2003, 53 and 54 of Regulation (EC) No. 178/2002, before the verification of a serious risk derived from Genetically Modified Organisms. According to Community law, which is the result of a regulatory evolution developed during the last decades, this verification must be realized in the risk analysis procedure, specifically during the risk assessment. Therefore, the objective of this article is to analyze the elements of this stage, mainly the concepts of biotechnological risk and scientific uncertainty, which are closely linked to the precautionary principle. Consequently, the interpretation and application of this principle is also analyzed in the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

La Ribera d’Ebre i el Priorat són dos exemples paradigmàtics d’economies perifèriques tenint en compte la seva estructura productiva. Tanmateix, en les darreres dècades ambdues comarques plantegen un model de desenvolupament socioeconòmic divergent que es tradueix en un model de justícia ambiental antagònic: mentre a la Ribera d’Ebre s’intensifica el caràcter d’economia dependent en base a un model de producció extractiu al Priorat s’assaja un model de desenvolupament endogen com a model alternatiu d’explotació dels recursos naturals, impulsat per la societat civil i les institucions públiques. Aquesta disjuntiva planteja la necessitat d’afrontar un debat sobre la legislació vigent, que no sols planteja reptes importants respecte la justícia ambiental que cal introduir en la nova producció legislativa, sinó que també té un fort impacte en el model de desenvolupament socioeconòmic d’aquestes comarques, que pot representar un punt d’inflexió amb el model imposat durant la segona meitat del segle XX.

It is intended to analyze the revisability of the act of granting an environmental license in light of its discretionary or related legal nature. For this, an analysis of administrative discretion is made in the light of its transformations and its interface with environmental law. After a study of the relationship between environmental licensing and administrative discretion in light of the different conceptions of legal literature. Finally, there is the issue of environmental licensing and revisability. It is concluded that there is a need for a state license (based on preventive and precautionary measures) of the environmental license granted, even though it is in full force of the concession act, because socioeconomic and environmental realities undergo modifications that may lead to the need to change the environmental license granted or even reviewed in the modalities specified above.

The construction of the global constitutionalism’s narrative requires interpretative efforts in order to recognize, at the same time, the basic values of the constitutionalism and the irreversible fragmentation of the international order, establishing legal frameworks to stimulate collective and coordinate actions in different scales of governance specially to handle top global threats as the case of the climate change. The polycentricity and its alternative and pluralistic approach that aims to maximize the potential convergence of multiple governance units appears in this context as an appropriate analytical method to develop a discursively narrative which generates a constitutional framework adjusted to handle with climate change, building the idea of a micro-global-climate-constitutionalized system. Therefore, the micro-global-climate-constitutionalism bounded by a set of overarching rules as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the constitutive and regulatory documents elaborated at the decision-making process of the Conference of Parties (COPs), specially the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, supports the international climate regime, generating a scheme of comprehensive values and principles through uniform standards that oriented coordinated initiatives of higher and lower levels of authority towards a dynamic and progressive model of governing.

In 1998 Spain and Portugal adopted the Albufeira Convention to manage shared water resources between both States. For the first time, environmental protection and sustainable management of water resources and dependent ecosystems became the main goal of the conventional relationships. Those relationships have been developed over more than hundred years, even though with other different goals. Now, in the twentieth anniversary of its adoption, it is a good moment to analyse the Convention, its past deficiencies and its future challenges. The Albufeira Convention is fully enforceable and can guarantee the protection and sustainability of the shared water resources for a further twenty years. However, the updating of the Water Framework Directive, that will take place this year, and the adoption of the Agenda 2030 provide the suitable context to deepen relationships and improve the Convention to face the threat of scarcity and drought, which are increasing due to climate change.

The purpose of this article is to analyze if the CIDE FUEL in Brazil can prove to be a fertile field for the financing of projects and programs aimed at the recovery of Permanent Preservation Areas, as a way to comply with the constitutional and legal purpose for which such tribute was created. Thus, the concept of extrafiscality is investigated; taxation and state intervention in the economy; the existence of a state of environmental chaos; the importance of Permanent Preservation Areas for the mitigation of environmental chaos; and CIDE FUEL. The method of approach followed will be the empirico-dialectic, using bibliographical and legislative research, having as a reference system a combination the Theory of Complexity with Law and Economics. In conclusion, it is pointed out that the adequate allocation of CIDE FUEL funds for the financing of projects and programs for the recovery of Permanent Preservation Areas could result in compliance with the environmental purpose of the tax, making its legal requirement, besides contributing to a of the objectives of the new Brazilian Forest Code, which is to recover the Permanent Preservation Areas throughout the national territory.

Necessary for the concrete application of the citizens confidence in the mechanism of conflict resolution. Thus, the legislator must regulate legal issues related to the concept of mediation and its fundamental principles. In this sense, this article seeks to present a proposal to conform this principle in environmental confidentiality.After an extensive bibliographical review, professionals were interviewed who could contribute to the reflection on this thematic. The bibliographical research was carried out with books and periodicals written in the Portuguese, English and Spanish language, which is available in libraries and online. The method of approach was the deductive one.In the environmental area, it is necessary to find a balance between the need for publicity and transparency of debates, resulting in duty of secrecy.

The reform of the Spanish penal code of 2015 introduced in article 325.1 CP a new proposition of ecological crime, the result of an unreflective transposition of European regulations and which, apart from difficult technical problems of application, provokes controversial consequences such as the adoption of a pure ecological conception of the environment or the difficulty in delimiting the different criminal types and administrative intervention. The present work gives account of all these problems and proposes any solutions reformulating the protected legal good, delimiting the scope of application of the different criminal types and proposing an interpretation of the most controversial concepts such as the one of "substantial damages" to the air quality, the soil, the waters or animals or plants.

Legislación básica de protección del medio ambiente (primer semestre 2019)