Rli starts preparing advisory report on juridification in the living environment

14 august 2023

There are numerous lawsuits these days about the quality of our living environment. Citizens and interest groups seem to be increasingly appealing to the courts to protect values such as health, nature, climate and environment, while companies are asking the courts for more environmental scope for continuing their activities. There is an increasing impression that environment and planning policy is being “juridified”.

What makes parties take a matter to court? What societal developments play a role in this? Is there, for example, an increase in rule-making involving a greater amount of legal content and detail, a greater significance of human rights, a shift between fields of the law (from administrative to civil), or a broader impact or scope of court rulings?

How can public authorities take this into account in terms of content, legislation and process when developing and implementing policy? How can they utilise this trend towards juridification so as to contribute to achieving the goals of sustainability policy and enhancing effective social dialogue? These are the key questions in the advisory report that the Council for the Environment and Infrastructure (Rli) is preparing.

The Council expects to publish its report in the spring of 2024.

For more information about the advisory report, please contact Folmer de Haan (project leader): f.w.dehaan@rli.nl +31 (0)6 4615 2496