Charter of the environment

The Charte of the environment is, in France, a text with constitutional value devoting the Human rights and of the company in its environment.

This charter is the result of a project initiated and announced by the President of the French Republic Jacques Chirac, under the impulse of Nicolas Hulot.

History

The text of the project of constitutional revision was prepared during four years by a particular commission (known as Commission Coppens) chaired by the professor Yves Coppens who included/understood, in addition to itself:

Dominique Borough (directing of the CREIDD at the university of technology of Troyes),
Christian Brodhag (Research director at the École des Mines of Saint-Etienne),
Philippe To cart,
Bertrand Collomb (at the time president of Lafarge Its-Lafarge),
François Ewald (philosopher and lawyer),
Yves Jegouzo (to advise State),
Robert Klapisch,
Christiane Lambert (network FARRE),
Jean-Claude Lefeuvre (professor with the national Natural history museum of natural history),
François Loloum (main of the Requests Council of State),
Marie-Jose Nicoli (president of UFC That to choose),
Jacques Pélissard (president of the Association of the mayors of France),
Genevieve Perrin-Strapping man (appointed of Two-Sevres),
Picardy Pierre (university Paris X),
Charles Pilet (veterinary surgeon),
Bernard Rousseau (pilot of the network Natural water of France Environment),
Jean-François Trogrlic (national secretary of the CFDT).

This commission saw its work enriched by two committees, one legal, the other scientist to validate or invalidate certain assumptions. A series of public meetings organized in all France also made it possible to collect the opinion of the French citizens, with for object various sets of themes related to the Charter.

The text was subjected to the National Assembly and the Sénat in 2004. The Parliament then was joined together in Congrès with Versailles the February 28th 2005 and ratified, by 531 votes against 23, the bill constitutional which introduces the Charter of the environment into the preamble to the Constitution of the October 4th 1958.

The Charter finally was promulgated on March 1st 2005 by Jacques Chirac.

Contents of the charter

The charter takes again a certain number of rights or principles known as of " 3rd génération" already devoted in texts to legislative value or generally in international texts (the Human rights of 1789 being the first generation and social rights of the 20th century the second).

The charter contains 10 articles.

It devotes a new individual right, that of the right of each one to live in a balanced and respectful environment of its health (article 1st).

A legal innovation also lies in the concept of Owe (articles 2 to 4: to have for all people, articles 5,6 and 10 relating to the public authorities, articles 8 and 9 for the sectors concerned such as education and research), that to take share with the safeguarding of the Environnement. It is not the first time that the concept of having appears in a constitution (the constitution of 1946 mentions the duty to work), but it is the first time that the duty can take a normative value. That was criticized, in particular by the defenders of the design of subjective Droit, for which the only duty which has the citizen is to respect the rights of others.

The Charter carries at the constitutional level of other principles, which existed already at the legislative level, but which acquires a greater force thus. For example the ecological responsibility , which includes, by giving him a broader range, the “Principe pollutant-payer” which is not expressly recognized in the charter with the difference in Treaty EC.

Lastly, the Charter defines the Precaution principle . A particular care was taken to its drafting, in order to draw aside all the abuses interpretation which were made by it in the past. The wording of article 5 of the Charter is thus different from the traditional drafting of the precaution principle, such as one finds it in the declaration of Rio or at the head of our Code of the environment. A compared reading of these two draftings is, for this reason, very lighting.

Effects of the charter in the French legal order

The Constitutional council referred for the first time at the Charter of the environment by a decision n° 2005-514 cd. of April 28th, 2005, relating to the creation of the French international register of the registration of the ships. The Constitutional council judged that the legislator had not ignored the principle of the sustainable development stated by article 6 of the Charter of the environment.

The Court of appeal currently examines the effects of the Charter. It must define how the conditions of exercise of all these principles must be defined by the law, and bring recommendations on the texts of application of the Charter, to put in coherence the existing laws. Right now, the courts of the legal order of first authority fully recognized with the Charter its effects, initially the right to life in a respectful environment of health, combined with the precaution principle. It in particular allowed the base of the release of the reapers of GMO of which the criminal responsibility was in question.

The Council of State has in its first decisions (EC, April 6th, 2006, Ligue for the protection of birds (LPO), (Req. n°283103) and June 19th, 2006, Association Water and Rivers of Brittany, (Req. n° 282456) limited the use of one or more provisions of the Charter like legal means called upon (Article 1,2 and 6) to directly counter a regulatory provision in a dispute. From the moment when a law exists, it is this law which is determining to check the legality of a regulatory act provided this law is not itself not incompatible with the charter. This last assumption did not appear yet to know the powers to control of the administrative judge then.

The administrative courts them also started to recognize the Charter in first authority. Thus, the Juge of the summary procedures of a administrative court recognized that by leaning with the Constitution a Charter of the environment which proclaims in its article 1st that “ Each one has the right to life in a balanced and respectful environment of health ”, the legislator necessarily intended to set up the right to the environment in “ fundamental freedom ” of constitutional value.

Effects of the charter in the French Administration

Article 6 of the Charter of the environment gives an orientation impossible to circumvent: “ the public policies must promote the Sustainable development ”. The French administration must consequently change Culture and of Mentalité to arrive at a concrete dynamics of change in favor of the Sustainable development in all its forms.

As indicates it action 21 of the Government seminar of March 23rd 2005 which aimed at Adapter the administrative procedures and policies to the Charter of the environment , a document explaining the essential legal notions of the charter bound for the public administrations was elaborate. An work group was created by the interdepartmental Délégation with sustainable development in order to propose approaches, methods and the procedures necessary to the implementation of the Precaution principle (article 5 of the Charter of the environment, precision of the concept of “serious risks and irreversible”) . Assessment of the measures adopted in 2005 details the contents of engagements of the French State.

At the local level, the communities began in the approach Agenda 21 which illustrates also the concrete action of a step of Sustainable development. This one is deepening the town following the example of of Bourges of which the municipal services are the first to be certified as regards quality, of safety, environment and ethics (QSEE) like a company in November 2006 at the end 18 months of procedure.

Without question, the step of Sustainable development contributes to modernization in concreto of the French public administrations. The step of the " purchases; verts" in is an illustration for the State like the local government agencies. All these public administrations in charge of the general interest must from now on more than ever to answer on the ground at the request of Citoyen S whose concerns even environmental requirements go up in power.

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