Systemic breaches of EU environmental law and the means for the CJEU to get involved in the field of science
Systemic breaches of EU environmental law and the means for the CJEU to get involved in the field of science

Summary/Abstract: The environmental legislation has long been an area of concern in terms of implementation and proper enforcement. In this context, the Commission has focused on the systematic breaches of environmental legislation. Proving the existence of such breaches of environmental law and legislation has a number of specific features because of the scientifically based questions underlying environmental law. The purpose of this article is to relate the CJEU's established position on scientific uncertainty to the specific situation where the Commission claims that an infringement of EU environmental law is of a systemic nature. It will show that, while the CJEU has been sensitive to the systemic nature of the Commission's complaints through the use of some of the procedural tools at its disposal, its general reluctance to engage with the substantive issues at stake could have the potential to reduce the effectiveness of the infringement procedure as a tool for adequately pursuing systemic breaches of EU environmental law.

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