Environmentalists have advocated the precautionary principle (PP) to guide public and private environmental decisions. The industry and its spokespersons have spoken out against this. There is not one principle, but many that have been recommended for this purpose. Despite the appeal of a central idea in all versions of the principle – that policymakers should take certain precautions to ensure that threats of serious and irreversible damage to the environment and public health do not lead to harm – even one of the most widely used principles needs to be significantly refined and refined before it can be applied. In addition, the PYP is an approach or guide for the use of scientific discoveries in social or legal decision-making contexts. In this respect, it does not differ in nature from other approaches to the use of factual information such as the law. The law provides models for different strategies to guide decision-making in uncertainty when factual issues cannot be resolved with certainty. These, in turn, can help guide the formulation of different versions of PP and clarify some of the preconditions of the principle. Once some plausible versions of PP are articulated, I suggest some applications for existing environmental problems. The concept of legal certainty is recognised by the European Court of Human Rights. [1] Legal certainty is a legal concept established in both civil and common law legal systems.
In the civil law tradition, legal certainty is defined as the maximum predictability of the conduct of officials. In the common law tradition, legal certainty is often explained by the ability of citizens to conduct their affairs in a manner that does not break the law. In both legal traditions, legal certainty is considered to be the basis for the legality of legal and administrative measures taken by public authorities. [2] The doctrine of legitimate expectation states that “those who act in good faith on the basis of the law as it is or appears to be should not be disappointed in their expectations.” [5] This means that once an EU institution has induced a party to take a particular action, it cannot depart from its previous position if this would result in the loss of that party. The Court of Justice of the European Communities has considered the doctrine of the protection of legitimate expectations in cases where breaches of the general principle of legal certainty have been alleged in numerous cases relating to agricultural policy and European Council regulations, the leading case being Mulder v. Minister van Landbouw en Visserij. [8] [7] It is also recognised in all European civil law systems. [4] Legal certainty is now recognised as one of the general principles of Union law and “requires that all legal provisions be sufficiently precise to enable the person, if necessary with appropriate advice, to foresee the consequences that a particular act may entail to an extent proportionate to the circumstances”.
[1] The principle of legal certainty and, as such, the rule of law require that: The abuse of power test is another important element of the general principle of legal certainty in Union law. It clarifies that a legitimate power may not be exercised for purposes other than those for which it was delegated. According to the abuse of powers criterion, a decision of an EU institution constitutes a misuse of powers only if `it was adopted on the basis of objective, relevant and consistent elements the sole or principal aim of which is to attain an objective other than that above`. A rare case in which the Court of Justice of the European Communities has ruled that an EU institution has abused its powers, thereby violating the general principle of legal uncertainty, is Giuffrida v Commission. [9] [10] The general principle of legal certainty is applied particularly strictly where Union law imposes financial burdens on individuals. [4] The concept of legal certainty has been recognised by the Court of Justice of the European Union as one of the general principles of European Union law since the 1960s. [4] This is an important general principle of international and public law prior to EU law. As a general principle of Union law, this means that the law must be secure because it is clear and precise and its legal effects are foreseeable, in particular when applied to financial obligations. The adoption of laws producing legal effects in the European Union must have an appropriate legal basis. Member States` legislation implementing EU law must be drafted in such a way that it is clearly understandable to persons subject to the law. [5] The concept can be pursued by English common law[1] by recognizing this system that legal certainty requires that laws be made in such a way that people can comply with them. Most European countries regard legal certainty as a fundamental quality of the legal system and a guiding requirement of the rule of law, although they have different meanings of the term.
In U.S. law, the principle of legal certainty is worded as a fair warning and the principle of nullity as vagueness. [11] Legal certainty, legal uncertainty, judicial discretion, Review Board Legal certainty is a principle of national and international law, which stipulates that the law must give subordinates the opportunity to regulate their conduct. The legal philosopher Gustav Radbruch considered legal certainty, justice and determination as the three pillars of law. [3] Today, legal certainty is internationally recognised as an essential precondition for the rule of law. [1] According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the concept of the rule of law “aims above all to underline the need to establish a rules-based society in the interests of legal certainty and predictability”. At the G8 Foreign Ministers` Meeting in Potsdam in 2007, the G8 committed itself to respect the rule of law as a fundamental principle that includes respect for the principle of legal certainty. [1] The legal system must enable individuals to regulate their conduct with certainty and protect those subject to the law from arbitrary use of state power. Legal certainty is a requirement that decisions must be taken in accordance with legal rules, i.e. they are lawful.
In national case-law, the concept of legal certainty may be closely linked to that of individual autonomy. The degree of legal transposition of the concept of legal certainty depends on national case-law. However, legal certainty often serves as a central principle for the development of legal methods by which justice is done, interpreted and applied. [1] Legal certainty decreases over time. Rules and principles of law are becoming increasingly uncertain in their content and application, as legal systems are biased in favour of elucidating these rules and principles. In this article, I try to show what these biases are and why commentators who have argued that the law tends to certainty are wrong, and then I describe various attempts to restore certainty, and why these attempts have generally not worked. My conclusion is that these proposals are, at best, acts and that the trend towards increasing legal uncertainty is unstoppable.