identify the roles of private citizens in managing the environment.
Answers
Answer:
deforestation ,ozone depletion, disposal of waste, loss of biodiversity
Answer:
ROBERTS E. and DOBBINS J.
Environmental Law Institute. 1616 P Street. N.W.. Washington. DC 20036, USA
This paper was written with guidance from Margaret Bowman, Director, Environmental Program
for Central and Eastern Europe. Additional guidance was provided by Elissa Parker, Director of
Research and Training.
Explanation:
This paper explores the ways in which citizen involvement can improve the fairness and
effectiveness of environmental enforcement. Section 1 of the paper discusses the overall value
of such citizen involvement. Section 2 surveys the wide range of roles citizens can play in the
enforcement process. Section 3 focuses on ways in which citizens can use the courts to work
towards environmental enforcement goals. Section 4 examines citizen involvement in practice,
highlighting some practical considerations relevant to designing and implementing citizen
participation mechanisms.
One method of harnessing the energy and commitment of citizens to effectuate public
environmental protection goals is to authorize citizens to enforce environmental laws and
regulations. In the United States, most environmental statutes contain "citizen suit" provisions
enabling citizens to prosecute violators of the statutory regime. (39)
Such citizen suit provisions have their roots in over two hundred years of U.S. law. Since 1790,
United States citizens have been able in limited cases to sue to vindicate certain public rights --
those granted by statute to the population as a whole. (40) These citizen suits have been used
to enforce federal regulations in diverse areas ranging from antitrust to consumer protection.
(41) Citizen suit provisions are said to create "private attorneys general," for they confer upon
the individual the right to enforce public laws against other citizens.
Although the concept of a citizen suit is not new, the statutes permitting citizen enforcement of
environmental laws and regulations are unique. In most other areas where citizen suits are
permitted, a personal economic interest, such as an interest in correcting unfair competition orpreventing fraud, must coincide with the claimed public rights. In citizen suits brought under
environmental protection statutes, however, there is no such personal economic stake in the
outcome. The environmental statutes truly provide citizens with the authority to represent the
interests of the public. Environmental citizen suits, in their strongest form, might even be
characterized as permitting citizens to sue on behalf of the environment itself. The United States
is almost unique in this grant of power to the private citizen: Few other nations have extended
such rights. (42)
The U.S. Clean Air Act (CAA), enacted in 1970, was the first federal environmental statute of the
modern era with a citizen suit provision. The CAA provision's underlying structure is the basis
for citizen suit clauses in almost every other major piece of federal environmental legislation.
Today, citizens can bring suit against private parties and government for violations of certain
sections of statutes regulating air, water, toxic waste, endangered species, mining, noise, the
outer continental shelf, and more. (43) Under many statutes, the remedies available to the
citizen are equivalent to those granted to the federal agency charged with administering the
statute. (44)
The basic citizen suit provision permits any "person" (including an individual, organization, or
corporation) to sue any other "person" (including the United States) who is violating the
requirements of the given Act. Before filing suit, a citizen must notify state and federal agencies
as well as the alleged violator that a lawsuit is impending. This notice provision serves an
important purpose, because the threat of a citizen suit often prompts the violator to halt its
violations, or at least to negotiate with the potential plaintiff. As long as the violation continues
and the state or federal government is not pursuing a "diligent enforcement" action against the
alleged violator in court, a lawsuit may be filed. Once the suit is filed, the government has no
power to dismiss it, and may affect the outcome only by intervening in the case.
If the citizen wins, the court may order the defendant to stop the violating activities. In certain
circumstances, the court costs and attorney fees associated with bringing the action may be
awarded to the plaintiff. Some statutes allow the plaintiff to ask the court to impose civil
penalties upon the violator, payable to the U.S. Treasury. (45