Forum Environmental Legal Protection 2023

Information about the event:

This event has already taken place. A complete documentation of the event can be found on this page.

The “Forum for Environmental Legal Protection” took place on March 2, 2023 as a virtual conference with more than 350 participants.

National and European acceleration efforts have intensified considerably in view of the urgency of the energy transition and not least due to the war in Ukraine. The large number of regulatory packages that have been or will be adopted by German and European legislators in 2022 have been met with controversy among experts and hold great potential for discussion.

The protection of environmental law continues to be a particular focus. Restrictions and changes cannot only be considered at a national level, but must also comply with European and international legal requirements and developments.

In 2023, the Forum for Environmental Legal Protection therefore once again provided a forum for taking stock of current developments in environmental representative actions. The particular focus this time was on

• the current acceleration legislation in general,
• the VwGO amendment and individual acceleration instruments in particular,
• developments at EU level and
• the latest empirical legal evaluations of legal action in Germany.

The “Forum Umweltrechtsschutz” has been held every two years since 2015 and is organized by the Independent Institute for Environmental Issues (UfU) on behalf of the Federal Environment Agency and the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection. The current event took place as part of the R&D project “Scientific support for legal protection in environmental matters in the 20th legislative period”.

Materials from the participants are available for the following program items (German only):

• The current acceleration legislation and its impact on environmental legal protection – Attorney Dr. Julia Wulff, Taylor Wessing, Munich
• Potentials of acceleration from administrative court practice – Dr. Ulrike Bick, Presiding Judge at the Federal Administrative Court, Leipzig
• Expert view of the VwGO amendment: Highlights from the perspective of the
  • Legal profession – Attorney Dr. Franziska Heß, BAUMANN Rechtsanwälte, Leipzig
  • Environmental authority – Beate Beydatsch, State Directorate of Saxony

• Keynote speeches in the breakout sessions
  • Rethinking environmental legal protection – must legal protection (temporarily) take a back seat in favor of energy security and climate protection? – Lawyer Prof. Dr. Bernd Dammert, Dr. Dammert & Steinforth, Leipzig
  • Tension between premature commencement of measures and effective legal protection – Attorney Dirk Teßmer, Philipp-Gerlach-Teßmer Rechtsanwälte, Frankfurt am Main
  • Acceleration by law – on the sense and usefulness of legal planning – Dr. Annette Guckelberger, Saarland University

• Current developments in the EU-Aarhus context and effects on national law (focus: ECJ product authorization decision and amendment of EU state aid law) – Christian Wagner, Kapellmann Rechtsanwälte, Brussels
• REPowerEU: The Commission proposal to amend the Renewable Energy Directive in the light of the Aarhus Convention – Prof. Dr. Angela Schwerdtfeger, University of Göttingen
• Current data on the number of lawsuits filed by associations since 2021 – Dr. Alexander Schmidt, Anhalt University of Applied Sciences

 

You can find a compact summary of the conference here: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/forum-umweltrechtsschutz-2023#auswirkungen-aktueller-europaischer-und-nationaler-gesetzesnovellen-auf-den-rechtsschutz

You can reach UfU contact persons at the following e-mail address: umweltrechtsschutz@ufu.de.
Further information on the research project can be found at: https://www.ufu.de/projekt/rechtsschutz-2/

Further information:
https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/

The “Forum Umweltrechtsschutz 2023” is organized by the Independent Institute for Environmental Issues (UfU e.V.) on behalf of the Federal Environment Agency and the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection.