Law Working Group Webinars

5-7 April, 11:30 – 13:00 CET.

The EEB Law Working Group is pleased to invite you to a series of thematic webinars taking place on the 5, 6 and 7 of April.

Environmental Crime, Tuesday 5 April

This webinar is the first in the series of webinars of the Law Group.

This webinar on environmental crime will focus on the fight against organised environmental crime at the European level. In December of last year, the European Commission, published a proposal for a revision of the environmental crime directive and the co-legislators of Council and Parliament are currently gearing up to work on the file. This webinar will give us the opportunity to scrutinise the proposal from different angles and explore how best to support the strengthening of the enforcement chain in environmental criminal law.

Special focus will be on the opportunities to advocate for the concept of Ecocide as a recognized environmental crime and for the extension of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office’s mandate to environmental crime.

Due Diligence, Wednesday 6 April

This webinar is the second in the series of webinars of the Law Group.

After several delays, the European Commission published this February its proposal for a Directive on corporate sustainability due diligence. Obliging companies to pay attention to the impacts of their value chain has been a demand high up on the list of priorities for a while and the current proposal is a great opportunity to push for more.

The webinar will shine a light on the Commission’s proposal but also dive into several examples of products with particularly demanding value chains. We will look at product policy in general and zoom in on textile production and mining issues.

Access to Justice, Thursday 7 April

This webinar is the third in the series of webinars of the Law Group.

In the last years, several EU Member States have introduced national climate laws but avenues of enforcement of EU environmental law at national level are still weak. Ever since the failure of the 2003 access to justice directive proposal the EU has been lacking harmonised rules for the Member States on how citizens and NGOs should be granted access to courts and other legal avenues in the area of environmental policy. Not only does this leave a hole in the Rule of Law framework, but it also challenges the commitments under the Aarhus Convention. In a Communication from 2020 the Commission called for the introduction of individual access to justice provisions in environmental legislation instead of coming forth with a new proposal for a directive. Separately, the Aarhus Regulation, the regulation governing access at EU institution level was revised.

During the webinar we will look at the efforts of introducing access to justice from three different angles. Firstly, from the perspective of national climate laws. Secondly, from the efforts of advocating for specific provisions in EU climate legislation. Thirdly, from the perspective of how access to justice can be achieved at the level of the EU institutions under the revised Aarhus regulation.

Please note that these webinars are mainly directed towards EEB members.