Publication
Title
A Procedural idea of environmental democracy: the ‘débat public’ paradigm within the EU framework
Author
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to analyse the ‘débat public’ procedure, which finds its roots in the Canadian legal system and its most defined formulation in France, and which more recently has been circulating to Italy – first at the regional level and, since 2016, at the national level. The first part of the paper will thus be devoted to a historical overview of the débat public and to how it is implemented in each of the two legal systems. The second part will subsequently distil the ‘paradigm’, i.e. those distinctive traits that make the débat public an autonomous research subject, within the multi-layered legislative framework of environmental governance in Europe. Three main features of the paradigm will be pointed out (Participation, Effectiveness, Authority), thus highlighting how it can respond to the needs in light of which it has been designed, namely dealing with proximity conflicts and providing a forum for the construction of shared rational decisions in environmental decision-making. The paper eventually leads to the conclusion that the débat public, with its codified rules and procedures, represents the first and probably the most noticeable attempt towards the institutionalisation and generalisation of deliberative practices in environmental decision-making, thus towards developing a procedural stance in environmental democracy.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Review of European administrative law. - Groningen, 2007, currens
Publication
Groningen : 2021
ISSN
1874-7981 [print]
1874-7973 [online]
DOI
10.7590/187479821X162548876709191874-7981
Volume/pages
2 (2021) , p. 85-106
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Project info
Constitutional strategies in the face of multilevel governance.
Publication type
Subject
Law 
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
VABB-SHW
Record
Identifier
Creation 26.07.2021
Last edited 23.06.2023
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