Slovenian Environmental Policy Analysis: From Institutional Declarations to Instrumental Legal Regulation

Abstract

This chapter identifies and analyses the existence of a comprehensive environmental and security policy (or its fragments) and a security system in the fields of environmental crime and protection of the environment. The chapter also analyses the administrative- and criminal-legal regime of environment protection in the Republic of Slovenia (RS) as a member of the European Union (EU). The study is based on the analysis of the existence and content of strategic documents (declarations, programs, strategies) and the implementing documents (regulations and codes) that define the organisational and functional aspects of state bodies, including those of the national security system, and which should tackle the intentional and unintentional threats to the environment. The study is also based on comparative and descriptive analysis of the de lege lata legal system of environment protection in the RS as a member of the EU. The study shows that there have been many sectoral (line) and cross (interdepartmental) approaches and policies (e.g. policy of protecting and conserving the natural environment and space; policy of protection against natural and other disasters; national environmental action programme, etc.) dealing with the question of environment protection (and thus society) in the widest sense. Nevertheless, it is still difficult to identify a single comprehensive and consistent "environmental security policy" that would address how a wide variety of sources and types of threats to the environment are going to be tackled. On the other hand, instrumental legal regulation is divided into two major areas: (1) pollution control and remediation and (2) resource conservation and management. Instrumental legal regulation is often media limited (i.e., it pertains only to a single environmental medium, such as air, water, soil, etc.) and it controls both emissions of pollutants into the medium, as well as liability for exceeding permitted emissions and responsibility for clean-up.