Environmental law

Environmental law is a complex field, defined by a systemic fragmentation, full of continuous references to extra juridical, technical and scientific concepts, transversally engaging civil, criminal, administrative and international law arrangement: a dynamic and ever-changing metadiscipline, focused on the protection of the environment and human health.

These features make environmental law one of the most complicated but at the same time more delicate branches of law, given the importance it has for all social actors.

The Testo Unico Ambientale, also known as the Environmental Code, (D.lgs. 152/2006) entitled “Environmental laws” and published in the Gazzetta Ufficialel Nr. 88 of 14 April 2006, was the first serious attempt at an organic accommodation of the massive corpus of environmental legislation.

In addition to the Environmental Act, there is also an intensive set of EU, regional and ministerial regulations to be taken into account.

Generally speaking, we can define environmental law as the set of rules, guiding and regulating human activities, in order to protect the integrity of the environment, human health, and the carrying capacity it offers to current and future generations.

P&S LEGAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL LAW,

WHAT can we do?

• Proactive risk management: We stand out from many other law firms, since we believe it is the primary interest of our clients to eliminate or mitigate environmental risks, before public authorities carry out their oversight activities and enforce environmental sanctions, with all the related liabilities, reputational damages and litigation/prosecution of uncertain outcome.
• We support business organizations carrying out extraordinary corporate transactions, ownership & management transitions, delivering environmental legal opinions, contract drafting & negotiation, regulatory issues and environmental compliance due diligence.
• We believe it is critical to build a profitable long-term relationship with an in-house environmental lawyer, deeply integrated in the company’s business processes and in a business model he firmly understands.
• We assist organizations in criminal proceedings, following breaches of environmental provisions, environmental lawsuits, or dealing with issues relating to environmental permissions applications.
• We support Public Administrations in public proceedings and training their staff in environmental legislation.

Environmental Law being a cross-cutting discipline, with seamless interconnections between law, science and enginering, in order to offer the best synergy between legal and scientific know-how, we really believe that teamwork is the backbone of successful environmental consulting: our team is made of environmental lawyers, environmental engineers and environmental scientists.

Given the complexity of the discipline, a Master’s degree in environmental law is a prerequisite to join our environmental legal advisers department.

Environmental pollution, climate change and global warming, natural resources depletion, biodiversity loss, mass migration phenomena, are just some among the problems that an environmental law specialist has to understand, anticipate and address, for the mutual benefit of the client and society as a whole.