Environmental Citizen Suits in the New South Wales Land and Environment Court: Frequency, success rates and citizen suit grants

Abstract

Whether third parties should have standing to initiate legal proceedings in civil courts to uphold public environmental rights has been debated since at least the early 1970s, when Joseph Sax helped persuade the Michigan Legislature to include an open standing provision in its Environmental Protection Act of 1970. The traditional view in common law countries has been that access to civil courts to uphold public environmental rights should be limited to the Attorney-General of the relevant jurisdiction and those who suffer special damage from the infringement of the right. Sax’s proposal was to do away with these restrictions on standing and allow anybody to initiate judicial review or civil enforcement proceedings to uphold environmental laws. It was hoped that this would promote the rule of law and provide a partial remedy for the perceived systemic under-enforcement of public environmental rights by captured and poorly resourced Attorneys-General and regulatory agencies.