Tulkinnan arvosidonnaisuus ympäristöoikeudessa
Avainsanat:
ympäristöoikeus, oikeusteoria, laintulkinta, oikeusperiaatteet, arvotAbstrakti
Values and interpretation in environmental law
The article discusses the significant role that values have in the interpretation of environmental law. This inevitable state of affairs is seen to reflect three essential characteristics of environmental law: 1) Factual premises are forward-looking; 2) norms are flexible and open-ended; and 3) environmental law is a field of law with inherent conflicts.
Even though it might be tempting to simply balance out the different values affecting interpretation, the task is by no means an easy one. Especially in hard cases—where setting substantive reasons for decisions is an extremely convoluted process—open-ended and transparent justification of both factual and normative premises cannot be overemphasised.
In addition, if one wishes to lay environmental law down as a battlefield of competing values, then one ought also to make allowances in its systematisation of the various diverging and even contradictory principles affecting the whole of the legal system.
