Daibert, Arlindo --- "Diffuse Damages in Environmental Torts in Brazil" [2011] ELECD 651; in Benidickson, Jamie; Boer, Ben; Benjamin, Herman Antonio; Morrow, Karen (eds), "Environmental Law and Sustainability after Rio" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Environmental Law and Sustainability after Rio

Editor(s): Benidickson, Jamie; Boer, Ben; Benjamin, Herman Antonio; Morrow, Karen

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857932242

Section: Chapter 12

Section Title: Diffuse Damages in Environmental Torts in Brazil

Author(s): Daibert, Arlindo

Number of pages: 19

Extract:

12. Diffuse damages in environmental
torts in Brazil
Arlindo Daibert

1. INTRODUCTION

This chapter takes as a given that the core of sustainable development is that
human activities must be constrained by the capacity of the environment to
sustain those activities. This is consistent with the chapeau to Article 225 of
the Brazilian Federal Constitution as well as evolving environmental legal
doctrine and jurisprudence in Brazil, to the effect that the right to an
ecologically balanced environment is a fundamental right of a diffuse
nature. 1 Therefore, any human action that may disrupt such balance must be
regarded as a violation of society's fundamental right, and hence conduct
which is at odds with the notion of sustainable development. It follows that
the essential role of environmental law in promoting sustainable development
must be to ensure that human activities do not affect the ecological balance of
the environment.
In the light of this, environmental torts can be regarded as the outcome of
human conduct that law itself acknowledges as illicit, based on the adverse
effects of that conduct on the environment. As such, environmental torts
represent the antithesis of sustainable development, challenging law to
provide not only for the complete restoration of the environment's ecological
balance, but also for the full compensation for each of the interests
potentially impaired by environmental wrongdoing. In that endeavour, the
specific interests that may be affected by harmful actions against the
environment require careful juridical identification of the full spectrum of
rights and ...