Who should do what in environmental management? Twelve principles for allocating responsibilities

Who should do what in environmental management? Twelve principles for allocating responsibilities

Mostert, E.

Civil Engineering and Geosciences

Water Management

2015-11-19

In environmental management there is often discussion on the allocation of responsibilities. Such discussions can continue for a long time and can form an obstacle for effective action. In this article twelve normative principles for the allocation of responsibilities are identified, coming from three different sources: the arguments used in discussions on responsibilities, Dutch and European law, and the environmental management literature. The principles are 1) capacity, 2) lowest social costs, 3) causation, 4) interest, 5) scale, 6) subsidiarity, 7) structural integration, 8) separation, 9) solidarity, 10) transparency, 11) stability (but not standstill), and 12) acquired rights. These principles point to fundamental tensions in environmental management and sometimes conflict with each other. At the same time they may help to resolve conflicts by providing common points of reference that are independent from the often conflicting interests of the discussants.

institutions
decentralisation
polycentric governance
integration
Netherlands
water

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:aa73718a-265a-40e1-a237-4a75a8617f60

Elsevier

1462-9011

Environmental Science and Policy, 45, 2015; Authors version

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2014.10.008

Institutional Repository

journal article

(c) 2015 Mostert, E.
Elsevier