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The Ethics of Environmental Protection

Conference Paper · November 2011

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Alexandru Pătruți
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 Alexandru Pătruţi

The ethics of environmental protection

Introduction

It is becoming obvious that in the last decades, environmentalism, under all its forms,
ranging from conservation of ecosystems to sustainable development, is gaining more and
more influence upon our daily activities. Environmental organizations appear every day and
promote all sorts of theories regarding the necessity to protect the environment in which we
live. It is also clear that not only was the public opinion receptive to these ideas, but so were
the political parties, since environmental claims appear in nearly all of the current political
agendas.
Taking these aspects into consideration, the main objectives of this paper will be, on
the one hand, to analyze the environmental legislation (viewed as a result of the
environmentalists’ claims) in light of five universally valid ethical principles and on the other
hand, to propose a better juridical alternative for solving conflicts regarding environmental
protection. Based on the works of W. Block (2008, p. 42-62) and M. N. Rothbard (1997, p.
121-170), I will underline the necessity of a better definition and enforcement of private
property rights. I will also mention the disadvantages of the current environmental legislation
versus the advantages of the former Anglo-Saxon method of private individuals pressing
charges in court against polluters. Moreover, in this paper I will try to interpret the
unbelievable success of the current environmental movement in light of the decay of natural
rights theory.
Taking into account the fact that the study will have a theoretical approach, the
methodology used will be literature review and critical analysis.
In short, through an analysis based on the theory of natural rights and on the universal
principles of law, I will try to show in this paper that the current environmental legislation has
some serious shortfalls. I will propose as an alternative to environmental legislation the
Anglo-Saxon method of pressing charges against the polluter, method used between 1820 and
1830. Also, the fact that the polluter must pay damages to the plaintiff will be underlined as
being of critical importance.
The conclusion of this study is that the environmentalist claims give rise to serious
ethical problems and that environmental legislation is not the best juridical mean to solve
pollution conflicts, but rather the byproduct of the misinterpretation of the idea of natural
rights. The only thing necessary for an improved environmental protection is a better
definition and enforcement of private property rights, in light of the universally valid ethical
principles.

1. The analysis of the environmental legislation based on ethical principles

The main instrument that the state has at his disposal to implement environmental
policy is legislation. Although it is clear that pollution (under all its forms) is a real problem
and there is a real need to have legally binding means to compensate the potential victims, the
questions which arise are: is environmental legislation the optimum legal mean to solve this
problem? Are there any alternatives to environmental legislation?
The alternative which I will suggest, inspired from the liberal economic and juridical
theory (Rothbard 1997; Block 2008), is the possibility of individuals to press charges against
the polluters in court. This alternative, which is based on the principle of nonaggression, is far

1
from being new. It was used in the U.S. and Great Britain between 1820 and 1830 (Block
2008, p. 48-49)1. Apparently the process went something like this: an individual sued a
company or another individual, arguing that the pollution affected his person or property, and
the judge ruled usually in favor of the plaintiff and issued an order to stop the pollution and to
compensate the victim. However, before we explain this process in detail, we must first
demonstrate why this alternative is preferable to environmental legislation.
Based on the study of literature written in this field (Rothbard 1997; Block 2008;
Reisman 2001; Reisman 2002; Barnett 1977), a possible answer would be that pressing
charges in court is compatible2 with a set of universally valid ethical normative principles,
while environmental legislation is not3. The ethical framework which I refer to includes five
principles: the principle of private property (1), the nonaggression principle (2) (which are
practically two faces of the same coin4), the principle of proportionality (3), the principle of
individual responsibility (4) and the principle of strict causality connection (5).

1.1 The principle of private property

It is extremely important to mention the fact that in order to solve any legal dispute
regarding environmental aspects one must start from the distribution of property rights
involved. Thus, the statement A claims that B “pollutes the environment” must necessarily
involve the following: a certain action undertaken by B has as an effect the invasion and
damaging of A’s property5. In this case, it seems just that B must compensate A for the
damages that he is responsible for. We can ask now a fundamental question: is it possible in
the above mentioned case for a certain individual C to accuse B of polluting, even though the
actions of B have not affected C’s property in any way? If we want to respect private property
rights, the answer would be no. However, nearly all the environmental NGOs who lobby
against polluters6 (and for more environmental legislation), in nearly all the cases, do not have
any property rights in the polluted areas. An interesting example here would be the claims
made by Greenpeace and Agent Green that the road 66A is “destroying the last forest
landscape left intact in Europe” and therefore it must be stopped (Stop DN 66A – Salvaţi
munţii Retezat de Asfalt 2010). If we stick to the property right paradigm, this claim has no
substance because the environmental NGOs do not have any property in the respective forest.
Their claims are thus null and void.
Of course, this is not the only example in which private property rights are totally
ignored when it comes to environmental legislation. For instance, the Romanian legislation
regarding packaging waste7 (which represents the implementation of the European Directive
94/62/CE) states that producers must bare the costs of waste collection, reusing and recycling.
If we analyze the production cycle from producer to consumer, we can clearly observe that

1
The author of the above mentioned work argues that in the years 1820-1830 environmental complains were
considered as falling under the jurisdiction of tort law.
2
Or at least we can say that theoretically, pressing charges in court is compatible which the ethical framework
while environmental legislation is not even compatible at a theoretical level.
3
A certain set of ethical principles is necessary in enforcing justice, because justice is a normative concept, see
Rothbard (1997, p. 121-170).
4
Ultimately all the 5 principles can be reduces to one – the principle of private property (1). Respecting private
property necessarily implies avoiding any aggression against persons or property (2). The other 3 principles
((3)(4)(5)) are the results of applying the principle of private property in particular cases. Still, I consider that the
5 principle approach will make the analysis clearer.
5
In this article the deduction process starts from the premise that any man has property in his own body. If
anyone, by means of pollution, affects the health of another man, he is by definition aggressing against his
property, Rothbard (1997, p. 127).
6
And their actions are successful in all too many cases.
7
See HG 621/2005 or HG 167/2010.

2
the product becomes waste, not when it is “put on the market8”, but after it is used/consumed
by the consumer. Thus, the product becomes waste when it is the property of the consumer
(which is liable for the way in which he uses his property), therefore it seems reasonable that
the consumer (not the producer) should be held responsible and should bare the costs of the
waste which he has created. Coercing producers by law to bear these costs can only be
explained by the fact that they have more money and that they are easier to tax than the
consumers (Rothbard 1997, p. 144).
Regarding the implementation of property rights in the case of pollution, Rothbard
(1997, p. 145) underlines a more subtle aspect. According to John Locke, the non-aggressive
ways of acquiring property are exchanges, unilateral transfers (e.g. gifts) and homesteading.
In accordance with John Locke’s view, Rothbard suggests that in case a factory, for example,
has acquired a property in a non-populated area and has began polluting the air to a certain
degree, that factory has also acquired (by homesteading) the right to the respective degree of
pollution because the owner has “mixed his labor with the environment”. Thus, if an
individual buys, in the above case, a piece of land next to the factory (after the owner has
began polluting the environment) and sues the owner of the factory for pollution, he should
not win the trial unless the owner of that specific factory is polluting more than the initial
degree (which he acquired by homesteading). Rothbard also mentions in his article a few
cases which were actually solved in this manner9.

1.2 The nonaggression principle

As we have stated above, this fundamental normative principle regarding

nonaggression is nothing more than a reformulation of the universal principle of private
property. The nonaggression principle can be briefly expressed in the following words: „No
action will be considered illicit or illegal, and thus forbidden by law, unless it invades, or
physically aggresses10 against the person or property of another man (Rothbard 1997, p.
127)”. Pollution falls into this definition because it represents a clear physical aggression
against the person or property of another man and thus the victim can press charges against
the polluter. However, the so called “preventive” legislation – the laws which aim at
preventing a future possibility of environmental damage – is by itself aggressive11. Most of
the actual environmental laws fall into this “preventive” category, the following paragraph
form the European Directive 94/62/CE being extremely suggestive:
“... in order, on the one hand, to prevent any impact thereof (packaging waste) on the
environment or to reduce such impact, thus providing a high level of environmental
protection... Whereas the best means of preventing the creation of packaging waste is
to reduce the overall volume of packaging”
It is clear that such a law institutionalizes aggression and hampers economic progress.
Moreover, it we employ reductio ad absurdum, in order to prevent any impact of packaging
waste on the environment, the only logical solution is to give up packaging altogether. Of
course, the same logic can apply to all the other productive processes. In this case, it is
obvious that environmental legislation represents a restriction upon economic freedom.

8
Wording used in HG 621/2005, which refers to the production or import of a certain good.
9
One example is New York Case of Bove vs. Donner-Hanna Coke Co. (1932) in which a person moved into a
neighborhood which was used mostly for industrial production. After a few years she sued the operator of a coke
oven for pollution. The court rejected the plea arguing that the plaintiff bought the parcel of land willingly and
knowingly in an industrial area and that pollution is inherent to that specific industrial activity.
10
In the same category, besides physical aggression, we may add the clear imminent intention on behalf of one
man to aggress another. In juridical theory this is called an “overt act”. In this case the person faced with
imminent aggression has a legal right do defend his person and property.
11
Following the above mentioned definition.

3
However, many economists (Block 2008, p. 45-60) consider that there is no reason to believe
that economic freedom (the so called laissez-faire approach) and environmental protection
should be two opposite concepts. Moreover, in their opinion, the free market is the most
efficient mechanism for environment protection.

1.3 The principle of individual responsibility

This third principle is probably the simplest and most obvious of them all. It can be
best expressed in the words of Ludwig von Mises „Only individuals think. Only individuals
act.” (Von Mises 1951, p. 133). Thus, the principle of individual responsibility is nothing
more than the application of the concept of methodological individualism in juridical matters.
If we would elaborate on this point we could say that the individual must be held responsible
strictly for his own actions before the law. However, the above mentioned principle, although
intuitively correct, is totally ignored when it comes to pollution. The best examples in this
case are global warming and the depletion of the ozone layer (Reisman 2002). Can a single
individual, through his everyday actions, bring about global warming or can he deplete the
ozone layer12? It seems obvious that it is impossible for a single individual, regardless of his
actions, to produce these phenomena. The environmental theory advances the idea that the
actions of all human beings produce these climatic effects in the long run and that it is
necessary for the state to adopt legislation in order to restrict air pollution. However, coercing
people to pay huge taxes for preventing such phenomena, taking into account the fact their
individual actions cannot cause global warming, seems intuitively wrong. Some authors
(Reisman 2002) suggest that if these climatic phenomena appear strictly as an effect of all the
actions of all individuals combined, global warming becomes an Act of Nature (or Act of
God) – an action which is outside of the control of human beings. This interpretation is, in my
opinion closer to the truth.

1.4 The principle of proportionality

Pursuant to the above mentioned principles, our short normative analysis concluded so
far that an individual is free to do anything as long as his actions do not result in the
concrete/physical aggression against the person or property of other individuals (principles 1
and 2). In case a person did carry on an act of aggression against the person or property of
another, he should be held liable before the law for his own actions. However, an important
question arises here: how should the aggressor make up for the damages he caused?
In order to answer this question we can invoke the principle of (pure13) restitution.
According to this principle, if a certain individual A damages through pollution the property
of B, A is obliged to pay B the value of the damages he has caused14. The method of pressing
charges in court remains in the paradigm of restitution and proportionality while
environmental legislation does not. Although legislation puts forward the correct idea that

12
Even if we assume, for the purpose of the argument, that in extraordinary conditions an individual is capable
of these actions, we may still ask if the environmentalist claim involves a strict determinable causal relation
between the actions of a certain individual and global warming. On the other hand, global warming seems to be
considered by the environmentalists as an aggregated phenomenon of all human beings acting together. The lack
of a clear causality relation between the two – e.g. a maximum level of greenhouse gases above which global
warming begins – seems to prove the existence of certain problems in defining the phenomenon.
13
The concept of restitution splits into the following categories: pure restitution – the aggressor is liable only for
compensating the victim for the damages he has caused – and punitive restitution – where the aggressor is not
only responsible for compensating the damages but it also involves punishing the offender, see Barnett (1977).
14
In order to solve situations when a polluter has injured the health of a person, some authors suggest the
possibility of incorporating elements of criminal law into tort law, (1997, p. 144, footnote 91).

4
“the polluter pays”, we can go further and ask who does the polluter pay? According to the
principle of restitution the polluter must repay the victim for the damages he has caused, but
according to almost every environmental law the money taken from the polluters
automatically goes to the state budget. In Romania, for example, most of the environmental
taxes go to the Environmental Fund’s Administration (Romanian A.F.M.)15. An interesting
question would be how much of these funds reach the victims affected by pollution (the
persons who were aggressed by polluters)? Taking into account that the Environmental
Fund’s Administration uses the collected taxes to “implement projects which have as an
objective the protection of the environment16”, it is clear that these taxes are redistributive in
nature and that nobody has the intention of compensating the victims. It is extremely
important to realize that from a juridical point of view (respecting the principle of
proportionality) the polluter did not aggress against society, but against the individual whose
person or property was affected.
Moreover, using the principle of restitution in court would have the following
advantages (Rothbard 1997):
a) The victims of pollution would get just compensation;
b) The possibility of being compensated would be a strong incentive to encourage
people to be vigilant and report any case of pollution;
c) There would be a clear set of rules17 for calculating the value of the damages
caused by polluters (more exactly the price of the property which was
invaded). Polluters could be able in that situation to calculate clearly the “cost
of pollution”.
d) Consumers would pay much less by reducing or abolishing environmental
taxes. It is clear that producers are nowadays taxed under the pretext of
protecting the environment. Of course, a certain part of the tax is passed on to
consumers via increased prices. Moreover, the government spending for the
huge environmental bureaucracies would drastically decrease.

1.5 The principle of strict causality connection

The last concept that I will introduce in the juridical analysis is the principle of strict
causality connection. According to this principle, the plaintiff must prove “beyond reasonable
doubt” a strict causal connection between the actions of the defendant and the invasion of his
rights (Rothbard 1997, p. 142)18. Moreover, the burden of proof falls on the plaintiff, any
defendant being considered “innocent until proven guilty”. If we would apply this principle to
pollution we would have the following process (Rothbard 1997, p. 157): A accuses B of
polluting. Step 1: (a) if the pollution is visible (or otherwise detectable by human senses) it
represents an aggression per se. (b) If the pollution is invisible or undetectable by human
senses A must prove that this “invisible pollution” harms him (physically) in a negative
way19. Step 2: A must prove a strict causality from the actions of the B to his victimization.

15
See O.U.G. 196/2005 CAPITOLUL III: Veniturile Fondului pentru mediu, Art. 9.
16
Idem, CAPITOLUL IV: Destinaţia Fondului pentru mediu.
17
Or, if we want to be more specific, there would be a strong incentive to discover such a set of rules, based on
which the judge court could approximate as best as possible the value of the damages. This would give birth to
an evolving process through which these rules would be discovered, a process which would be put into motion
by the self-interest of the victims to be compensated for the damages incurred.
18
The author also mentions that the causal relation must be proven clearly and not through “statistical correlation
or probability theory”.
19
If A proves, for example, that the productive process of B generates some kind of invisible radiation, which in
the long run causes a type of lung disease, A can press charges against B in court.

5
 Although probably few people would oppose this basic juridical principle,
environmental legislation ignores it in most of the cases. Such an example is, again, global
warming. The fact that pollution causes global warming is far from being proven “beyond
reasonable doubt” 20. However, numerous laws have been adopted to fix this so called
problem.

I have brought the 5 universal principles into discussion in order to suggest the fact
that it is necessary to also respect them in the case of environmental protection.
In order to avoid any confusion, I must underline the following fact. The object of this
paper is not to say that pollution should be ignored, but that the means and reasons used
nowadays for protecting the environment give rise to serious problems. The juridical reason
for which polluters should be sanctioned is that they aggress against the person and property
of others (Cordato 2004). Environmental legislation, on the other hand, is not the best legal
mean to fight against pollution. As an alternative I would propose the possibility of
individuals to press charges in court against polluters, an alternative which already exists in
almost any juridical system in the world (Rothbard 1973, p. 265). Adopting environmental
laws is not the optimum way to implement environmental protection because these laws are
not in the spirit of the above mentioned ethical principles. Thus, the suggestion of the paper
would be to employ better juridical means – the court system – with the goal of stopping any
aggression upon person or his just property. In other words, I have suggested an alternative
legal framework for solving pollution as an interpersonal conflict between two or more
individuals who try to use the same scarce resource for conflicting ends. According to this
view, pollution is not anymore an issue of “protecting the environment”, but it becomes an
issue of solving a human conflict arising from the intention of using a scarce physical
resource (Cordato 2004).

2. The environmental movement as a degeneration of the concept of rights

In the first part of this paper I have proposed a legal alternative to solve the conflicts
arising from pollution. Of course, this vision is not currently put into practice and the main
way to “solve” environmental problems is through legislation or administrative law 21. One
must underline that, even though it is beyond the goal of this paper, the environmental
movement began in the same time with a degeneration of the concept of natural rights.
Initially, natural rights were considered negative rights. Thus, the only limit one has upon
exercising his rights is limiting the possibility of other individuals to exercise the same rights
(Hamowy 2004). In other words, freedom can be considered the possibility to do anything as
long as you do not affect others in a negative manner.
However, we cannot fail to notice the huge rise in the number of “positive” rights
which has taken place in the last decades. A positive right is not a legal interdiction under the
form: “Thou shall not…”, but on the contrary, it offers a legal privilege to someone, coercing
other individuals to act positively in a certain manner. A typical example is “the right to
medical care” which states that a citizen has the right to medical services, forcing the other

20
There are numerous alternative theories, one of them being that the temperature on Earth will vary according
to its distance from the sun. Historically, planet Earth’s orbit around the sun has greatly varied causing climate
changes, among which the most renowned are the ice ages.
21
Administrative law is a concept opposed to natural law. The latter is discovered by reason and it represents a
set of universal objective ethical norms through which one can judge human actions. Administrative law (or
positive law), on the other hand, is strictly the arbitrary result of the bureaucrats in the legislative apparatus, see
Rothbard (2002, p. 17).

6
citizens to bear the costs of the system. Nevertheless, the most suggestive example of the
decay of the concept of rights took place when Franklin Roosevelt added to the two natural
rights “freedom of worship” and “freedom of speech”, two other positive rights, “freedom
from want” and “freedom from fear”. Such a right as “freedom from want” (a concept which
is strongly linked to the idea of welfare state) gives rise to a number of problems22, but it is
not the purpose of this paper to enumerate them. Another example from the same category
can be considered Art. 25 from UN’s Declaration of Human Rights which mentions that:
“everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of
himself and of his family”.
It seems evident that the environmentalists took advantage of this process of
degeneration of natural rights, considering that they have all sorts of positive rights. For
instance, they promote the idea that they have the right to a “clean environment” and thus any
infringement on this right should be punished (usually by the state, which acts as protector of
the environment), regardless of the circumstances23. Moreover, the ones who make these
claims usually share a deformed vision on property rights, many of them thinking in terms of
a sort of “collective inheritance of mankind24”, regardless of who really justly owns those
specific resources (Hamowy 2004, p. 163). This type of thinking can lead to extremely bizarre
conclusions – like somebody claiming that you do not have the right to smoke in your own
house, because you are affecting the quality of the air, which is a public good. This
conclusion, which is more than controversial, results ultimately from the idea that people have
the positive right to a “clean environment”.
Even in Romania, this right is granted by Art. 35 from the Constitution – The Right to
a healthy environment:
” (1) The State shall acknowledge the right of every person to a healthy, well preserved and
balanced environment.
(2) The State shall provide the legislative framework for the exercise of such right.
(3) Natural and legal entities shall be bound to protect and improve the environment.”

Furthermore, according to paragraph (3) from the article, any individual or company
has the legal duty to improve the environment, duty which is, from a certain point of view, a
contradiction in terms. According to some of the environmental claims, human activity is
opposed (antagonistic) to the processes of nature. Thus, if the environment reaches a certain
ecological equilibrium only in the absence of human interference, any human attempt to
improve the environment is, by definition, damaging.
I felt the need to include this discussion on rights because the suggestion of treating
pollution as an interpersonal conflict for the use of the same scarce resource for different ends
is made in the spirit of natural law and natural rights. The strict implementation of (only)

22
Problems such as who can determine what are my needs (or wants) – from an economic perspective, needs are
infinite in number. It is safe to say that the welfare state is trying, at least in theory, to bring about a utopia – the
kingdom of heaven on hearth (everybody should have sufficient goods and services to be happy). However, the
real world is still being characterized by scarcity.
23
There have been numerous efforts on behalf of the environmentalists to attack the concept of rights. Some of
the most interesting attempts were trying to apply the concept or rights to animals, plants and ultimately to
minerals, see Hamowy (2004, p. 164-165).
24
One can affirm that, to a certain degree, there is a striking resemblance between environmentalists and
socialists. Both movements are ideological in nature and both wish to have collective property rights. Both have
an extreme aversion towards capitalism and the industrial revolution. Both consider, for different reasons, that
freedom must be restricted and both propose coercive measures to reach their goals. We could also point out that
according to some studies many environmentalists have a Marxist orientation, see Hamowy (2004, p. 164-165)
or Reisman (1990, p. 171).

7
negative rights is essential in order to tackle pollution and at the same time respect the
fundamental ethical principles.
Following the previous suggestions, the goal of public policy would be to help define
and implement private property rights. If one understands this, it can be easily affirmed that
pollution is not a “market failure”, how many people consider it to be, but an institutional
failure, the institution of private property not being completely defined and implemented
(Cordato 1997, p. 2).

Conclusions

The article has made an analysis, based on the fundamental ethical principles,
underlining the advantages and disadvantages of the actual environmental legislation. As
alternative I have proposed the legal method used in the former Anglo-Saxon countries
between 1820 and 1830 – the right of every individual to press charges against the polluter –
thus treating pollution as a conflict between two or more individuals. Furthermore, the paper
observed that the current legal system does not always respect the principle of private
property, that the polluter is not obliged to pay damages to the victims and that the plaintiff is
not held responsible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that a strict causality relation exists
between the actions of the polluter and his victimization. Also, I have underlined that the
current environmental legislation does not rest on the concept of natural law. Environmental
legislation is a type of administrative law and it does not have as an ultimate goal to guarantee
the freedom of an individual to do whatever he wishes, as long as his does not infringe upon
the freedom of others. One can fairly say that the success of the environmental movement,
success which manifested itself in the adoption of a huge number of environmental laws, was
made possible because of the degeneration of the concept of natural rights.
As a final point, the article underlined the necessity of a clear delimitation and
enforcement of property rights. Because, from an economic point of view, problems arising
from pollution are interpersonal conflicts, it seems necessary that also from a legal point of
view such problems should be treated similar to any other interpersonal conflicts arising from
the infringement upon property rights. As a personal opinion, I would like to stress out that
the environmental movement has taken a turn for the worst lately. One could say that it has
rather become an anti-capitalism, anti-progress and anti-development movement. What is
surprising is that this vision has influenced not only the public opinion, but also political
figures which have created legislation to regulate “environmental aspects”. I have tried to
show in this paper that not only does not the environmentalist vision respect the fundamental
ethical principles, but also the fact that a better definition and enforcement of private property
rights is the only thing necessary to protect the environment.

8
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