scholarly journals Legal Mobilization under Neo-corporatist Governance: Environmental NGOs before the Conseil d’Etat in France, 1975–2010

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Vanhala
Keyword(s):  
Legal Mobilization ◽  
Environmental Ngos ◽  
Corporatist Governance

Is Legal Mobilization for the Birds? Legal Opportunity Structures and Environmental Nongovernmental Organizations in the United Kingdom, France, Finland, and Italy

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 380-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Vanhala
Keyword(s):  
Nongovernmental Organization ◽  
Legal Mobilization ◽  
Environmental Groups ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Environmental Ngos ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Environmental Nongovernmental Organizations ◽  
National Environmental

What explains the likelihood that a nongovernmental organization (NGO) will turn to the courts to pursue their policy goals? This article explores the factors that influence the mobilization of law by environmental NGOs in four Western European countries. It finds that explanations focused on legal opportunity structures are unable to account for the patterns of within-country variation in legal mobilization behavior. The research also shows that bird protection NGOs as well as home-grown national environmental NGOs are generally more likely to turn to law than transnational environmental groups. Although resources and legal opportunities clearly matter to some extent, the author suggests—drawing on sociological institutionalist theory—that explanations of NGO legal mobilization should (a) incorporate an understanding of how groups frame and interpret the idea of “the law” and (b) explore the role of “strategy entrepreneurs” who promote the use of particular tactics within an organization.

scholarly journals NGOs environmental legal mobilization and their access to the Spanish Supreme Court

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (9(3)) ◽  
pp. 308-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luz Muñoz ◽  
David Moya
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Organizational Capacity ◽  
Legal Mobilization ◽  
European Regulation ◽  
Policy Actors ◽  
Environmental Ngos ◽  
The Supreme Court

Environmental NGOs in Spain are well known policy actors. Since the nineties some of them have been invited to participate in governmental committees and/or to provide expertise to Parliamentary committees. They have also an important role in mobilizing public opinion to defend and protect the environment. We know less though about how do they intervene in the judicial arena. In the framework of a growing role of the Courts in the field of environmental governance, the goal of this paper is to analyze to what extent Spanish NGOs resorted to the judicial arena, specifically the Supreme Court, to enforce international and European higher standards of environmental protection and advocated against wrong or inadequate praxis in the implementation of environmental regulations. Several non-judicial factors seem to have strengthened that trend in Spain: increasing environmental national and European regulation as well as the NGOs organizational capacity to make judicial claims in line with their policy preferences. Desde la década de los noventa, las ONG medioambientales de España participan en comités gubernamentales y/o como expertas en los comités parlamentarios; además de tener un papel importante en la movilización de la opinión pública. En cambio, sabemos menos sobre hasta qué punto recurren a la arena judicial. En el contexto de un creciente de papel de los tribunales en el campo de la gobernanza ambiental, el objetivo de este documento es analizar en qué medida las ONG españolas inician litigios, específicamente en el Tribunal Supremo, para exigir el cumplimiento de los estándares internacionales y europeos de protección del medio ambiente o en contra de malas praxis. Varios factores no judiciales parecen haber reforzado esa tendencia en España: el aumento de la regulación ambiental nacional y europea, así como la capacidad organizativa de las ONG para iniciar litigios en línea con su posición sobre una política determinada.

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