The Evolving Role of Principles in EU Environmental Law

This contribution aims to present the main conclusions arising from the articles collected within the special issue 'The Evolving Role of Principles in EU Environmental Law'. After an explanation of what the editors understand 'principles' in the EU environmental law acquis to be and their core features, the contribution reviews the strands of literature concerning the environmental principles and highlights the contribution made by the special issue to the scholarly debate on the role of principles in EU (environmental) law. The contribution closes by highlighting three main conclusions: first, the interpretation of the principles has stabilised in specific contexts, but the specific concretisations within such contexts feed back into the content of the principles creating the potential for legal innovations. Second, the principles cannot provide a coherent and complete framework within which individual rules develop because of their diverse nature. Third, the dynamics of the operation of the principles point to their ability to focus on core questions that need to be addressed when discussing and shaping the environmental acquis . Thus, whilst the vagueness and flexibility of the environmental principles pose risks, they also function as a beacon guiding the journey towards a robust and effective environmental law.