Law and Governance of Water Protection Policy

Abstract

Beside its daunting complexity, the Water Framework Directive is most striking for its ambitious and holistic environmental objectives. The ambition is closely connected to the seriousness with which the Water Framework Directive takes ideas of ‘new’ and ‘multi-level’ governance. In its approach to the governance of a complex environmental issue, the Directive expands on formal hierarchical relationships between different levels of government, and has the potential to disrupt regulatory assumptions at all levels. Both within and beyond the wording of the legislation, the Directive’s efforts to influence and persuade rather than command and control are heavily reliant on the power of information and learning. The Directive demands the generation of diverse information to form the context for decision making, and a range of actors are to have an input into that process. The terms of the Directive, conspicuously open ended, are to be gradually filled out, both within the Member States, and in collaborative networks of public and private actors from different levels of governance in the EU.

Keywords: water framework directive, new governance, information, regulation

JEL Classification: K10, K32