美國 環境法 執行에 대한 司法審査 制度에 관한 一考察

Citizens have long played a direct role in U.S. governance, but the availability of citizen suits has allowed citizens to have a particularly strong part in environmental policy development and implementation. Citizens have the ability to influence and challenge government decisions under the Administrative Procedure Act, which allows interested parties to challenge both federal agency actions and inaction in certain contexts. Substantive environmental statutes also allow citizens to challenge agency conduct. This article will provide an overview of U.S. citizen suits and explore how they have influenced environmental law. Part II of this article will introduce the three general types of citizen actions that U. S. authorizes: challenges to agency actions; suits seeking to compel agency action; and citizen enforcement actions against regulated entities. Part III will discuss some of the legal hurdles citizens must clear to bring their cases before court. Yet, even after 40 years of citizen enforcement, debates continue about whether citizens should continue to play such a role in U.S. governance and compliance. It is unlikely that debates about the priority of citizen enforcement will abate any time soon. It is safe to say, however, that environmental citizen suits will continue to influence the U.S. legal and political system for years to come. As this paper explores, citizens have a number of opportunities to enforce environmental laws, and citizens have used these opportunities to profoundly affect the U.S. legal system. Courts have also invalidated numerous agency actions under the arbitrary and capricious test, finding that the administrative records did not support the agencies’ conclusions. Without these challenges, it is likely that many pollutants would remain unregulated and many unsupported decisions would be U. S. law. On the other hand, these challenges interfere with agency authority and may result in bad environmental outcomes as well. Collectively, citizen enforcement suits have also had a profound effect on the U.S. legal system. While the common law had long allowed injured parties to sue polluters for damages and injunctive relief, common law claims typically hinged on plaintiffs being able to prove they had incurred damages and that the defendant had behaved unreasonably. Environmental statutes, in contrast, allow parties to sue even where they have not suffered direct physical or economic losses. While these parties must show that they have standing to bring their claims, the universe of potential plaintiffs has expanded dramatically as a result of citizen suits. Citizen enforcers intrude on the prerogatives of government leaders and turn a deliberative administrative process into a legal free‐for‐all. It is safe to say, however, that environmental citizen suits will continue to influence the U.S.legal and political system for years to come.