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applying the principle of proportionality. In this context, the Court specifies that often the conflicts
are only apparent, as in the case concerned, given that the rights of Nature concur with the
fundamental rights of man, such as the right to health, to a dignified life and to live in a healthy
environment.
In Bolivia, the judiciary remedy envisaged is the “acción popular” (public interest suit) which can
be filed against the acts or omissions of authorities, individuals or collectives that violate, or
threaten to violate, rights and collective interests, including the environment (art. 135 Cost.). The
Bolivian law has three aims: (1) preventive, by averting a threat to the rights and collective
interests, (2) suspensive, through cessation of the effects produced by the damaging act and (3)
reparative, with the obligation to restore the
conditions prior to the damage (Baldin,
2014b).
In 1992, the European Union Habitats
Directive marked a fundamental ecological
turning point in European nature conservation
policy, with a transition from protection of
individual species to protection of ecological
systems (habitats), considering the ecological
relationships necessary for their long-term
preservation. The entry into force of the
European Union Birds Directive in 1979 and
above all the Habitats Directive in 1992 thus also represented a decisive conceptual leap forward for
national legislation in the sector, rigorously and clearly establishing a network of protected areas at
supranational level (the Nature 2000 network), able to effectively protect all rare and threatened
animal and plant species on continental scale, including through conservation of their habitats,
recognising that effective conservation of the species can only be achieved by preserving the
interactions between them, in other words, by safeguarding their natural habitats. Thus species and
ecosystems are protected not just relative to their historical, anthropological, cultural or tourism
values, or merely as environmental or landscape resources, but as genuine ecological values of
European importance in their own right. According to the jurisprudence of a number of high courts
in the European Union member states, the protection of assets of particular value, including
ecological assets, justifies the imposition of limitations to the use of that property. The result has all
the attributes of authentic “environmental ownership”, in other words, an asset owned by the
collective, thus everyone, moving towards the concept of “common assets”.
In Italy, pursuant to art. 18, para. 5, of Law no. 349/1986, “Istituzione del Ministero dell'ambiente e
norme in materia di danno ambientale” (“Establishment of the Ministry of the Environment and
regulations on environmental damage”), environmental protection associations recognised by the
Minister of the Environment could for the first time intervene in proceedings for environmental
damage (as per Chapter III of Legislative Decree no. 152/2006, Codice dell’ambiente
(Environmental Code). But it was not until 2004 that the protection of animals would be guaranteed
in the Italian legal system not as “things” (res) but as “living beings”. It was not, in fact, until Law
no. 189/2004 that the new Chapter IX-bis, “Crimes against feelings for animals”, was introduced
into the penal code (with the new articles 544-bis and 544-ter, killing and cruelty to animals),
supplementing the old Chapter XIII, “Crimes against property”, which, with articles 624 and 625

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