Summary

Environmental law has developed into a genuine branch of law during a short period of time. It has ceased to be just an area of general administrative law but constitutes an independent phenomenon in a contemporary legal system. This is proved first by the fact that in the framework of environmental law, specific principles characteristic of environmental law only have become recognised and, second, by its codification. These two development tendencies are closely linked with each other. It is difficult to overestimate the role of principles in the codification of environmental law. In the codification process, the basic principles of environmental law form the base of the future building and the precautionary principle plays a determining role among them.
The author examines the role of principle-based regulation in environmental law and the relations of the precautionary principle as the conceptual core of contemporary environmental law with its other basic principles.