Administrative courts and environmental protection in Italy. An overview

The essay outlines the main problems affecting the judicial protection against the public decisions impacting on the environment in Italy. Starting from the recent reform of art. 9 of the Constitution, the chapter briefly describes the difficult route to grant standing before the administrative courts to the bearers of a diffuse interest, firstly by the Parliament and then by the courts themselves. While the statutory standing is still limited to the major environmental NGOs, the administrative courts gradually allowed access to justice also to different subjects, in presence of certain requisites, assessed on a case-by-case basis by the court. The courts’ discretion and the recent loosening of such requisites by the Council of State seem to open new (and unforeseeable) challenges for the environmental judicial protection