Habitat guidance documents in the Dutch legal order
During the SoLaR Young Researchers Platform, which took place on 14 March 2018 in Maastricht, Clara van Dam presented her ongoing research on the role of Habitat guidance documents in the Dutch legal order.
The Habitats Directive is one of the case studies in her research which studies the role of Commission guidance documents in the national legal order. Habitat guidance documents are non-binding documents issued by the European Commission that seek to assist the Member States in the implementation of the Habitats Directive. Habitat guidance documents, which take various forms and shapes, might come to play a role in national implementation processes.
In Maastricht, Clara presented the analytical framework which seeks to identify different uses of guidance in light of different types of guidance as well as in light of different perspectives on the binding force of guidance documents. Analysing the use of guidance along these lines reveals different uses of guidance, leading to different implications in light of legal principles. Eventually, she raises the question whether the use of guidance documents should, in some way, be regulated at the EU level and/or at the national level.
The SoLaR young researchers platform took place prior to the SoLaR workshop on the reception of EU environmental soft law in the Member States.