Department of Legal Issues Relating to Conservation and Protection of the Environment

About the Department

The Department of Legal Issues of Environmental Protection was founded on December 1, 1976 on the initiative of Professor Jerzy Sommer. The creator and, simultaneously, the first head of the Department was in charge of the Department until 2005, and also actively participated in its work after his retirement. Thereafter, Professor Wojciech Radecki became head of the Department, and held the position until 2018. At the beginning of 2019, Professor Radecki’s student, Adam Habuda, PhD, took over as Director of the Department.

The Department is the first body in the Polish academia to deal with the issues of legal environmental protection in a systematic and organised manner. For many years, the Department has set the tone and trends in the Polish research on environmental law. It is worth noting the international cooperation that started more than 20 years ago, especially with research centres in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The employees and associates of the Department have included such prominent figures in the field of environmental law as Magdalena Bar, Jan Boć, Wacław Brzeziński, Jerzy Jendrośka, Jan Jerzmański, Aleksander Lipiński, Halina Lisicka, Leon Łustacz, Konrad Nowacki, and Karol Podgórski.

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Research areas

The Department’s research focuses on environmental law in a broad sense, including nature protection law, forestry law, hunting and fishing law. An important field of research is comparative studies of environmental law in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

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Recent projects (Grants)

• Theoretical Foundations of Nature Conservation Law (No 2 HO2A 013 25) – Project Manager Prof. Wojciech Radecki
• Theoretical Foundations of Integrated Legal Environmental Protection (No. NN 110 1537 33), funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, completed in 2011. Project Manager Prof. Wojciech Radecki
• Environmental Protection in the Activities of Tribunals and Courts, No. UMO 2012/07/B/HS5/03962, funded by the National Science Centre, completed in 2015. – Project leader Jerzy Rotko, PhD, Prof. INP
• Natura 2000 areas in Polish, Czech and Slovak law: A comparative analysis (No. UMO 2014/13/B/HS5/01318) funded by the National Science Centre, completed in 2017. – Project manager Adam Habuda, PhD, Prof. INP PAN

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International cooperation

Since 2000, the Department has cooperated with Charles University in Prague, Masaryk University in Brno, Palacký University in Olomouc, and Komenský University in Bratislava. This cooperation is reflected in annual conferences of Polish, Czech and Slovak lawyers dealing with environmental protection.