Towards a legal definition of ecological restoration: Reviewing international, European and Member States' case law

• Published date: 01 April 2023
• Author: Ana Mendes,Lorena Martínez Hernández,Léa Badoz,Lydia Slobodian,João E. Rabaça
• Date: 01 April 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12476

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Towards a legal definition of ecological restoration: Reviewing

international, European and Member States' case law

Ana Mendes

1,2

| Lorena Martínez Hernández

3,4

| Léa Badoz

4

|

Lydia Slobodian

4,5

|Jo

˜

ao E. Rabaça

1,2

1

MED –Mediterranean Institute for Agriculture, Environment and Development, University of 

Evora, 

Evora, Portugal

2

CHANGE –Global Change and Sustainability Institute, Instituto de Investigaç˜

ao e Formaç˜

ao Avançada, LabOr –Laborat

orio de Ornitologia, University of 

Evora,



Evora, Portugal

3

Centre d'Estudis de Dret Ambiental de Tarragona, CEDAT, Tarragona, Spain

4

L4Earth, Bonn, Germany

5

Georgetown Law Center, Washington, District of Columbia, USA

Correspondence

Lorena Martínez Hernández, Centre D'Estudis

de Dret Ambiental de Tarragona, CEDAT,

Av. Cataluya 35, Tarragona, Spain, 43002.

Email: lorena.martinezh@l4earth.org

Ana Mendes, MED –Mediterranean Institute

for Agriculture, Environment and Development

& CHANGE –Global Change and

Sustainability Institute, Instituto de

Investigaç˜ao e Formaç˜ao Avançada, LabOr –

Laborat

orio de Ornitologia, Universidade de



Evora, Núcleo da Mitra, Ap. 94, 7006-554



Evora, Portugal.

Email: aimendes@uevora.pt

Funding information

This research was funded by European Union

under Partnership Instrument, grant number

PI/2017/388-178–Lot 1 Water Management

and Ecological Security. The contents are the

sole responsibility of the project partners and

do not necessarily reflect the views of the

European Union.

Abstract

Ecological restoration is of crucial importance to mitigate the impact of human activ-

ity on the environment and preserve biodiversity and ecosystem services. Therefore,

the concept of restoration is at the core of international and European Union

(EU) environmental policy and governance. This article seeks to shed light on this

concept in international and European case law. To this end, it reviews the definition,

objectives and scope of restoration according to international scientific standards. It

further distinguishes restoration from other related terms such as compensation, miti-

gation, conservation and rehabilitation. The article then analyses judgements ren-

dered by the International Court of Justice, the Court of Justice of the EU and EU

Member States' courts pertaining to restoration. It concludes that there are wide dis-

crepancies in the use of the term restoration by the judiciary, in particular with regard

to objectives, baselines and reference conditions. In light of these conclusions, the

authors support the adoption of a legal definition of restoration.

1|INTRODUCTION

Nature and the ecosystem services that it provides to humans are

deteriorating at an unprecedented rate due to human-induced

changes in ecosystems' composition and functioning. In the last

50 years, the human population has doubled, the global economy has

grown fourfold and global trade has grown tenfold, which has

accelerated the global demand for energy, materials, food and land,

and fostered massive biodiversity loss.

1

This ecological emergency is

a direct result of human activities, and it puts at risk the achievement

of all biodiversity targets for 2030, human wellbeing and all life

on Earth.

1

S Díaz et al (eds), Summary for Policymakers of the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity

and Ecosystem Services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and

Ecosystem Services (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and

Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Secretariat 2019) 12.

Received: 10 June 2022 Accepted: 18 October 2022

DOI: 10.1111/reel.12476

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any

medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

© 2022 The Authors. Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.

RECIEL. 2023;32:3–17. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/reel 3