eprintid: 46754 rev_number: 16 eprint_status: archive userid: 1237 dir: disk0/00/04/67/54 datestamp: 2023-01-31 09:39:39 lastmod: 2023-01-31 09:39:39 status_changed: 2023-01-31 09:39:39 type: monograph metadata_visibility: show creators_name: Chapron, Guillaume creators_name: Marfaing, Gavin creators_name: Bétaille, Julien creators_idrefppn: 089021045 creators_idrefppn: 263434702 creators_idrefppn: 15890432X creators_halaffid: 480303 title: Patterns of litigation in France during two decades of recovery of a large carnivore subjects: subjects_DROIT33 subjects: subjects_DROIT410 abstract: The recovery of large carnivores in Europe’s human dominated landscapes is an unexpected conservation success. In France, where the wolf disappeared in 1937, the species population is now approaching one thousand individuals after the species naturally returned in the country in 1992 from Italy. Large carnivores in Europe are protected by several legal instruments, ranging from international law, to European, national or regional laws (in federal countries). There has been a limited attention allocated to how this legal protection is in practice activated in Member States of the European Union. In particular, there is little research on the role of public interest environmental litigation for large carnivore conservation. We take the example of the wolf (Canis lupus) in France and describe wolf-related litigation in the country during two decades. We compiled a database of case law decisions (i.e. court rulings) relating to administrative litigation about the protection of the wolf and collected a total of 275 court rulings. We found that wolf litigation occurred unsurprisingly more often in administrative courts located in regions where wolves first returned (i.e. South-East of France). Animal welfare or protection associations were the most active and successful plaintiffs. The State administration represented by its Préfets was also a plaintiff in lawsuits against illegal culling decisions made by mayors. The Préfet des Alpes Maritimes and the Minister of the Environment were regular defendants for decisions to cull wolves that were litigated by nature protection associations. Nature protection associations overall had a case winning rate higher than 50%. There were no immediately obvious inter-annual trends in wolf litigation. Our database did not allow us to quantify the total number of wolves that were effectively protected from culling decisions because court rulings made after the execution of administrative decisions did not specify whether the animals were killed or not. Bet it as it may, nature protection associations appear to conduct legally relevant litigation in view of the high success rate they achieve and conservation lawsuits belong to the portfolio of available conservation instruments. date: 2022-10-04 date_type: completed official_url: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.11.511781v1 faculty: droit divisions: IEJUC keywords: litigation keywords: statistics keywords: carnivores keywords: wolf keywords: law keywords: france french_keywords: contentieux french_keywords: statistiques french_keywords: carnivores french_keywords: loup french_keywords: droit french_keywords: france language: en has_fulltext: TRUE view_date_year: 2022 full_text_status: public monograph_type: working_paper place_of_pub: Toulouse pages: 23 institution: Université Toulouse 1 Capitole department: Institut des Études Juridiques de l'Urbanisme, de la Construction et de l'Environnement refereed: FALSE harvester_local_overwrite: eprintid harvester_local_overwrite: userid harvester_local_overwrite: faculty harvester_local_overwrite: dir harvester_local_overwrite: site harvester_local_overwrite: type harvester_local_overwrite: french_keywords harvester_local_overwrite: keywords harvester_local_overwrite: date_type harvester_local_overwrite: language harvester_local_overwrite: creators_name harvester_local_overwrite: date harvester_local_overwrite: refereed harvester_local_overwrite: divisions harvester_local_overwrite: title harvester_local_overwrite: abstract harvester_local_overwrite: publish_to_hal harvester_local_overwrite: official_url harvester_local_overwrite: monograph_type harvester_local_overwrite: subjects harvester_local_overwrite: creators_idrefppn harvester_local_overwrite: pending harvester_local_overwrite: department harvester_local_overwrite: place_of_pub harvester_local_overwrite: institution harvester_local_overwrite: creators_halaffid harvester_local_overwrite: pages site: ut1 publish_to_hal: TRUE citation: Chapron, Guillaume , Marfaing, Gavin and Bétaille, Julien (2022) Patterns of litigation in France during two decades of recovery of a large carnivore. , Toulouse document_url: https://publications.ut-capitole.fr/id/eprint/46754/1/2022.10.11.511781v1.full.pdf