Citizen Suits and Sustainability

The article explores what we can learn about sustainable development, and the progress the United States has already made or not made, by looking at citizen suits under United States environmental law. The article focuses on four aspects of citizen suits: the manner in which they allow access to U.S. courts, the rules concerning standing to sue, the purposes of the laws that have provisions authorizing citizen enforcement, and the extent to which we would want such provisions in a world that has reached some form of sustainable development. Citizen suits are an important part of an environmentally sustainable legal system because they provide access to justice for persons injured by violations of environmental laws. The law of standing requires plaintiffs to allege injury to their uses of the environment as a result of the defendant's use or misuse of the environment. It thus suggests, in rough terms, competition between sustainable uses and unsustainable uses. The plaintiffs in the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill (1978) provide a useful example of that point. The environmental laws being enforced in citizen suits tend to be based on a damage control model of environmental protection, largely to reduce economic and social costs. In a sustainable society, by contrast, economic development could help drive both greater environmental protection and greater social well-being. Moreover, environmental protection in a sustainable society would be based on the full range of laws and policies that affect the environment, not just environmental regulation. Yet even these laws would need to include citizen suit provisions of some kind, because citizen involvement is necessary for sustainable development