Shaping legality and illegality of environmental damage and its different ways of legitimacy

Abstract

This article has as a configuration framework wich concerns the environmental damage from the different forms of legitimacy. The aim is to uncover the constitutional and doctrinal context of damage related with the environment according to their legal and anti-legal nature; it can be seen as a determinate or indeterminate victim, which is the owner of environmental rights. The epistemological approach is hermeneutical, in this sense, the normative postulates of "being" and "should be" of the regulations are outlined through the documentary analysis technique. To do this, it is understood that the damage, more than a legal construction, has a social definition, which in turn determines the criteria of legality. It is concluded that this criterion of legality does not serve only to judgments of a State’s reasonableness, strength and power through its rules. On the other hand, they are established by consensus and social re-significances. Relying on the coercion of law and its arbitrary force, leads to the discrediting of the State’s legal proceedings, accentuating the gap between the normative reality and social realities.