Prohibitions concerning polluting discharges in Roman Law

Even in ancient times a close relationship existed between development and pollution. Starting from the economic expansion in the 3dr century BC, the Romans felt the need for the preservation of environmental integrity and worked out a plan to defeat pollution. Two kinds of judicial remedies were introduced: public remedies, which could be requested by anybody, and private remedies, which could be resorted to only by those suffering harm from pollution produced by someone else. Public remedies were introduced in the form of popular interdicts by the praetor in the Edict (starting from the 2nd century BC), to protect public things. Private remedies included the private interdicts and some private actions. The latter aimed at the protection of properties and other real rights: in the overcrowded quarters often devoted to productive activities, they certainly played an important role protecting the healthiness of the environments where people lived. In the system adopted by Roman law (based on citizen's general right to the common use of public things), the single citizens played an active role in the protection of the environment, through the resort to popular interdicts. This model is the oldest pattern of protection of environmental helath created by the Romans. Later, it was replaced by a more complex one, with the creation of ad hoc officers, thus limiting the active role played by the single citizens in that domain.