The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is a non-profit organization operating since September 2004 and registered in the Department of Justice Registry on January 17, 2005.
The purpose of the EDF is to provide non-profit and independent environmental legal advice.
Non-profit for its service-oriented mission to protect the environment. And independent to ensure its impartiality and objectivity.
In fact, this concept of an Environmental Legal Defense Fund already exists in other countries, such as in the Anglo-Saxon world, where it is deeply consolidated.
Objectives
- To effectively and genuinely ensure the legal protection of the environment.
- To promote participation before the administration and access to justice for environmental protection, especially for individuals and groups with greater difficulties.
- To guarantee the independence of the EDF to act with impartiality and objectivity.
- To provide legal advice services aimed at environmental protection.
- To organize and promote events, programs, studies, campaigns, and information, as well as other actions contributing to the effective use of legal instruments for environmental protection.
Vision
- To be a reference center and one of the main drivers for the use of legal protection for the environment, both in social and institutional contexts.
- To be a reference at the Catalan, Spanish, and European levels in the effective application of Environmental Law, both in the judicial field and in studies, training, and advice.
Services
- Legal advice.
- Legal assistance before the administration and in courts and tribunals.
- Drafting of environmental legislation (international agreements, laws, regulations, and ordinances).
- Drafting of agreements and contracts between individuals and between individuals and the Administration.
- Preparation of reports and studies.
- Publications.
- Organization of ad hoc courses for entities and administrations.
Protocols
- Visits: 60 euros/hour
- Administrative and judicial procedures: each case will be evaluated individually.
- Download document.
Payment protocol:
Recipients
- Environmental, ecological, conservationist, and animalist organizations.
- Non-profit social organizations acting for the protection of the environment.
- Citizens acting for the protection of the environment.
- Universities for environmental protection studies.
- Administrations for environmental protection actions.
Training Sessions
The Environmental Defense Fund has organized the Training Sessions for Legal Defense of the Environment since 2018, in collaboration with the Environmental Law Clinic of the Faculty of Law at the University of Barcelona (UB), and with the support of DEPANA and the City Council of Barcelona.
Below you can consult the programs of the different editions:
Guides for the Legal Defense of the Environment
Guide on public participation in environmental matters. Part of the program “Human Rights as tools for climate action and environmental justice”, carried out by the Institute of Human Rights of Catalonia (IDHC), with the funding of the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation (ACCD). This guide has been developed with the support of the Environmental Legal Clinic of the Right to Law program at the Faculty of Law of the University of Barcelona, IDHC, and in collaboration with the City Council of Barcelona, the ACCD, and the Generalitat of Catalonia.- Strategic Environmental Litigation Guide, a practical and informative document that aims to strengthen the capacities of professionals, organizations, and communities in the legal defense of the environment and human rights. The guide is part of the program “Promoting Climate Justice and the Defense of the Right to the Environment”, developed jointly with the Institute of Human Rights of Catalonia (IDHC) and funded by the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation.
