On The Right To Landscape And Its Legal Protection

The progress of science and technology, the rise of productivity, coupled with roar of the engine, operation of bulldozers,has improved the material conditions, and created a material civilization,but We also lost a visual feast to the sky inside the eyewall and, ancient buildings full of our memory, landscapes carrying the spirit and culture of each nation.During not too long a period of human history,whether it is an important historic landscape, still a daily landscape conducive to the cultivation of one’s temperament and to one’s physical and mental health, many landscapes are fading away with the growth of the GDP. Considering the landscape crisis, Europe introduced European Landscape Convention, Japan introduced three laws known as the "three green landscape Acts". In addition to these special laws and regulations to protect the landscape,international treaties and constitutions of some countries have provisions to protect landscapes directly or indirectly;Taiwan region of China also introduced Cultural Asset Preservation Act,in which many protective measures we can refer to.In judicial practice, there are many cases that protect citizens’right to landscape through direct or indirect means.We can learn from the above the gradually budding of the right to landscape and the necessity of its protection.Learning from the experience and research results of mainland and Taiwan region of China and of abroad,this article analyzes and discusses the right to landscape from both theoretical and practical aspects.The first part of this article is mainly about the right to landscape.on the basis of the definition of "landscape",this part generalizes and concludes content about the right to landscape and elaborates on its connotation.The second part of the article analyses the relationship between of the right to landscape and other similar rights, including human rights, cultural rights, the right to environment, and usufructuary rights.The third part is the empirical analysis based on the laws about the right to landscape and related cases in various countries, which analyzes and refers to related ideas and measures to protet the right to landscape directly or indirectly in typical cases. Many cases, are worth thinking and learning from in the protection of the right to landscape,such as demolition of Purple Mountain Observatory case in China, the case of Hitotsubashi University in Japan,the Sierra Club v. Morton case of the United States.The fourth part is mainly engaged in discussion of protection measures of the right to landscape in three aspects of advance, going on, afterwards.This part puts forward relatively comprehensive protection measures from preventive measures including legislation on the protection of the landscape,the landscape impact assessment,landscape planning, voluntary landscape agreements, economic instruments,going on measures such as public involvement to afterwards measures of the protection of the tort law. As a right in its infancy, the right to landscape is inevitably subject to certain query,but as a kind of human right, it is of much significance to indigenous residents and even the general public. As cases of the right to landscape is emerging, the right needs analysis and research in detail,and we should find appropriate protection measures to catch up with the social development,and to be better geared to international standards.