Water Protection Against Pollution and Other Environmental Aspects in the Roman Law and in the Medieval Castilian Law

Abstract

This article is aimed at analyzing, from the Spanish historical Law viewpoint, the legal protection of one of the elements constituting the concept of environment as we conceive it nowadays. Thus, we will address detailed rules aimed at directly or indirectly protecting the waters and to preventing them from being polluted. We also revise other stipulations that have environmental consequences. We trace them back to the so called "Code of Hammurabi", where the first rules related to the legal defense of the environment are set-forth and then we focus on the Roman Law. Likewise, we refer to the Spanish-Islamic Law, beginning from the transcendence the Muslims granted to the water from the spiritual and legal point of view. We finally focus on the Visigothic Code and on the Castilian Medieval Law by way of a selection of fueros and of the legislative work of Alfonso X (Especulo, Fuero Real and Partidas).