Germany Administrative Submission: Hambach Lignite Mine

Summary

In October 2025, citizens submitted a formal administrative request to the Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation, and Transport of North Rhine-Westphalia (MUNV) and to the District Government Arnsberg (Bezirksregierung Arnsberg), Division 6 ‘Mining and Energy in NRW’ (Bergbehörde), regarding the Hambach Lignite Mine. The submission calls for the suspension of further soil movement in the southern part of the Hambach mine, and calls for a constitutional review of ongoing mining activities—referring to the State’s constitutional duty to protect the natural foundations of life.

Ecological Background
The Hambach lignite area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, is Europe’s largest open-pit brown coal mine, covering over 4,300 hectares. The mine is on the site of the 12,000-year-old ancient Hambach Forest, which was purchased in 1978 then mostly cut down and cleared for the mine. Only 10% of the forest area remains. Protection of Hambach Forest has been a key environmental issue in Germany, and in 2020, federal authorities agreed that the Hambach Forest would not be developed. Additionally, Germany’s coal phase-out law targets phasing out coal power by 2038 at the latest; for the Rhineland lignite region, an accelerated phase-out to 2030 was agreed, and RWE states that lignite extraction at Hambach ends in 2029.

Jurisprudential Framing
The submission itself activates the constitutional environmental mandate within an existing administrative procedure but does not create new law. The citizens argue that ongoing mining activities contradict both the constitutional environmental protection mandate and the 2022 coalition agreement of NRW, which commits to establishing a “publicly owned large-scale forest network in the southern part of the Hambach mine.” They also invoke the precautionary principle (§ 2 (2) BNatSchG) and the principle of rule of law/binding to law and justice (Art. 20 (3) GG). Rather than a protest or lawsuit, the submission is a constructive invocation of constitutional duty, aiming to activate the State’s own responsibility for ecological integrity. It underscores that “The aim of this submission is not confrontation, but rather the activation of the constitutional duty to protect the natural foundations of life.”

Legal Method
Systemic Legal Development
The submission is procedurally anchored in § 13 of the Administrative Procedure Act NRW (VwVfG), which defines “participants” in administrative procedure (no barrier to citizen submissions), and substantively grounded in Article 20a of the German Basic Law (GG), which obliges the State to protect the natural foundations of life for present and future generations. The case constitutes a procedural innovation in German environmental law. By linking a low-threshold procedural norm with the constitutional environmental principle, the citizens create a new pathway for enforcing public environmental obligations from within the administrative process. This effort illustrates how ecological constitutional principles can be pursued bottom-up across federal and administrative levels.

Impact Statement

This case is among the first publicly documented instances in Germany in which citizens explicitly combine § 13 VwVfG as a procedural docking point with Article 20a GG to trigger a constitution-guided administrative review – without asserting new subjective rights. By operationalizing Article 20a of the German Basic Law as a concrete administrative obligation, the case demonstrates how existing constitutional environmental protections can be applied in practice without creating new substantive rights. It reflects an emerging approach within the German Rights of Nature movement that advances ecological constitutional principles through administrative and participatory mechanisms, complementing earlier initiatives such as the Volksbegehren Rechte der Natur (Bavaria).

Involved Organizations