Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Table of cases
- List of international conventions
- Introduction
- 1 The linkage between sustainable development and customary law
- 2 Three case studies from Hawaii, Norway and Greenland
- 3 Social interaction: the foundation of customary law
- 4 How custom becomes law in England
- 5 How custom becomes law in Norway
- 6 Adaptive resource management through customary law
- 7 The place of customary law in democratic societies
- 8 Customary law, sustainable development and the failing state
- 9 Towards sustainability: the basis in international law
- 10 The case studies revisited
- 11 The choice of customary law
- 12 Conclusion: customary law in a globalizing culture
- References
- Index
- Authors index
9 - Towards sustainability: the basis in international law
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Table of cases
- List of international conventions
- Introduction
- 1 The linkage between sustainable development and customary law
- 2 Three case studies from Hawaii, Norway and Greenland
- 3 Social interaction: the foundation of customary law
- 4 How custom becomes law in England
- 5 How custom becomes law in Norway
- 6 Adaptive resource management through customary law
- 7 The place of customary law in democratic societies
- 8 Customary law, sustainable development and the failing state
- 9 Towards sustainability: the basis in international law
- 10 The case studies revisited
- 11 The choice of customary law
- 12 Conclusion: customary law in a globalizing culture
- References
- Index
- Authors index
Summary
Having considered the theoretical and legislative pros and cons of customary law, we change direction toward sustainability as principle developed under international law. We are interested in both how sustainability develops as principle at the international level (see Sections 9.1 to 9.5) and how this top-down pressure may involve domestic local or native customs (see Sections 9.6 and 9.7). This chapter describes the connection between international law and domestic customs in a world of expanding universality, and explores the position of general principles of sustainability and precaution as instruments of law and legal sources. The first issue is whether international law – by its building of legal principles like sustainability and precaution, opens up for wide range recognition of local customs proven valid to viable resources management. Secondly, our task is to investigate whether the arena of international law is unshackling indigenous customary law from its national state constraints.
We believe that the “ultimate test of a concept intended to have legal force and profound social and economic consequences is whether it changes behavior at both the individual and institutional levels.” This chapter reveals that the general principles of law and international custom as important sources of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), evolve legal principles of precaution and thus also sustainability out of purely political ideas. Members of the international society of states have mostly embraced these principles, and international courts, in cases they have adjudicated, solve legal disputes based on the precautionary principle.
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- The Role of Customary Law in Sustainable Development , pp. 384 - 410Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006