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4700 results in Environmental law

Page 107 of 235

Climate Engineering and the Law
  • Regulation and Liability for Solar Radiation Management and Carbon Dioxide Removal
  • Edited by Michael B. Gerrard, Tracy Hester
  • Published online:
    29 March 2018
    Print publication:
    12 April 2018
  • Climate change is increasingly recognized as a global threat, and is already contributing to record-breaking hurricanes and heat waves. To prevent the worst impacts, attention is now turning to climate engineering - the intentional large-scale modification of the environment to reduce the impact of climate change. The two principal methods involve removing some carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (which could consume huge amounts of land and money, and take a long period of time), and reducing the amount of solar radiation reaching the earth's surface, perhaps by spraying aerosols into the upper atmosphere from airplanes (which could be done quickly but is risky and highly controversial). This is the first book to focus on the legal aspects of these technologies: what government approvals would be needed; how liability would be assessed and compensation provided if something goes wrong; and how a governance system could be structured and agreed internationally.

  • The Control of Nutrient Run-Off from Agricultural Areas: Insights into Governance from Australia’s Sugarcane Industry and the Great Barrier Reef

  • Evan Hamman, Felicity Deane
  • Journal:
    Transnational Environmental Law / Volume 7 / Issue 3 / November 2018
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    27 March 2018, pp. 451-468

  • Many parts of the world rely on nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus to improve farming production and increase yields. There are significant food security as well as socio-economic issues at stake. However, it is also clear that fertilizer loads are particularly damaging to aquatic environments, including lakes, rivers, coral reefs, and wetlands. This article explores governance approaches to fertilizer practices that impact on aquatic environments (eutrophication) by examining a case study of the Great Barrier Reef. Governance involves any and all forms of state and non-state control over a given set of issues. It can include, but is not limited to, rule-based approaches like regulation, although it can also involve market-driven measures like nutrient trading schemes, government grants and other financial incentives. So, which approach to governance works best to combat this particular policy question? What other insights into the design of effective regulation and governance can be gathered? In this article, the authors make three broad arguments for change: firstly, it is crucial that regulation features within government strategies; secondly, there must be a rigorous systematic evaluation of the strategies to ensure that the desired behavioural change is achieved along with the desired outcomes; thirdly, and most importantly, the strategies and the evaluation methods must be appropriate for the culture of the industry they are designed to regulate.

  • Keeping the Arctic White: The Legal and Governance Landscape for Reducing Short-Lived Climate Pollutants in the Arctic Region

  • Yulia Yamineva, Kati Kulovesi
  • Journal:
    Transnational Environmental Law / Volume 7 / Issue 2 / July 2018
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    14 March 2018, pp. 201-227

  • Reducing emissions of short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) – in particular, black carbon and methane – is a promising option for slowing global and regional warming in the short term, while at the same time reducing local air pollution. This mitigation opportunity seems to be particularly relevant in the Arctic context. The article provides a comprehensive overview and a critical assessment of the state of international law and governance relevant to the reduction of SLCP emissions in the Arctic. The article demonstrates that current legal and governance regimes for reducing SLCP emissions in the Arctic are complex and fragmented, which raises questions about the scope for this option for climate change and air pollution mitigation to reach its full potential. Nevertheless, the article concludes that fragmentation in this policy domain is of a cooperative or synergistic nature and therefore not problematic, provided that greater harmonization of legal instruments and enhanced cooperation between institutions are achieved. It also suggests options for strengthening international law and governance on SLCPs. Although the focus of the article is regional, many of its conclusions are relevant for the global regulation of SLCPs.

  • 15 - Environmental Information and Technology Transfer

  • from Part III - Techniques For Implementing International Principles And Rules
  • Philippe Sands, University College London, Jacqueline Peel, University of Melbourne
  • With Adriana Fabra, Universitat de Barcelona, Ruth MacKenzie, University of Westminster
  • Book:
    Principles of International Environmental Law
    Published online:
    07 August 2018
    Print publication:
    01 March 2018, pp 682-734

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    Improving the dissemination of scientific and technological knowledge, whether in the form of information on the environment or technical know-how on the best ways to deal with environmental problems, is a well-established objective of international environmental law. Information, including scientific expertise, is widely recognised as a prerequisite to effective national and international environmental management, protection and cooperation. The availability of, and access to, information allows preventative and mitigation measures to be taken, ensures the participation of citizens in national decision-making processes, and can influence individual, consumer and corporate behaviour. Information also allows the international community to determine whether states are complying with their legal obligations. Technical assistance, provided especially to developing countries, and wider dissemination of state-of-the-art technologies, including ‘clean technologies’, are likewise seen as central to international environmental law implementation efforts.

    This chapter considers international rules regarding the dissemination of environmental information and clean technologies. The period since the first edition of this book has seen many significant developments in both areas, reflecting the increasing emphasis on effective implementation of international environmental obligations. In the field of environmental information these include the 1998 Aarhus Convention, which establishes a Europe-wide regime for access to environmental information, public participation, and access to justice in environmental cases; the Aarhus Convention's 2003 Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers; and several other agreements such as the 1998 Chemicals Convention, the 2000 Biosafety Protocol, the 2001 POPs Convention, the 2010 Nagoya Protocol and the 2015 Paris Agreement, which include prominent commitments to ensuring appropriate flows of information and the dissemination of scientific information and expertise. Arbitral tribunals, including those in the trade field, have also demonstrated an increasing acceptance of the importance of transparency and the public availability of information, with a trend to greater transparency for proceedings concerning international environmental matters.

    Over the same period, provisions regarding technical assistance and technology transfer have also become a standard feature of international environmental agreements, with growing acceptance of the linkage – first articulated in treaties such as the 1992 Biodiversity and Climate Change Conventions – between the implementation by developing country parties of their treaty commitments and the transfer of technology and know-how from developed country parties in fulfilment of their treaty obligations.

  • 2 - History

  • from Part I - The Legal And Institutional Framework
  • Philippe Sands, University College London, Jacqueline Peel, University of Melbourne
  • With Adriana Fabra, Universitat de Barcelona, Ruth MacKenzie, University of Westminster
  • Book:
    Principles of International Environmental Law
    Published online:
    07 August 2018
    Print publication:
    01 March 2018, pp 21-51

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    Modern international environmental law can be traced directly to international legal developments that took place in the second half of the nineteenth century. Thus, although the current form and structure of the subject emerged in the mid 1980s, a proper understanding of modern principles and rules requires a historic sense of earlier scientific, political and legal developments. International environmental law has evolved over four distinct periods, reflecting developments in scientific knowledge, the application of new technologies and an understanding of their impacts, changes in political consciousness and the changing structure of the international legal order and institutions.

    A first period began with bilateral fisheries treaties in the nineteenth century, and concluded with the creation of the new international organisations in 1945. During this period, peoples and nations began to understand that the process of industrialisation and development required limitations on the exploitation of certain natural resources (flora and fauna) and the adoption of appropriate legal instruments. The second period commenced with the creation of the UN and culminated with the UN Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm in June 1972. Over this period, a range of international organisations with competence in environmental matters was created, and legal instruments were adopted, at both the regional and the global levels, which addressed particular sources of pollution and the conservation of general and particular environmental resources, such as oil pollution, nuclear testing, wetlands, the marine environment and its living resources, the quality of freshwaters and the dumping of waste at sea. The third period ran from the 1972 Stockholm Conference and concluded with the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in June 1992. During this period, the UN tried to put in place a system for coordinating responses to international environmental issues, regional and global conventions were adopted, and for the first time the production, consumption and international trade in certain products were banned at the global level. The fourth period was set in motion by UNCED, and may be characterised as a period of integration: when environmental concerns should, as a matter of international law and policy, be integrated into all activities and into the broader development agenda concerned with poverty eradication and improving human health.

  • 6 - General Principles and Rules

  • from Part II - Principles And Rules Establishing Standards
  • Philippe Sands, University College London, Jacqueline Peel, University of Melbourne
  • With Adriana Fabra, Universitat de Barcelona, Ruth MacKenzie, University of Westminster
  • Book:
    Principles of International Environmental Law
    Published online:
    07 August 2018
    Print publication:
    01 March 2018, pp 197-251

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    This chapter describes the general principles and rules of international environmental law as reflected in treaties, binding acts of international organisations, state practice, judicial decisions and soft law commitments. The existence and applicability of ‘principles of international environmental law’ were confirmed by the arbitral tribunal in the Iron Rhine case. Such principles are general in the sense that they are potentially applicable to all members of the international community across the range of activities that they carry out or authorise and in respect of the protection of all aspects of the environment. From the large body of international agreements and other acts it is possible to discern general rules and principles that have broad, if not necessarily universal, support and are frequently endorsed in practice. These are:

  • the obligation reflected in Principle 21 of the Stockholm Declaration and Principle 2 of the Rio Declaration, namely that states have sovereignty over their natural resources and the responsibility not to cause transboundary environmental damage;

  • the principle of preventive action;

  • the principle of cooperation;

  • the principle of sustainable development;

  • the precautionary principle;

  • the polluter pays principle; and

  • the principle of common but differentiated responsibility.

    • In the absence of clear judicial authority, and in view of the conflicting interpretations under state practice, it is frequently difficult to establish the parameters or the precise international legal status of each general principle or rule. The application of each principle in relation to a particular activity or incident, and its consequences, must be considered on the facts and circumstances of each case, having regard to several factors, including: the source of the principle; its textual content and language; the particular activity at issue; the environmental and other consequences of the activity; and the circumstances in which it occurs (including the actors and the geographical region). Some general principles or rules reflect customary law, others may reflect emerging legal obligations, and yet others might have a less developed legal status. In each case, however, the principle or rule has broad support and is reflected in extensive state practice through repetitive use or reference in an international legal context.

  • 3 - Governance: States, International Organisations and Non-State Actors

  • from Part I - The Legal And Institutional Framework
  • Philippe Sands, University College London, Jacqueline Peel, University of Melbourne
  • With Adriana Fabra, Universitat de Barcelona, Ruth MacKenzie, University of Westminster
  • Book:
    Principles of International Environmental Law
    Published online:
    07 August 2018
    Print publication:
    01 March 2018, pp 52-100

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    A wide range of actors participate in those aspects of the international legal order which address environmental issues, including the negotiation, implementation and enforcement of international environmental agreements. Apart from the state delegations that play a central role, a visitor to climate change or other negotiations would find international organisations and non-state actors actively involved. International environmental law is characterised by this phenomenon that, with the possible exception of the human rights field, renders it unique. Various reasons explain this state of affairs. States are involved because they are still the pre-eminent international legal persons. International organisations participate because they have been created by states to address particular environmental or related issues. Of the various non-state participants, the scientific community is involved because, to a great extent, international environmental law is driven by scientific considerations; the corporate sector is involved because of the significant implications which decisions taken at the global level have even for individual companies; and environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are involved because they advocate for concerns often not pursued by states and see the need for active participation at the international level as the lines dividing local, national and global issues disintegrate. The participation of non-state actors in international environmental law has an established history, and is widely accepted.

    The various actors have different roles and functions, both as subjects and as objects of international environmental law, including: participating in the lawmaking process; monitoring implementation, including reporting; and ensuring implementation and enforcement of obligations. The role of each actor turns upon its international legal personality and upon the rights and obligations granted to it by general international law and the rules established by particular treaties and other rules. The Rio Declaration and Agenda 21, as well as an increasing number of international environmental agreements, confirm the central role of international organisations and non-state actors in all aspects of the international legal process.

  • Preface and Acknowledgements to the Second Edition

    • By Philippe Sands, Faculty of Laws University College London Bentham House London WC1H 0EG
  • Philippe Sands, University College London, Jacqueline Peel, University of Melbourne
  • With Adriana Fabra, Universitat de Barcelona, Ruth MacKenzie, University of Westminster
  • Book:
    Principles of International Environmental Law
    Published online:
    07 August 2018
    Print publication:
    01 March 2018, pp xxix-xxx

  • Summary

    The second edition of Principles of International Environmental Law indicates that the legal aspects of international environmental issues are of growing intellectual and political interest, and that they have moved beyond the situation I described nearly ten years ago as reflecting ‘an early phase of development’. It is apparent from the new material which this edition treats – new conventions, new secondary instruments, new (or newly recognised) norms of customary law, and a raft of new judicial decisions – that international environmental law is now well established and is a central part of the international legal order. It is also clear that international environmental law has reached new levels of complexity, in particular as it has become increasingly integrated into other social objectives and subject areas, particularly in the economic field. The burgeoning case law, and the increased involvement of practitioners, suggests that it can no longer be said that international environmental law is, as a branch of general public international law, at an early stage of practical development.

    Like the first edition, this edition (together with the accompanying volume of international documents for students) is intended to provide a comprehensive overview of those rules of public international law which have as their object the protection of the environment. Those rules have become more numerous and complex, but also more accessible: the advent of the Internet often means that material which was previously difficult to track down – for example, information as to the status, signature and ratification of treaties, and acts and decisions of Conferences of the Parties and subsidiary bodies – is now relatively easy to obtain. But the Internet also increases the danger of becoming overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of material that is now available, a risk which is exacerbated by the very extensive (and growing) secondary literature which is produced every year, only a small proportion of which may really be said to indicate real insights into new developments. This background necessarily means that what is gained on breadth may be lost – at least in some areas – on depth. This comprehensive account cannot address all of the details that now dominate specific areas – trade, fisheries and climate change spring immediately to mind – and the reader will need to refer to more detailed accounts of particular sectors, and the websites of various conventions, to obtain many of the details.

Page 107 of 235