International Law Commons^™

Determining An Effective Regulatory Framework For Businesses To Report On The Environment, Climate, And Human Rights, Paco Mengual

Pace International Law Review

The objective of this article is to identify the existing dynamics and clarify the reasoning behind reporting on environmental, climate, and human rights information in search of effective and binding frameworks to enhance transparency. To that effect, this article relates the evolution from a corporate sustainable business focus to reporting on environmental social and governance and increasing corporate accountability. It then expands on defining non- financial information and ESG reporting with regards to recent European Union Regulations (SFDR, Taxonomy) as well as the challenges associated with defining sustainable investments. This article aims to compare and understand the various regulatory strategies …

The Future Of Pandemics: Land Use Controls As Means Of Preventing Zoonotic Disease, Bailey Andree

Pace International Law Review

Zoonotic diseases are increasing in frequency as climate change worsens around the world, with the recent COVID-19 pandemic highlighting the inadequate mechanisms in place to counteract disease spread. This article reviews various zoonotic diseases and their patterns of spread, highlighting land use change as the key driver of disease to demonstrate the need for legal intervention. International land use law is a little-developed subsect of environmental law that holds the key to combating this disease spread, and this article proposes solutions through this legal lens. Land use techniques which may be used to combat disease spread include conservation laws, setback …

Inclusion Of Incentive And Punitive Measures In Multilateral Environmental Agreement: A Suggestion On How The United Nations Framework Convention On Climate Change Can Be Utilized To Influence The Reduction Of Gas Flaring In The Oil And Gas Exploration Fields Of Nigeria, Temiloluwa Elijah Olanrewaju

Dissertations & Theses

Gas flaring is categorized as one of the important contributors to greenhouse gases, which increases the risk of global warming and climate change. The overdependence of the modern economy and most industrial technologies on fossil fuels has created a situation in countries where fossil fuels are exploited. The governments rely majorly on the revenue from exporting oil. The IOCs that are engaged in the mining of oil and gas have been able to influence policy and law enforcement on gas flaring to such an extent that the National laws are not enforced, or the stipulated fines are abysmally low that …

Addressing Correlations Between Gender-Based Violence And Climate Change: An Expanded Role For International Climate Change Law And Education For Sustainable Development, Achinthi C. Vithanage

Pace Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fish Don't Litter In Your House: Is International Law The Solution To The Plastic Pollution Problem?, Taylor G. Keselica

Pace International Law Review

This article addresses the complex issue of plastic pollution—focusing on ocean plastics. Specifically, this article examines the ocean plastics problem, critiques current binding and non-binding international environmental law surrounding ocean plastics, hazardous wastes, and pollution, and proposes a more effective solution to the ocean plastics problem. Section I provides a basic history of the creation of plastics and discusses plastics as they are used today. Section II considers the concerns surrounding ocean plastics, focusing on impacts of plastic on marine ecosystems as well as human health effects. Section III, IV, and V discuss the ongoing attempts to address the ocean …

Bringing Animal Protection Legislation Into Line With Its Purported Purposes: A Proposal For Equality Amongst Non-Human Animals, Jane Kotzmann, Gisela Nip

Pace Environmental Law Review

The United States has a strong history of enacting laws to protect animals from the pain and suffering inflicted by humans. Indeed, the passage of the Massachusetts’ Body of Liberties in 1641 made it the first country in the world to pass such laws. Nevertheless, contemporary animal protection laws in all jurisdictions of the United States are limited in their ability to adequately realize their primary purpose of protecting animals from unnecessary or unjustifiable pain and suffering. This is a result of limited statutory definitions of ‘animal’ and far-reaching exclusions commonly found in animal protection legislation. These exclusions frequently apply …

Biodiversity Impacts Of Investment And Free Trade Agreements, Lee C. Rarrick

Pace Environmental Law Review

The following Article identifies the myriad ways in which international investment and free trade agreements interact with biodiversity. It categorizes these interactions into three main groups and provides a literature review of the various real-world and policy impacts. The first part analyses arbitration procedures in these agreements that investors and trade partners can invoke to protect their economic expectations from otherwise proper State action, including regulation that is intended to promote biodiversity. The next part evaluates biodiversity provisions that are included directly in the free trade and investment agreements themselves, or in side agreements thereto. Some of these provisions reference …

Seeing The Forest For The Trees: Public And Private Law Tools For Halting Deforestation, Harriette I. Resnick

Pace Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Transnational Perspectives On The Paris Climate Agreement Beyond Paris: Redressing American Defaults In Caring For Earth’S Biosphere, Nicholas A. Robinson

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Anxiety about the fate of human civilization is rising. International Law has an essential role to play in sustaining community of nations. Without enhancing International Environmental Law, the biosphere that sustains all nations is imperiled. Laws in the United States can either impede or advance global environmental stewardship. What is entailed in such a choice?

The biosphere is changing. At a time when extraordinary technological prowess allows governments the capacity to know how deeply they are altering Earth's biosphere, nations experience a perverse inability to cooperate together. The Arctic is melting rapidly, with knock on effects for sea level rise …

Climate Displaced Peoples: Utilizing Regional Approaches To Combat Climate-Induced Displacement In The 21st Century, Oshani Amaratunga

Pace Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Time Has Come For A Universal Water Tribunal, Tarek Majzoub, Fabienne Quilleré-Majzoub

Pace Environmental Law Review

Since its inception in 1981, the International Water Tribunal has emerged as a non-governmental body with a multidisciplinary composition and a mandate based on conventional and customary international water law, which holds public hearings in order to address water-related complaints. This Article describes the historical background of the proposed Universal Water Tribunal (“UWT”) and significant difficulties on the horizon facing the proposed Tribunal (including political, practical, and legal-technical considerations). It then summarizes the key factors of such Tribunal and, finally, touches upon the proposed model based on an expanded concept of jurisdiction. The main underlying thesis is that, whereas the …

Foundations For Sustainable Development: Harmonizing Islam, Nature And Law, Norah Bin Hamad

Dissertations & Theses

Human society is weakening Earth’s environment, its only home. In 2015, nations agreed on a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to guide restoring and sustaining the wellbeing of peoples everywhere. If the SDGs are to succeed, all cultural and religious communities will need to urgently implement them. Islam offers a holistic view of God’s creation and the Qur’an clearly sets forth duties to care for the Earth. In the past, most people have ignored the world-wide trends of environmental degradation which scientist have reported. There is a pressing need to expand education and public awareness about the threats …

Migratory Waterbird Conservation At The Flyway Level: Distilling The Added Value Of Aewa In Relation To The Ramsar Convention, Melissa Lewis

Pace Environmental Law Review

In June 1995, the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) was adopted, and this instrument remains the only legally binding waterbird Agreement in the CMS Family. However, while AEWA has been lauded as a very promising instrument, the concern has also been raised that the Agreement “has a large potential scope for the duplication of obligations, especially with regard to the protection of wetland habitats, given the operation of the Ramsar Convention”. The existing literature thus recognizes that overlap between AEWA and the Ramsar Convention is potentially problematic. It fails, however, to provide a detailed analysis of …

Shooting Stars And Dancing Fish: A Walk To The World We Want, Tony Oposa

Environmental Law Program Publications @ Haub Law

From the foreword by Durwood Zaelke, President, Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development, Washington, DC.

“Since the beginning of time, human knowledge and culture have been passed down through stories. Short stories, songs, prayers, poems, even paintings can stick in your mind forever. These have always been the most powerful ways we learn and remember.

Tony is not only one of the world’s greatest lawyers, he is also one of the world’s greatest storytellers.

This book, in which he generously shares his experiences, his scars, and most importantly his humanity, is Tony’s gift to generations to come.

But he does …

Un Environment Guide For Energy Efficiency And Renewable Energy Laws, Richard L. Ottinger

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Guide is written as a sequel to the 2007 UN Environment Programme Handbook for Legal Draftsmen on Environmentally Sound Management of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Resources.

This Guide, as the Handbook, is written in response to needs expressed, particularly by energy efficiency and renewable energy project initiators, government officials, energy managers, project developers and particularly developing country energy legal draftsmen, asking for assistance in drafting legislative provisions for promotion and implementation of sound energy efficiency and renewable energy programs.

The Guide describes the key legal issues associated with efficiency and renewable energy resource development, and presents legislative options …

Learning To Live With The Trickster: Narrating Climate Change And The Value Of Resilience Thinking, Robin Kundis Craig

Pace Environmental Law Review

This article is based on the 2015 Pace Garrison Lecture that occurred on April 1, 2015. Fittingly for a talk given on April Fool’s Day, this article focuses on tricksters. It posits that framing climate change as one incarnation of a mythological trickster can give us a better cultural narrative framework for thinking about environmental, natural resources, and energy law and policy in a climate change era. The trickster narrative can helpfully displace the dominant engineering framework that informs most of American10 environmental, natural resources, and energy law and policy and open the way to a more productive policy context …

Finding Opportunities To Combat The Climate Change Migration Crisis: The Potential Of The “Adaptation Approach”, Mariya Gromilova

Pace Environmental Law Review

The aim of this article is to demonstrate the benefits of applying adaptation approach in conceptualising the issue of climate-induced population movement and its potential to respond to the main priorities to be addressed in the context of population movement induced by climate change. This article proceeds with Section 2, which provides an overview of the main difficulties to conceptualization of the issue of climate induced population movement from empirical and legal perspectives. Section 3, drawing upon the state of play presented above, identifies the main priorities that have to be addressed. Section 4 focuses on the opportunities the Cancun …

Protection Of The Marine Environment Under International Law And Kuwaiti Criminal Law, Yousef H. Almutairi

Dissertations & Theses

The marine environment has unique characteristics that distinguish it from other elements of nature. Since seas and oceans cover more than two-thirds of the earth, they play a vital role in achieving biological and climatic balance on the planet. The marine environment also plays an important role in human life, since it has plenty of nutritious and industrial resources that directly affect human welfare. It also contains huge amounts of oil and natural gas, which has played a role in the economic prosperity of the world. Moreover, seas are considered a source of freshwater through resorting to desalination of seawater …

Climate Change Effects On Snow Conditions And The Human Rights Of Reindeer Herders, Stefan Kirchner

Pace Environmental Law Review

By ignoring the needs of indigenous livelihoods, traditional forms of land use that have long been sustainable, new forms of land use and the construction of infrastructure threaten the right of indigenous peoples to engage in traditional livelihoods. It is the aim of this article to analyze the rights of indigenous peoples in the context of primary and secondary effects of climate change. For the purposes of this paper, the term “primary effects” will be used to describe immediate effects of climate change. This includes temperatures which move around freezing instead of being solidly below freezing.

Primary effects of climate …

Environmental Crimes And Imprisonment: Does Prison Work To Prevent And Punish Environmental Criminals?, Rafael Wolff

Dissertations & Theses

Environmental degradation is a global problem. Humans need natural resources to survive and, as those resources are limited, humans’ use of these resources should respect a sustainable pace established by law. There are many approaches to addressing environmental degradation that do not honor the legal limitations and one of them is through criminal law. The question that is posed in this thesis is whether imprisonment, one of the most severe methods of punishment, is a suitable option to repress and prevent environmental crimes.

This thesis is divided in three chapters. The first chapter discusses why environmental crimes are relevant. It …

The Brazilian Amazon Timber Industry And The International Mechanisms Of Timber Trade Control – Combating Illegal Logging And Associated Trade, Juliana Coelho Marcussi

Dissertations & Theses

Illegal logging and its associated trade are one of the main causes of degradation of the Amazonian Rainforest in Brazil. They spring from several deficiencies in the regulatory and monitoring systems. The purpose of this work is to recommend mechanisms to overcome these deficiencies to eliminate illegal logging and its associated trade in the long-term and to enhance the appreciation of the standing forests and the sustainable use of their natural resources.

Chapter 1 provides an overview of the Brazilian tropical timber market’s trends, and briefly describes the main stages of timber supply chain to build familiarity with the activities …

A Comparative Legal Approach For The Risks Of Offshore Methane Hydrates: Existing Laws And Conventions, Roy Andrew Partain

Pace Environmental Law Review

This article provides a review of the existing laws and conventions that might be applied to the development of offshore methane hydrates. Offshore methane hydrates are an exciting emerging new energy resource; one with great potential to provide vast energy supplies, and also one with substantially novel risks and hazards to the environment, marine flora and fauna, and adjacent human communities. Some of these new risks include cataclysmic levels of greenhouse gas emissions, subsea landslides, and tsunamis. As such, it is important to take a survey of the existing laws and conventions that could be applied to such risks, examine …

The Declaration Of Interdependence: A New Declaration To Overthrow The Tyranny Of Small Decisions And Achieve Sustainability, Phillip M. Kannan

Pace Environmental Law Review

Two declarations are the foundation of modern international environmental law and policy: the Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment and the Rio Declaration on the Environment and Development. Both of these declarations include well-established principles of international environmental law and policy such as state responsibility, territorial sovereignty, the necessity of ecosystem protection, and the importance of international cooperation. In addition, they both embrace revolutionary ideas. For example, the Stockholm Declaration held out the possibility of a human right to a healthy environment and suggested the need to integrate economic development and social development with environmental protection, which is the seed …

Bridging The North-South Divide: International Environmental Law In The Anthropocene, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Pace Environmental Law Review

This article calls for a fundamental reorientation of international environmental law to bridge the North-South divide and respond to the ecological crises of the Anthropocene. Such a reconceptualization of international environmental law must be normatively grounded in respect for nature and in the quest for environmental justice within, as well as between, countries.

International environmental law must directly challenge the relentless drive toward economic expansion and unbridled exploitation of people and nature rather than merely attempt to mitigate its excesses. An essential step toward such a reconceptualization is to examine the ways in which international law has historically engaged with …

International Deployment Of Microbial Pest Control Agents: Falling Between The Cracks Of The Convention On Biological Diversity And The Cartagena Biosafety Protocol?, Guy R. Knudsen

Pace Environmental Law Review

This paper considers one tangled web of conflicting developments. It involves the popular desire to replace chemical pesticides with more “natural” biological control strategies, plus a slowly emerging awareness of a less benign side to microbial pest control agents, based on their potential invasiveness and sometimes striking similarities to agents of bioterrorism and biological warfare. This desire, however, is overshadowed by concerns about the environmental release of genetically engineered organisms. I argue that as some of the concerns about ecological diversity, as captured by the Convention on Biodiversity, were channeled into the subsequent Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention …