Environmental Law Commons^™

Australia's Brand New Clean Energy Legislation Package - How Can It Reduce Emissions?, Karen Bubna-Litic

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

How does one effectively reduce greenhouse gases? Two ways of doing this is through either lowering the production of ghg’s through less activity, eg energy efficiency, or through the availability of substitutes that produce less ghg’s.

Currently we have a high demand for greenhouse gas producing activities. In simple terms increasing the price, say, of carbon through either a tax or cap and trade scheme can decrease demand. However, lessening demand is a complex proposition, depending on the elasticity of the product, the purchasing power of the consumer and the availability of substitutes. Energy efficiency and technical innovation are two …

Teaching The Art Of Environmental Diplomacy, Ann Powers

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

International Environmental Law is a framework of obligations, measurable norms, and consultative procedures associated with elaborating these norms and facilitating their implementation. It is through the practice of multilateral environmental diplomacy that Nations primarily establish international environmental law. These multilateral negotiations take place in the General Assembly or the Economic & Social Council of the United Nations or in other treaty organizations, such as the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity or the World Conservation Congress of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). Such environmental diplomatic negotiations are on-going and …

International Environmental Law And Migration, Nicole De Moor

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

The international community has long recognized that worldwide environmental changes affect national and international migration patterns. However, in 1992, the issue of environment-induced migration and displacement was not addressed as a major concern at the Rio Earth Summit. From the three new forums addressing environmental and development concerns, initiated in Rio, only the Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) paid modest attention to environmental migration. Neither the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), nor the Biodiversity Convention (CBD), explicitly referred to the phenomenon of environment-induced human mobility.

However, since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change highlighted migration and displacement as …

Co2 Emissions Trading And Emission Limit Values: Is Eu Environmental Law Restricting Member States To Act Against Climate Change?, Kars J. De Graaf

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

The competence to protect the environment in Europe could be described as a ‘shared’ competence. While the EU may adopt environmental directives on the basis of Article 192 TFEU (Treaty on the Functioning of the EU) that obligate Member States to implement them in their national legal order, Article 193 TFEU makes clear that the protective measures adopted pursuant to Article 192 TFEU shall not prevent any Member State from maintaining or introducing more stringent protective measures.

A cornerstone of the EU’s policy to combat climate change is the 2005 Emission Trading System Directive (ETS Directive). This system is an …

Eu Climate Law & Practice At The End Of The Kyoto Era: Unilateralism, Extraterritoriality And The Future Of Global Climate Change Governance, Lorenzo Schiano Di Pepe

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

The European Union (EU) and its legal system have traditionally been at the forefront of the fight against anthropogenic climate change at the global level. This is particularly true today, when the international community is facing one of the most difficult passages of all times in this respect, due to the well-known difficulty in agreeing on a binding legal text to be applied once the first reference period established by the Kyoto Protocol will expire at the end of this year.

The above stalemate has caused individual States to resort to unilateralism, a move that in itself represents a regression …

Emerging Legal And Policy Strategies For Climate Change Adaptation: Opportunities And Constraints For Action In Africa, Emmanuel Kasimbazi

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

The climate of the Africa is changing. When the climate started changing and when it will end is subject to endless debate. Climate is important for development in Africa but natural climate fluctuations from autonomous climate cycles (such as those linked to the El Nino phenomenon) disrupt ecological, economic and social systems. The causes of climate of change include: continued rates of high population growth, increasing reliance on fossil fuel-driven growth technologies, land use effects, (particularly urbanization, agriculture and deforestation) and increases in concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) and aerosols. Climate change in Africa has several effects. There are …

Can Carbon Trading & Carbon Tax Be Applied Simultaneously In China?, Ping Chen

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

There is a growing debate between two competing climate change policy instruments – ‘cap and trade’ and ‘carbon tax’. Until now, both of them have worked well in different jurisdictions in order to reduce GHGs emissions. For those countries just consider to apply either of the two approaches like China, it is more convinced to recognize the advantages and disadvantages of the two approaches before making the choice.

The cap-and-trade system has been implemented by the European Union since 2005. The performance of EU cap-and-trade system shows many advantages. For instance, it can predict a clear environmental outcome by setting …

Legal Challenges In Promoting Sustainability- The Bioenergy Case, Helle Tegner Anker, Birgitte Egelund Olsen

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

Addressing climate concerns and reducing reliance on fossil fuels has been a broadly accepted sustainability objective for decades. But, to what extent are alternatives to fossil fuels sustainable in themselves and what are the different legal or regulatory challenges and options in ensuring a certain level of sustainability of such alternatives?

Bioenergy or biofuels, i.e. energy based on biological material (biomass) is often being promoted as an alternative to fossil fuels.[1] There are many different types of bioenergy determined either by the type of biomass (e.g. crops, wood or waste) or by the type or purpose of use (e.g. …

On The Improvement Of Bioenergy Law In China, Lei Guo

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

China has a long history of using bioenergy. But the utilization of modern bioenergy in China started late, and come up against the inferior of technology, the low level of industrialization and the imperfect laws and policies. During the 11^th five-year plan for national economic and social development (2006-2010), Chinese government set up series of bioenergy development goals and obtained initial achievements in development of modern bioenergy, such as biomass power generation, liquid biofuels and biogas. Moreover, the latest 12^th five-year plan (2011-2015) will further advance the use of bioenergy through the upcoming bioenergy plan which is included …

Shale Gas Development In Ukraine: Global Context Of The Problem And Prospect Of Regulation, Svitlana Romanko

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

Ukraine is widely believed to be one of Europe's largest holders of the new energy resource. But when working on problem, we also should take into account the experience of countries which succeed the shale gas production: USA, Canada and our neighboring countries in Europe – Poland and others.

According to experts, Ukraine may be in talks with foreign investors and to remind of shale gas. Ukraine during 2011 year agreed on cooperation with 21 companies in the production of hydrocarbons, particularly shale gas and coal bed methane. Ukrainian government is very interested in shale gas exploration but experts state …

Greening The Au Economy- Adapting To Climate Change Along A Low Carbon Development Pathway, Michelle Van Der Walt

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

According to the United Nations Human Development Report of 2007 climate change is the defining human development challenge of the 21st Century. One of the major global contributors towards climate change is green house gas (GHG) emissions resulting from energy use connected with the combustion of fossil fuels. On account of its low per capita energy consumption, Africa contributes relatively little towards over-all energy related GHG emissions. Notwithstanding, the global effects of climate change will impact negatively on the developmental path of the African continent in areas such as agriculture; access to fresh water; biodiversity; food security and health thereby …

Environmental Protection And Sustainable Development In Developing Countries Post- Rio, Tumai Murombo

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

Using South Africa as an example, this paper explores how environmental regulation has fared in a social and economic context where poverty alleviation, and socio-economic development are the top priorities of governments. While many developing countries have joined the bandwagon of environmental regulation to promote seemingly sustainable development, how to balance these inherently ‘conflicted' aspirations in practice remains a challenge. The paper explore various strategies for promoting sustainable development while conserving the environment such as environmental impact assessment, the use of framework legislation and assess the extent to which these are working in practice. The paper concludes by a radical …

Integrating Sustainable Development Into Bilateral Trade Agreements, Shawkat Alam

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

It is now well established that trade and environmental policy are complementary in achieving sustainable development. Chapter 2 of Agenda 21 emphasises the need to promote sustainable economic ‘development through trade’. It states that this must be done through ‘a commitment to sound economic policies and management, an effective and predictable public administration, the integration of environmental concerns into decision-making and progress towards democratic government’ (UNESD, 1992, ch. 2, para 2.6). The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation 2002 of the World Summit on Sustainable Development has subsequently reinforced this call. The Preamble to the WTO Agreement commits to multilateral trade liberalisation …

Co-Management Of Natural Resources By Indigenous People And States: A Method To Promote Environmental Justice And Sustainability, Bradford Morse

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

This paper will explore the potential contributions that could be made to achieving environmental justice, as well as local, regional and global efforts toward environmental sustainability, through embracing the concept of co-management of nature in which the natural world is a participant represented by those humans retaining traditional knowledge of sustainable co-existence. In particular, my focus will be on the potential of partnerships between settler governments with access to ‘modern’ scientific knowledge combining with Indigenous peoples relying on their ‘traditional’ ecological knowledge. I will examine how recent reinterpretation of longstanding international human rights, along with the development of international environmental …

Impacts Of The Eu Iuu Regulation On China's Fisheries Policies And Law, Qin He

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

As the largest market and importer of fisheries products, the European Union (EU) has adopted an ambitious Regulation on Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing. This regulation not only applies to the maritime waters under the jurisdiction or sovereignty of the Member States, but also imposes strict controls on IUU fishing on the high seas and in maritime waters under the jurisdiction or sovereignty of other coastal states. Therefore, the impacts of this regulation on third countries’ fisheries deserve research attention. Port states measures and trade-market measures influence third countries the most among those measures adopted by the regulation. China …

Iczm Protocols To Regional Seas Conventions: The Wonder Drug For Coastal Sustainable Development?, Julien Rochette

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

Because “not every international environmental problem needs to be dealt with on a global level[1]”, the regionalization of international environmental law has emerged as one of the most important legal trends over the last decades. In the field of marine environment, this movement has been taking place mostly within the UNEP regional seas programme, now involving over 140 States. Noteworthily, the regulation of coastal management stood apart from this movement for a long time: while coastal zone management projects have developed at all scales for over two decades[2], legal regulation has long been confined to the …

What Role For Renewable Energy In International Law?, Mar Campins Eritja

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

Promotion of renewable energies is crucial to achieving the reduction targets and climate change mitigation aimed by the international law. At the global level, the year 2012 has been proclaimed by the United Nations as the International Year of Sustainable Energy (Res. 65/151). This is a valuable opportunity for public awareness regarding sustainable energy, energy efficiency and renewable energy. At the European Union, while linked to climate change strategy, the environmental dimension is now also covered by the EU energy policy, thanks to the Treaty of Lisbon. Therefore, the relevance of renewable energy sources will increase over the next few …

Rio +20, Agenda 21, And Progress Towards Ocean Protection, Anastasia Telesetsky

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

Twenty years ago, States produced the Agenda 21, an ambitious blueprint for sustainable development, and presented it at the 1992 Rio Conference. This paper queries how the international community has done in achieving its Agenda 21 goals related to ocean protection. Are we on track? Or do we need to rethink some of our strategies for ocean protection and pursue new directions?

In this empirical study, the author compares international and domestic law and policy covering seven main Agenda 21 implementation areas: integrated management of coastal and marine areas, marine environmental protection, sustainable use and conservation of high seas marine …

Addressing The Challenge Of Sustainable Development: The Need For A Global Clean Energy Treaty, Rob Fowler

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

If the main road to global environmental law began at Stockholm in 1972, it could be argued it came to an end at the neighbouring Scandinavian city of Copenhagen in 2009. Despite a return from the brink of collapse of the multilateral environmental agreement (MEA) negotiating system in relation to climate change, and possibly more widely, in Cancun in 2010 and Durban in 2011, only tentative, modest steps have been taken towards a post-Kyoto regime at these meetings. The negotiations seem destined to limp slowly forward for some years yet.

The failure of the international negotiating process to produce a …

The Clean Development Mechanism And Sustainability: Case Studies From Chile And Bolivia, Camille Parrod

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

In the aftermath of the United Nations’ “Rio+20” Conference, taking place in June 2012, this paper will provide a legal analysis of the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and its contribution to the concept of a green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication. After examining what is meant by a “green economy” when applied to the CDM, this study intends, through two case studies, to measure the CDM’s achievement of a sustainable development goal where the projects were implemented. Particularly, it will highlight the CDM’s major institutional and procedural shortcomings when it comes to achieving …

Using Law To Advance Sustainability: The Law Of Sustainable Development, Carla D. Aceves-Avila

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

Sustainability and law as a social tool behold linkages that strengthen one another, although this conjunction is frail when analyzed under the typical standards and paradigm of most contemporary legal systems.

The role of law under sustainability must be carefully profiled and differentiated as compared to the rest of legal rules. Even though it is true that all legal rules are created and implemented with the main purpose of improving human interaction, the role of law oriented towards sustainability should be the protection and preservation of natural resources, elements, as well as the conditions associated to these in order to …

A Global Law Of Sustainable Energy, David Hodas

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

The 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development adopted the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and Agenda 21 as the core principles and a program of action to achieve sustainable development; neither addressed energy as a central theme. In 2002, sustainable energy was a central theme at the World Summit on Sustainable Development and was addressed in detail in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation. However, in 2012, neither climate change nor sustainable energy will be on Rio+20’s agenda. Ironically, 2012 is the U.N. International Year of Sustainable Energy For All. Rio+20 and the International Year are only …

Legislations And Legal Liability Of Climate Change In China, Deng Haifeng

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

There is no law directly aim at climate change in China currently. The existing rules and regulations of climate change basically include three parts: the first part is policies, such as China’s National Climate Change Program. The second part is legislations, including the contents of environmental protection, climate change, energy saving and emission reduction, which are stipulated in constitutional law, basic law of environmental protection, laws on energy utilization, specific laws of environmental protection, regulations and government rules. The last part is initiatives from civil society. These legislations of climate change stipulate relevant legal liability, including public law liability and …

Environmental Justice And The Green Economy- Risks And Opportunities, Nathalie Chalifour

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

The last decade of environmental advocacy has been characterized by the application of economic principles to environmental challenges, resulting in an interest in using economic instruments to internalize environmental costs in decision-making and reflected in the growing use of concepts such as environmental valuation and resource productivity in policy choices. While many view this greater connection between economic principles and environmental decision-making as key to achieving sustainable development (eg. Keohane & Olmstead, 2007), others fear that the focus on the green economy may undermine goals of social equity and environmental justice (eg. Dobson, 1998; Langhelle, 2000; Hoedeman, 2012). This paper …

Environmental Justice In Nigeria's Oil Industry: Recognizing And Embracing Contemporary Legal Developments, Rhuks Ako

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

The legal framework regulating Nigeria’s oil industry is one of the major drivers of disputes and the consequent violent conflicts in the oil-rich Niger Delta region. The region has gone through different phases of peaceful and violent struggles as the indigenes of the region aim to achieve environmental justice. The amnesty initiative; the latest attempt to curb the militancy in the region that escalated the violence to new heights, is showing signs of systemic failure after a brief period of relative peace. Militancy in the region has begun to increase as attacks on oil facilities and installations are once again …

Sustainable Development And Climate Change: Challenges And Opportunities For International Law, Tanzim Afroz

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

Up to recent years, international legal regime dealt with sustainable development and climate change responses as separate issues. Both the issues are covered under separate legal frameworks of the United Nations’ Agenda 21 and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). But these two issues are deeply interrelated. As for example, the capacity to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and the associated mitigation and adaptation costs, depend critically upon the underlying development policies, which in turn significantly influences sustainable development policies and actions. The lack of coherency between developing strategies and climate strategies is intensifying climate vulnerabilities, …

Comparing U.S. And German Policies To Promote Distributed Solar Pv Growth: The Triumph Of The Feed-In Tariff, David Beugelmans

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

Germany, a northern country with limited sunlight, has eight times more installed solar electricity capacity than the United States. The majority of Germany’s solar PV systems are distributed, rooftop installations owned by residential and commercial consumers. The United States, in contrast, is trending towards large, centralized utility-scale projects far from consumers and owned by major financial investors. Since 1990, Germany has employed national feed-in tariffs, requiring electric utilities to provide long term, fixed price contracts to solar installations. At the same time, the United States has employed a complex assortment of local state policies without turning to feed-in tarrifs.

This …

Global Environmental Law Post-2012: Exploring Some Lessons From Disaster And Energy Law, Mauricio Duarte Dos Santos, Carolina Dutra

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

Since the Stockholm and Rio Conferences (1972 e 1992), it is evident the effort of environmental law in promoting sustainable development. But in the complex scenario of climate change, that imposes a profound impact on human life and the entire biosphere, all measures that could help address its effects are essentials. In that period, disaster and energy law has also emerged to face similar challenges: risk management; prevention and compensation; access of vulnerable groups to natural resources and services; political resistance to create and execute sustainable policies and, above all, climate mitigation and adaptation. As those fields are closer, what …

Function And Framework Of Procedure For Emerging Environmental Litigation In China, Dejin Gu

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

The emerging environmental litigations play the function of responding to the incapacity and ineffectiveness of local environmental implementation and enforcement which takes place of environmental enforcement actually. The legal tool of litigation should complement environmental implementation and enforcement with innovative approach, for that, the procedural rules about standing, remedies, and judicial jurisdiction should be enacted by specific legislation.

Governance And Environmental Democracy: A Global Policy, Carla Aceves-Avila

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

In legal terms, and through the late decades sustainable development has transformed from an economic development theory to a public policy obligation that in turn has also translated in practice into concrete rights and obligations in legal systems throughout the world. These rights and obligations apply both to individuals and governments through constitutional, civil, administrative, commercial and even criminal legal rules.

Environmental law has become an essential tool for governance and administration of sustainable development while environmental democracy and its elements are becoming essential for a safe and sound planetary cohabitation. Environmental democracy provides the basis for the policies and …