Environmental Law Commons^™

The Emerging Right To Sanitation: A Socio-Economic Or Environmental Right?, Loretta Feris

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

In July 2010 the UN General Assembly for the first time recognised a right to sanitation and declared the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights.[1] This is an important development in the global recognition of the right to sanitation, in view of the fact that worldwide more than 2.6 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation.[2] In addition, a handful of states have also recognised the right of sanitation in their respective Constitutions, either expressly, inclusive …

Rights Of Nature In Ecuador: Change Of Paradigm Or Constitutional Rhetoric, Jordi Jaria I Manzano

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

One of the most significant events in recent comparative constitutional law on environmental issues has been the recognition of rights to nature in the Ecuadorian Constitution of 2008. A claim has been made of being a change of paradigm in the constitutional tradition, which goes beyond Western legal culture to add ideas and values of the indigenous peoples of Ecuador, particularly those of the Andes. That implies, for the fathers of the Constitution, the opening of a new path for social organization, more respectful with nature, escaping from consumerism and predation on natural resources, and concentrated on (environmental and social) …

Acting As If Tomorrow Matters: Accelerating The Transition To Sustainability, John Dernbach

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

This paper would be based on my forthcoming book, Acting as if Tomorrow Matters: Accelerating the Transition to Sustainability (Environmental Law Institute/Island Press May 2012). Synthesizing answers from more than three dozen nationally known experts to questions about sustainability, the book provides a useful, empirically based framework to explain the progress made in the United States to date on sustainability—and the most significant obstacles standing in the way of greater success. Building on this framework, the book explains in detail how to make a variety of decisions even more attractive to private and government entities, how law can provide an …

Property Rights And The Environment: The Ecological Function Of Property In Brazil, Nicholas Bryner

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

Article 225 of Brazil's Constitution guarantees to all the "right to an ecologically balanced environment" and imposes a duty on both the government and society to "defend and preserve [the environment] for present and future generations." This constitutionalization of environmental rights and duties has an important impact on property law inasmuch is it affects the relationship between private and public interests in the use of land and other natural resources. The right to private property is explicitly guaranteed in Brazil. However, this right is not absolute; under the Constitution, real property must fulfill its "social function." Among other requirements listed …

Moving The Brown Agenda Forward: From Corporate Environmental Governance To Government Governance At The Local Level, Anel Du Plessis

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

The 'brown agenda' is part and parcel of the contemporary environmental law discourse and refers inter alia to the reduction of threats to health and human well-being that arise from poor sanitation, overpopulation, insufficient water provision, air and water pollution and inadequate waste management. Brown issues are understood to impact on humans at a local scale / at the local level and often impact the poor and low-income groups.

Despite the fact that the brown agenda falls within the purview of the protection afforded by international, regional and domestic environmental law, a number of judgments of the courts between 2009 …

The Main Track Of The Development Of Environmental Framework Law: From The Conference On The Human Environment To The Conference On Environment And Development, Li Zhi Ping

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

The United Nations' Conference on Human Environment launched a new era of global environmental protection; one of its significant impacts on the world is driving the emergence and promoting the development of the environment framework law. Look back to the history, two peaks appeared in the development process of national environmental framework law, the first one arises after the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, the second one arises after the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. These two conferences have been able to play such an important role, because they brought together the human intelligence, …

The Emergence Of Global Environmental Governance Law, Louis Kotze

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

Global environmental governance (GEG) is a normative institutional regulatory intervention and social construct that aims to influence how people interact with the environment in the global. It entails a pluralistic, dynamic, multilevel (national, regional, international), multi-actor (state and non-state actors) process of change which idealistically aims to optimise environmental benefits and use, while at the same time seeking to equally protect environmental capital for the benefit and use of present and future generations. Law is an important part of and plays a critical role in GEG. Law is the constitution of GEG; law legitimises GEG; law creates GEG actors and …

Law In The Book And Law In Practice: Criminal Liability Over Vessel-Source Marine Pollution In China, Nengye Liu

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

Nowadays, criminal liability over vessel-source pollution is a debatable issue worldwide. For example, after Erika and Prestige oil tanker spill disasters, the EU adopted Directive 2005/35/EC, which imposes criminal liability over vessel-source pollution. This raised the Intertanko Case in the European Court of Justice. The shipping industry tried to challenge the legality of Directive 2005/35/EC under international law.

China is now a great shipping power as well as the second largest seafarers supplier in the world. Meanwhile, vast sea areas under China’s jurisdiction are under threat of vessel-source pollution. This presentation addresses criminal liability over vessel-source pollution in China. Relevant …

Governance And Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, Jose Augusto Fontoura Costa, Solange Teles Da Silva, Fernanda Sola

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

The Amazon Cooperation Treaty (ACT) signed on 3 July 1978 by Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela, has the objective to promote joint actions towards the harmonious development of the Amazon Basin as well as “the preservation of the environment, and the conservation and rational utilization of the natural resources of those territories” (art. I). In 1995, the eight nations decided to create the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) in order to strengthen and implement the cooperation and the Treaty goals. The amendment to ACT was approved on 2002, and the Permanent Secretariat was established in Brasilia …

Linkage In 21st Century Global Environmental Governance, Andrew Long

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

The apex of formal international law development to address environmental issues may have occurred in the 1990s, as evidenced by the difficulty in negotiating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, but the increasing globalization of environmental law creates opportunities for regulatory innovation at the international level that may prove more successful than “traditional” state-to-state international law. A key characteristic of globalization in any field is increasing linkage, which includes linkage of national and international law and greater understanding of the linkages between nations that require coordinated management of common issues. For this reason, among others, globalization of environmental law appears …

The Compliance Paths Of China Energy Conservation, Zhao Huiyu

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

China as one of the largest emission greenhouse gases country, has took a lot of stringent methods on energy saving and emission reduction in recent years, although China did not have emission reduction Obligations in Kyoto protocol. The highlight of China’s compliance of energy saving is it’s mainly depending on many energy plans and policies instead of laws, especially the National Five-Year Plan of PRC greatly helped the enforcement of energy conservation and emission reduction.

These phenomena happened in China deserved being researched in an evolutionary perspective. Energy plans and polices could play very important role in some certain period …

Middle East Environmental Law Initiative, Seyed Mohammed Mehdi Hosseini

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

The Middle East, a predominately arid and semiarid region, faces major environmental problems, including growing water shortages, climate change, and air and water pollution. Many of the nations in the region share similar environmental problems that require similar and/or common solutions. Laws and legal institutions need to be created, developed and strengthened at the national and regional levels in order to address these challenges. Effective implementation and enforcement of environmental laws are crucial for protection of public health and conservation of natural resources in the Middle East.

Middle East Environmental Law (MEEL) founded by Seyed Mohammad M. Hosseini, LL.M candidate …

Implementation Of Rio Principles Into Latin American Environmental Laws, José Juan Gonzalez Marquez

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

This paper evaluates the way Latin American Environmental Law have incorporated Rio Declaration´s principles. The survey includes a detailed revision of legal regimes of Mexico Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Costa Rica where Environmental Law is more developed but few references to other Ibero-American countries are taken into consideration as well. Although the study focuses more in the 27 principles of Rio Declaration but it also evaluates the level of compliance with the commitments assumed by signatory parties of Climate Change and Biodiversity Convention.

Legal Challenges In The Creation Of A World Environmental Organization, Nils Goeteyn

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

In June 2012 world leaders will gather again in Rio de Janeiro for the Earth Summit 2012 to secure renewed political commitment to the global agenda of sustainable development, of which environmental affairs are considered an integral part. One of the main topics under discussion at the Rio+20 summit is the possible creation of a World Environment Organisation or a World Sustainable Development Organisation. The last 20 years scholars and states alike have made a wide range of proposals (internalisation-based environmental organisation, an umbrella organisation for sustainable development, a new specialised agency for the environment, or an upgraded UNEP, ...), …

Meeting At The Crossroads: Engaging New Actors In The Development Of Marine Envrionmental Governance, Elizabeth Kirk

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

This paper explores the challenges associated with the adoption of new laws to protect the environment or promote sustainable development by focussing on how marine governance has responded to threats to the environment or marine resources.

As this paper demonstrates, while there have been some developments in the law as a result of changing circumstances, circumstances alone are not sufficient to effect change in the law. They must be accompanied by the operation of appropriate values in the decision making process. Where such values do not coincide with changing circumstances it is necessary to change the underlying principles within the …

Green Water: Can Rio+ 20 Succeed Where Others Have Failed?, Rebecca Bates

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

The Stockholm Declaration was the first international instrument to acknowledge the imperative to safeguard water resources for present and future generations. In the years following Stockholm, water become a specific issue of environmental and humanitarian concern, with a number of instruments including the Mar del Plata Action Plan, Agenda 21, Rio Declaration, Convention of the Rights on the Rights of the Child, Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, United Nations Watercourses Convention, Millennium Development Goals and most recently resolutions from the United Nations General Assembly and Human Rights Council acknowledging the right to water within international law and providing a framework for …

Rethinking Law To Reach A Collective Consensus-Based Approach - The Case For Prinicples In The African Union, Willem Daniel Lubbe

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

The global environment (including humans) faces critical threats brought on by, among others, rapid decline of biodiversity and climate change. These threats are not just the concerns of nation-states but indeed the common concerns of the global world.

Environmental protection manifests at three different levels. These are international (or global), regional (including sub-regional) and national. It may be argued that these levels should inform each other culminating in harmonized national legal systems effecting the ideals contained at supra-national levels. Unfortunately, this is not the case in the African Union. Various aspects unique to the region hamper the efforts to reach …

Strengthening Regional Ocean Governance To Protect The Marine Environment: A Case Study Of The Yellow Sea Large Marine Ecosystem Project, Yu Ming

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

The UNDP/GEF Yellow Sea Large Marine Ecosystem (YSLME) project, with two participating countries of the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Korea, is a very successful attempt to strengthen regional ocean governance to protect the marine environment in the Yellow Sea region. The project’s structure of regional ocean governance is characterized by an ecosystem-based approach, an effective and efficient institutional framework, and wide participation of stakeholders. This structure promised a fruitful result after more than five years of implementation. It developed a practical Strategic Action Programme (SAP) with tangible targets and appropriate management actions, made considerable progress in …

The Unep Regional Seas Programme: Bridging The Governance Gap, Nilufer Oral

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

One of the important outcomes of the historic 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) forty years ago was the establishment of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the UNEP Regional Seas Programme. Today the UNEP Regional Seas Programmes, with eighteen regional seas programmes under its auspices, has created an institutional and governance framework for the protection and preservation of the marine environment based on state co-operation at the regional level. Ideally, under the centralized and coordinated administration of UNEP each regional sea programme should have a standardized regional framework of governance based on the best available …

The Contribution Of Local Conventions To The Effectiveness Of Environmental Law In Burkina Faso, Habib Ahmed Djiga

Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads

Burkina Faso, a small country in West Africa, is hard struck by desertification, drought, rainfall irregular, land degradation, competitions related to access and management of natural resources. These environmental challenges have provoked food insecurity and increasing poverty. These difficulties exacerbate the harsh living conditions of communities, accentuate their vulnerability to climate change and increase conflicts over natural resource use.

Facing to this context, the Burkinabe State authorities have taken action to protect the environment that led to the development of environmental law. They have indeed adopted rule of laws, established strategies, programs and action plans, and ratified international treaties related …