Prevention in International Environmental Law and the Anticipation of Risk(s)

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie-Anne Duvic-Paoli
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Law ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Face ◽  
Multiple Levels

The raison d’être of international environmental law, the avoidance of the occurrence of environmental harm, dictates an anticipatory approach. At its heart is the principle of prevention which imposes an obligation on states to exercise due care in the face of risks of environmental damage. This chapter presents prevention as a multifaceted norm that operates at multiple levels in order to best anticipate different types of risks. It analyses prevention from three different perspectives. First, it identifies its material scope by detailing the different categories of risks which are covered by prevention. Second, it looks at the temporal scope of prevention and highlights the multiple conceptions of the future found in the principle. Finally, it presents the potential beneficiaries of the preventive rationale to explain how it aims to shape the future of different audiences. The chapter concludes on the challenges brought about by the multifaceted nature of prevention.

Part III Conceptual Pillars, Ch.16 Harm Prevention

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brunnée Jutta
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Law ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Significant Harm ◽  
Actual Harm ◽  
The Face ◽  
Harm Prevention ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter addresses how international environmental law originates from and revolves around the harm prevention rule. It focuses on three points of contention, each related to the role of due diligence in harm prevention, and each highlighted by recent judicial engagements with the harm prevention rule. First, it is generally accepted that a state's obligation to prevent environmental harm is not absolute, but requires due diligence in the face of risk of significant harm. However, it is unclear whether a failure to act diligently to avert harm on its own—absent actual harm—can amount to a breach of the harm prevention rule. Second, the relationship between the procedural and substantive dimensions of the harm prevention rule remains ambiguous. Third, there is some uncertainty as to where the line runs between the harm prevention obligation and the precautionary principle, given the focus of both notions on risk. These inter-related conceptual questions affect the harm prevention rule's function as a reference point for international environmental law.

The 2017 Inter-American Court's Advisory Opinion: changing the paradigm for international environmental law in the Anthropocene

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-50
Author(s):  
Maria Antonia Tigre ◽  
Natalia Urzola
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Law ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
Advisory Opinion ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Healthy Environment ◽  
Environmental Diplomacy ◽  
Legal Arguments ◽  
Extraterritorial Jurisdiction

The state of our environment is continuously deteriorating, and the frame of the ‘Anthropocene’ calls for transformative laws that respond to the current socio-ecological crisis. Since environmental diplomacy has signally failed to respond to current challenges, courts are being confronted with crucial questions that fundamentally address whether existing legal tools are sufficient to ensure human survival. In 2017, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued a landmark Advisory Opinion that goes some way towards answering this question. The Advisory Opinion recognized extraterritorial jurisdiction for transboundary environmental harm; the autonomous right to a healthy environment; and State responsibility for environmental damage within and beyond the State's borders. This article analyzes the legal arguments constructed by the Court, assessing whether, and how, the Opinion changes paradigms of international environmental law.

Different Types Of Norms In International Environmental Law Policies, Principles, And Rules

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrich Beyerlin
Keyword(s):  
Legal Theory ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Common But Differentiated Responsibilities ◽  
Considerable Confusion ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Status

This article focuses on the various ‘twilight’ norms at the bottom of the normative hierarchy of modern international environmental law, such as ‘precaution’, ‘polluter pays’, ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’, ‘equitable utilisation of shared natural resources’, ‘intergenerational equity’, ‘common concern of mankind’, and ‘sustainable development’. It discusses these ‘twilight’ norms in current international environmental law, and examines how legal experts and scholars assess their nature and normative quality. Given the ongoing controversy and considerable confusion concerning the status of these norms, as well as the roles they play and the effects they have, it is useful to analyse the phenomenon of ‘relative normativity’ in current international environmental law in more detail. Ronald Dworkin's legal theory, which separates ‘policies’ from ‘legal principles’ and ‘legal rules’, may help in this respect. The article also considers the principle not to cause transboundary environmental damage and environmental impact assessment.

Part III Conceptual Pillars, Ch.18 Precaution

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peel Jacqueline
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Anticipatory Action ◽  
International Environmental Treaties

This chapter describes the concept of precaution in international environmental law, which concerns anticipatory action in response to scientifically uncertain threats of environmental harm. Its most frequently referenced formulation can be found in Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. The Rio Declaration's endorsement of precaution in Principle 15 introduced to international environmental law a new discourse over the appropriate evidentiary foundations of global environmental regulation. The chapter then focuses on four key questions (and attendant debates) regarding precaution that have been critical in understanding its role in international environmental law. These questions concern the meaning of precaution as a conceptual pillar of international environmental law; the legal status of precaution as a principle of international environmental law; the formulation and understanding of precaution evident from international environmental treaties and case law; and the consequences of applying precaution in decision-making concerning threats of environmental damage.

Reparation for Environmental Damage in Jus Post Bellum

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilias Plakokefalos
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Shared Responsibility ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
Jus Post Bellum ◽  
Typical Situation ◽  
Sharing Responsibility

This chapter explores the problems that environmental damage in armed conflict pose to the determination of shared responsibility, and especially the determination of reparations, in the context of the jus post bellum. When two actors are engaged in armed conflict, there arise no serious issues as to sharing responsibility for violations. But the fact that modern armed conflicts often involve more than two actors (e.g. Libya 2011) complicates the matters arising out of environmental harm, as there may be two or more actors contributing to the same harmful event. This is a typical situation of shared responsibility. Shared responsibility provides that the problem of reparations for environmental harm is to be examined in situations where there is a multiplicity of actors that contribute to a single harmful outcome. This definition covers the breach of obligations under jus ad bellum and jus in bello, as well as under international environmental law.

scholarly journals International law protecting the environment during armed conflict: gaps and opportunities

2010 ◽  
Vol 92 (879) ◽  
pp. 569-592 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Bothe ◽  
Carl Bruch ◽  
Jordan Diamond ◽  
David Jensen
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Principle Of Proportionality ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractThere are three key deficiencies in the existing body of international humanitarian law (IHL) relating to protection of the environment during armed conflict. First, the definition of impermissible environmental damage is both too restrictive and unclear; second, there are legal uncertainties regarding the protection of elements of the environment as civilian objects; and third, the application of the principle of proportionality where harm to the environment constitutes ‘collateral damage’ is also problematic. These gaps present specific opportunities for clarifying and developing the existing framework. One approach to addressing some of the inadequacies of IHL could be application of international environmental law during armed conflict. The detailed norms, standards, approaches, and mechanisms found in international environmental law might also help to clarify and extend basic principles of IHL to prevent, address, or assess liability for environmental damage incurred during armed conflict.

scholarly journals GREEN CONSTITUTION INDONESIA (DISKURSUS PARADIGMATIK PEMBANGUNAN BERKELANJUTAN)

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 127
Author(s):  
Lucas Prabowo
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
Severe Damage ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Hard Law ◽  
The Right ◽  
International Conventions ◽  
Good Environment

Efforts to meet the economic needs of humans has resulted in severe damage to the ecosystem. Being aware that there is damage to natural resources and ecosystem are getting worse, various efforts underway to hold international conventions in the field of environmental protection has resulted in agreements, both of which are binding (hard law) and non-binding (soft law). Participating countries adopted the convention rules agrred up on into their legaislation, and even to strengthen the protection and enforcement of laws relating to environmental protection and the right to a good environment for the present dan future generations, environmental norms are then contained in the constitution including the Indonesian constitution, namely the post-UUD 1945 amandement. Keywords: environmental damage, international environmental law damage, intergerational equity, sustainable development, and constitution.

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