Implementation of International Environmental Law

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Ivanova ◽  
Natalia Escobar-Pemberthy ◽  
Anna Dubrova ◽  
Candace Famiglietti
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Law ◽  
International Environmental Agreements ◽  
Environmental Agreements ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Multilateral Environmental Agreements ◽  
National Characteristics ◽  
University Of Massachusetts ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Technical Measures

International environmental law is a key governance instrument for the protection of the environment. Countries take on a range of obligations when they join multilateral environmental agreements. This chapter presents a comparative assessment of the implementation of international environmental law in 13 countries for four agreements dealing with pollution and conservation. It offers an empirical assessment based on the Environmental Conventions Index (ECI) developed at the Center for Governance and Sustainability at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and compares performance across four key categories: regulation, management, information, and technical measures. The analysis establishes a baseline for assessing the implementation of international environmental law and explaining the impact of national characteristics, policies, and actions on the fulfillment and effectiveness of international environmental agreements.

scholarly journals Implementation of Multilateral Environmental Agreements: Rationale and Design of the Environmental Conventions Index

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (17) ◽  
pp. 7098
Author(s):  
Natalia Escobar-Pemberthy ◽  
Maria Ivanova
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Law ◽  
International Environmental Agreements ◽  
Measurement Tool ◽  
Environmental Agreements ◽  
Multilateral Environmental Agreements ◽  
Environmental Challenges ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Environmental Goals ◽  
University Of Massachusetts ◽  
The University

Global environmental conventions are created to address and resolve global environmental problems. Assessments of the achievement of specific environmental goals, however, indicate that there is room for progress and that improved collective action is required. Given the few existing studies that measure the implementation of international environmental law, it is important to expand existing analytical frameworks about international environmental agreements and their translation into national policies. This article explains the rationale and design of the Environmental Conventions Index, an implementation measurement tool we have developed at the Center for Governance and Sustainability at the University of Massachusetts Boston. The Index assesses the implementation of global environmental conventions in two clusters—conservation and pollution—showcasing the main trends for both countries and conventions. Using a mixed-method approach, we explain the development of this measurement tool as an instrument to inform policy changes at the national and global levels and present aggregate results of the analysis. As global environmental challenges in the conservation of natural resources and the persistence of pollutants become critical, assessment of countries’ performance on international environmental goals is essential. We offer an innovative method that provides academic analysis and policy input to improve implementation, and thus the effectiveness of these governance instruments in addressing global environmental challenges.

Compliance Theory

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald B. Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
International Environmental Agreements ◽  
Good Faith ◽  
Environmental Agreements ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Behavioural Changes ◽  
Induced Compliance ◽  
The Difference

International lawyers and legal scholars often assess the effects of international environmental agreements (IEAs) in terms of the extent to which states comply with their commitments. International relations scholars tend to examine IEA effects through a broader set of questions. They are concerned with any behavioural or environmental changes that can be attributed to an IEA – whether these changes involve compliance or not and regardless of whether these changes were desired, unintended, or even perverse. International relations scholars also focus on the reasons why states change their behaviour and what aspects, if any, of an IEA explain those behavioural changes. To see the difference between these approaches, consider four categories of behaviour: treaty-induced compliance, coincidental compliance, good faith non-compliance, and intentional non-compliance. This article reviews the theoretical terrain and shows that nominally ‘competing’ perspectives have different insights to offer those seeking to improve the practice of international environmental law.

scholarly journals What We Know (and Could Know) About International Environmental Agreements

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-121
Author(s):  
Ronald B. Mitchell ◽  
Liliana B. Andonova ◽  
Mark Axelrod ◽  
Jörg Balsiger ◽  
Thomas Bernauer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
International Environmental Agreements ◽  
Teaching Tool ◽  
Environmental Agreements ◽  
Design Features ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
International Environmental Governance ◽  
Graduate Teaching ◽  
Research Questions

Initiated in 2002, the International Environmental Agreements Data Base (IEADB) catalogs the texts, memberships, and design features of over 3,000 multilateral and bilateral environmental agreements. Using IEADB data, we create a comprehensive review of the evolution of international environmental law, including how the number, subjects, and state memberships in IEAs have changed over time. By providing IEA texts, the IEADB helps scholars identify and systematically code IEA design features. We review scholarship derived from the IEADB on international environmental governance, including insights into IEA membership, formation, and design as well as the deeper structure of international environmental law. We note the IEADB’s value as a teaching tool to promote undergraduate and graduate teaching and research. The IEADB’s structure and content opens up both broad research realms and specific research questions, and facilitates the ability of scholars to use the IEADB to answer those questions of greatest interest to them.

Equity

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelton Dinah
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Environmental Agreements ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Multilateral Environmental Agreements ◽  
Generational Equity ◽  
Perceptions Of Fairness ◽  
Sovereign Equality ◽  
Potential Impact

If perceptions of fairness or equity affect the level of participation and positive action among heterogeneous states, then they are likely to factor in the long-term success of an environmental regime or agreement. This article assesses the potential impact of equity on international environmental law. First, it examines the various meanings attributed to the term ‘equity’ in international law in general, and in international environmental law in particular; the roles equity has played in multilateral environmental agreements; and how different equitable principles are, or may be, implemented in practice. The article then discusses intra-generational equity and inter-generational equity, sovereign equality and equity, distributive justice in international law, principles for determining equitable allocation, and different ways of implementing principles of equity (substantive rules of equity, procedural rules).

Part VIII Compliance, Implementation, and Effectiveness, Ch.52 Transparency Procedures

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sparks Tom ◽  
Peters Anne
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Environmental Agreements ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Multilateral Environmental Agreements

This chapter explores how information obligations on states—to collect, report, or publish—are an important aspect of most modern multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). These have developed both alongside and as part of a wider ‘turn to transparency’ in international law, resulting in traditional forms of reporting, monitoring, and verification being incorporated into a more extensive set of transparency relationships. The chapter examines transparency as an increasingly important aspect of international environmental law, both as an end in itself and as a means of achieving other substantive goals. It frames transparency in international environmental law within the wider transparency turn. The chapter then looks at the techniques that are employed in customary and conventional environmental law to realize transparency, focusing on the compliance-centred, emancipatory, and advocative functions it performs.

Part I Context, Ch.3 Origin and History

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sand Peter H
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Law ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Environmental Agreements ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Multilateral Environmental Agreements ◽  
Human Environment ◽  
History Of ◽  
In Trans ◽  
Legal Concepts ◽  
Modern Era

This chapter traces the origin and history of international environmental law. The focus of historical research on the emergence of environment-related legal concepts, principles, and institutions has primarily been on the study and comparison of developments at the level of national law. Even so, the interface with international law is easily documented; the emergence of a body of rules of environmental ‘neighbourliness’ has long been observed in trans-frontier relations between states. Most narratives of the historical evolution of international environmental law distinguish three major ‘periods’, ‘epochs’, or ‘phases’: the ‘traditional era’ until about 1970 (that is, preceding the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm); the ‘modern era’ from Stockholm to the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro (UNCED); and the ‘post-modern era’ from Rio onwards. Ultimately, a striking feature of traditional international environmental law was its territoriality. One much-neglected aspect in this context has been the extraterritorial application of multilateral environmental agreements.

International Environmental Law in the Anthropocene: Towards a Purposive System of Multilateral Environmental Agreements

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rakhyun E. Kim ◽  
Klaus Bosselmann
Keyword(s):  
Life Support ◽  
Environmental Problem ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Environmental Agreements ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Multilateral Environmental Agreements ◽  
Law System ◽  
Strong Candidate

AbstractOur point of analytical departure is that the state of the global environment is deteriorating despite the accumulating body of international environmental law. By drawing on the recent Earth system science concept of interlinked planetary boundaries, this article makes a case for a goal-oriented, purposive system of multilateral environmental agreements. The notion of ‘goal’ is used here to mean a single, legally binding, superior norm – agrundnorm– that gives all international regimes and organizations a shared purpose to which their specific objectives must contribute. A bird’s eye view of the international environmental law system reveals how the absence of a unifying goal has created a condition that is conducive to environmental problemshiftingrather than problemsolving. We argue that a clearly agreed goal would provide the legal system with a point of reference for legal reasoning and interpretation, thereby enhancing institutional coherence across Earth’s subsystems. To this end, this article concludes by observing that the protection of the integrity of Earth’s life-support system has emerged as a common denominator among international environmental law instruments. Accordingly, we suggest that this notion is a strong candidate for the overarching goal of international environmental law.

Enforcement Mechanisms in International Law and International Environmental Law

elni Review ◽  
2005 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Jutta Brunnée
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Environmental Agreements ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Multilateral Environmental Agreements ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
Legal Sanctions ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Enforcement Mechanisms ◽  
Common Misconceptions

This essay aims to launch the proceedings of international law on a high note, and to suggest that many common impressions of it are wrong in general, and particularly wrong in the context of international environmental law. Even more particularly, multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) illustrate the maturation and sophistication of international environmental law. If anything, the diversity and flexibility of compliance approaches under MEAs highlight the limited purchase of simple dichotomies such as “binding vs. non-binding” or “enforcement vs. ineffectiveness”. The essay begins by exploring the concept of “enforcement” in international law in general. It suggests that a concept of enforcement as imposition of legal sanctions, or penalties, is unduly narrow. The essay then canvasses some of the main theoretical assumptions about international law and compliance. An exploration of this theoretical context illuminates the reasons underlying common misconceptions about international law and its enforcement, and helps put in perspective the evolution of approaches to compliance in international environmental law. Finally, against the backdrop of these general considerations, the author examines key features of the approaches to compliance and enforcement in international environmental law and MEAs. The aim is to provide a ‘bigger picture’, a context for the detailed discussions of compliance mechanisms that make up the bulk of the conference proceedings.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document