The Southern Ocean Sanctuary and the Evolution of International Environmental Law

2000 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Gillespie
Keyword(s):  
Southern Ocean ◽  
Environmental Concern ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
International Community ◽  
Vienna Convention ◽  
Statutory Interpretation ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
International Whaling Commission ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Global Environmental Concern

AbstractThe legality of the Southern Ocean Sanctuary has been a matter of debate. This paper seeks to explain the Sanctuary as being both legal and illustrative of the development of international environmental law within a new, evolutionary framework. A teleological approach to statutory interpretation could construe the Convention in ways that are supportive of the non-lethal utilisation of cetaceans. Such an interpretation may be supported under the Vienna Convention, whereby if examples of previous practice demonstrating different interpretations of the language in question can be shown, then this practice is evidence that a different interpretation of the convention in question is legitimate. This has been the case with the International Whaling Commission. The paper concludes that the Southern Ocean Sanctuary may be regarded as being both a legal and authoritative example of the way in which the majority of the international community has viewed one area of global environmental concern.

scholarly journals A Global Environmental Constitution for the Anthropocene?

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Kotzé
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Regulatory Reform ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The World ◽  
Un General Assembly

AbstractInternational environmental law (IEL) has been unable to respond effectively to the Anthropocene’s global socio-ecological crisis, which is critically existential and requires radical interventions and regulatory reform. This article explores the potential of the recent United Nations (UN)-backed initiative to adopt a Global Pact for the Environment as an opportunity to reform IEL. It does so by (i) reflecting on the Anthropocene’s demands for a constitutionalized form of IEL through the lens of global environmental constitutionalism; (ii) investigating the extent to which the Global Pact could contribute to such a vision; and (iii) suggesting ways in which to strengthen the constitutional potential of the Global Pact in this endeavour. To this end, the article revisits the World Charter for Nature of 1982, which seems to have slipped off the radar in academic as well as policy circles. A case is made for renewed support of the Charter – which already enjoys the backing of the majority of UN General Assembly member states, and which has constitutional qualities – to serve as a ‘best-practice’ example during the ensuing negotiation of the Global Pact.

UNGA as the Anchor: Global Environmental Conferencing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nele Matz-Lück ◽  
Liv Christiansen
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Institution Building ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Agenda 2030 ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Rules And Principles ◽  
United Nations General Assembly

The global environmental conferences convened by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) during the last fifty years have contributed to the development of international environmental law and institution-building. Yet, given the deteriorating state of the global environment they are but one element of international environmental governance. While they were important to bring environmental issues to the attention of states, the time for agenda-setting seems over. Rather the international community must move on to the implementation of existing binding and non-binding rules and principles. While the UNGA continues to play an important role in the context of sustainable development and the Agenda 2030 process and is, indeed a stable platform for international cooperation on environmental issues, it seems that the time for comprehensive global environmental conferences may have come to an end, unless more innovative mechanisms for the implementation of international environmental law and policy are brought forward.

Part II Analytical Approaches, Ch.10 Economics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Faure Michael
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Pollution ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Environmental Quality ◽  
Market Failure ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Coase Theorem ◽  
Economic Perspective ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Environmental Good

This chapter explains that the starting point for the economic approach to both domestic as well as international environmental law is that environmental problems (including but not limited to environmental pollution) constitute a market failure. From this economic perspective transboundary environmental pollution emerges. Moreover, global environmental quality is, from an economic perspective, a so-called public good of which all states will benefit. But since no state can exclude others from benefitting from this global environmental good, there is a danger of ‘free-riding’ as a result of which this global public good (environmental quality) may be insufficiently produced. These starting points provide a basis for the emergence of international environmental law, more particularly treaty law. However, a classic paradigm in what has become known as the law and economics literature is the Coase Theorem. The chapter then addresses the likelihood of Coasean solutions to emerge as a remedy to transboundary environmental pollution. It also looks at reasons for states to conclude treaties.

scholarly journals A Review of Cardiovascular Toxicity of Microcystins

Toxins ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 507 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linghui Cao ◽  
Isaac Yaw Massey ◽  
Hai Feng ◽  
Fei Yang
Keyword(s):  
Cardiovascular Health ◽  
Environmental Concern ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Public Health Problem ◽  
Cyanobacterial Blooms ◽  
Major Public Health Problem ◽  
Cardiovascular Toxicity ◽  
Secondary Products ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Global Environmental Concern

The mortality rate of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in China is on the rise. The increasing burden of CVD in China has become a major public health problem. Cyanobacterial blooms have been recently considered a global environmental concern. Microcystins (MCs) are the secondary products of cyanobacteria metabolism and the most harmful cyanotoxin found in water bodies. Recent studies provide strong evidence of positive associations between MC exposure and cardiotoxicity, representing a threat to human cardiovascular health. This review focuses on the effects of MCs on the cardiovascular system and provides some evidence that CVD could be induced by MCs. We summarized the current knowledge of the cardiovascular toxicity of MCs, with regard to direct cardiovascular toxicity and indirect cardiovascular toxicity. Toxicity of MCs is mainly governed by the increasing level of reactive oxygen species (ROS), oxidative stress in mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum, the inhibition activities of serine/threonine protein phosphatase 1 (PP1) and 2A (PP2A) and the destruction of cytoskeletons, which finally induce the occurrence of CVD. To protect human health from the threat of MCs, this paper also puts forward some directions for further research.

scholarly journals Ch.1 International Environmental Law: Changing Context, Emerging Trends, and Expanding Frontiers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajamani Lavanya ◽  
Peel Jacqueline
Keyword(s):  
Disaster Response ◽  
Technology Innovation ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Migration Energy ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Global Environmental Problems ◽  
Emerging Trends ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Trade And Investment

This chapter provides an overview of international environmental law, which is the legal and regulatory framework devised by the community of sovereign states to address global environmental problems. These problems include the potential for runaway climate change, vanishing biodiversity, increasing freshwater scarcity, and severe degradation of marine resources and ocean ecosystems. In the last decade, international environmental law has acquired further breadth, depth, nuance, complexity, and reach. In particular, it is more deeply interconnected with policy and legal efforts in many other fields, including international trade and investment, human rights and migration, energy, disaster response, armed conflict, technology innovation and intellectual property protection. The chapter then explores and illustrates the ways in which international environmental law has evolved over the last decade. It highlights how the field has adapted to a changing geo-political context, as well as to the possibilities and limits of global regulation in addressing the complex, polycentric, and intractable nature of environmental harms.

Nature-based climate solutions to grow globally

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Concern ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Environmental Risks ◽  
Transformative Change ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Critical Thresholds ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Data Gaps ◽  
Global Environmental Concern

Subject Biodiversity and climate change. Significance The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has reported that 1 million animal and plant species face extinction and that many ecosystems are moving closer to critical thresholds, describing the rate of global change in nature as "unprecedented in human history". The report calls for "transformative change" in economic and social structures that drive biodiversity loss. As in other areas of global environmental concern, improving biodiversity action is increasingly seen not just as a matter for states, but also as a challenge for the private sector, subnational actors and the international financial system. Impacts Companies will face increased pressure to widen due diligence requirements to include environmental risks. Data gaps on quantifying the value and impact of biodiversity at a localised level will continue to limit policy mainstreaming. Efforts to increase biodiversity finance flows will look to mirror the example of climate finance.

Public Participation in Global Environmental Governance and the Equator Principles: Potential and Pitfalls

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 1386-1411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten Mikadze
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Global Environment ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Hard Law ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Equator Principles ◽  
Global Environmental Issues

Despite the increasing urgency of global environmental issues, international environmental law continues to struggle for relevancy and effectiveness. Even as legal efforts have intensified, the global environment has continued to deteriorate. In particular, state-centric, multilateral “hard law” instruments have proven an increasingly ineffectual means of regulating the global environment.

Environmental Regulation in the People's Republic of China: The Face of Domestic Law

1998 ◽  
Vol 156 ◽  
pp. 788-808 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Environmental Concern ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Human Environment ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Industrial Management ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The Face

In the post-Mao era, one highly significant dimension of China's official programme of reform and integration into the international economy has been a commitment to legal construction. This commitment has included a sustained effort to fashion a basic corpus of environmental protection law alongside supportive institutions, administrative norms and policies, in order to create a “basic legal system of environmental protection” (huanjing baohu de jiben falii zhidu).' In the eyes of the authorities in the People's Republic of China, such efforts reflect a degree of environmental concern that is unusually strong for a developing society.2 China's achievements, we are often told, must be placed in the context of the considerable difficulties the PRC faces in terms of the pressing need to raise living standards, a serious problem of over-population, a shortage of natural resources, an outdated industrial infrastructure and poor industrial management.3 Of course, viewed comparatively, the PRC's embrace of environmental protection law was somewhat belated,4 only properly commencing after its participation in the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm. The subsequent expansion of environmental legislation and enforcement has been some-what erratic. Nevertheless, there appears to be a continuing intent to fashion a substantial body of environmental law, and concern with the construction and revision of this was further enhanced by China's participation in the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro. Following this, Premier Li Peng “made a commitment to conscientiously implement resolutions adopted at the Conference”5 and, given the PRC's very substantial size and population, a positive embrace of internationally acceptable standards of environmental welfare is highly significant for future global environmental protection. This article examines the principal features and significance of the PRC's domestic environmental protection law, and considers briefly the implications of the Chinese approach to environmental law for understanding the development of law more generally in post-Mao China.

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