Negotiating an International Legal Instrument on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction: A Look Ahead

The negotiation of the future Agreement governing the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction is in its final stage. Essentially a treaty for the protection of general interests, the Agreement can generate several benefits for the governance of the oceans. However, in the first three sessions of the intergovernmental conference, deep discrepancies have emerged with respect to the core issues of the package agreed in 2011. This article identifies various formulas and strategies that have been considered in the negotiations and incorporated in the Revised draft text as possible regulatory options with the potential to bring positions closer and facilitate the agreement: avoiding explicit reference to the legal status of marine genetic resources; the incorporation of differential and contextual norms; the introduction of due diligence obligations; the incorporation of internal soft law; and the reduction of the scope of the treaty. These options may help to provide flexibility and differentiation in the regulation but, as essentially pragmatic measures, they tend to sacrifice the ambition of the final Agreement. On the other hand, if States assume their real role and responsibility in the process –that of interpreters of general interest and custodians of marine biodiversity –they would be in a better position to find novel and more ambitious solutions for bringing this crucial Agreement to fruition. This article advocates a return to basics and the placing of the marine environment at the centre of the regulations.

Depleting Time Itself: The Plight of Today’s “Human” Environment

Earth, and its human societies, are seized with the triple crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pervasive and escalating levels of pollution. In the 50 years since the 1972 UN Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE), States and UN Environment Program (UNEP) have created an entirely new body of international environmental law, and agreed on the UN Sustainable Development Goals for further socio-economic developments to help the 7.9 billion people on Earth today, and the 1.5 more billion expected soon. The article highlights the accomplishments of the past five decades, launched in Stockholm. However, beyond depleting the resources of Earth’s natural and physical environment, humanity has also depleted time itself. There is not enough time left to permit the pace of environmental law-making to lead to success. Political will has eroded too, leaving “business as usual” to continue to harm the environment. Fortunately, most nations have recognized the right to the environment, and the UN General Assembly is asked to do so in 2022. At the same time, courts around the world are increasingly enforcing environmental rights. If courts world-wide begin to enforce the right to the environment, pathways to attaining sustainable development can be developed beyond Stockholm+50 (2022).

World Lawyers’ Pledge on Climate Action

The World Lawyers’ Pledge on Climate Action is an open letter from and to the global legal community, calling for the mainstreaming of climate concerns throughout the law and legal profession. It seeks to rethink and redefine the role and responsibilities of lawyers in the climate crisis, and invites lawyers of all kinds –including practitioners, judges, scholars, civil servants, law students, and lawmakers –to integrate climate concerns into their respective areas of expertise and work. The magnitude and urgency of the climate crisis require all lawyers, not just environmental lawyers, to be part of the solution and contribute to climate-protective legal development. The Pledge can be endorsed and signed at http://www.lawyersclimatepledge.org.

Environmental Crime and Law Enforcement in Indonesia: Some Reflections on Counterproductive Approaches

The enforcement of environmental law in Indonesia shows a contradictory nature. The exploitation of natural resources by corporations has caused unparalleled disasters. Yet, the perpetrators, especially those corporations who work in collective, are rarely able to be persecuted. This research aims to examine the obstacles to environmental law enforcement in Indonesia and analyze the ideal environmental law enforcement model for future use. This research uses a qualitative approach which examines the concepts related to the ideal law enforcement for the future (ius constituendum). Our examination finds that there are three main obstacles in enforcing environmental law in Indonesia: the inability to deal with corporations which have strong political backing, overlapping authorities in the process of crime investigation, and difficulties faced by law enforcement officers in finding evidence. In light of these findings, we propose a model of legal protection for victims of pollution and/ or environmental destruction using the principle of restorative justice. In this model, judges can represent facilitators from the state for the initial stage. The value of this model is that rather than only pursuing punishment for the perpetrators, it shifts the focus towards providing compensation for the victims by the perpetrators.

Bahrain’s Environmental Legal Tools for Giving Effect to Sustainable Development Goals: An Assessment

Sustainable development in Bahrain is considered one of the national core objectives in the Government Action Plan. Bahrain has enacted environmental legislation and adopted the National Environment Strategy. This study examines the appropriateness of the current environmental legislations in the context of SDGs. To achieve this goal, a scoping review was conducted to assess their compatibility. The study revealed that the successful integration of SDGs with the current environmental legislations can be carried out by recognising the challenges highlighted in the 2030 Agenda. This study suggests the quick-updating of the current environmental legislations in line with SDGs. There is still room for improvement, and more comprehensive and sustainable approaches need to be developed in the environment dimension to stay on track to reach the SDGs. The policies should factor in the possible linkage opportunities to develop a holistic management approach in the implementation, considering the international conventions’ obligations. The study can be deemed as the first attempt to examine the consistency of the SDGs with the national environmental legal framework, which can be employed to enhance the sustainable practices. Moreover, the study develops a simple framework that can assist in review, keep the legislations and strategy consistent with the SDGs.

Do We Need an International Instrument for the Recognition of the Right to a Healthy Environment?

Environmental degradation is continuing globally despite various international environmental treaties. If the right to a healthy environment is recognised by a global instrument, this international recognition of this right could enhance the implementation and enforcement of various multilateral environmental agreements. Moreover, the international recognition of this right to a healthy environment could create a level playing field at the international level to ensure better balancing of competing interests. Furthermore, an international instrument for the recognition of this right is necessary to address many environmental challenges including climate change, the loss of biodiversity, marine pollution, long-range air pollution and plastic pollution which have global or trans-boundary dimensions. A second optional protocol to the ICESCR as an international instrument for the recognition of the right to a healthy environment could be adopted. It would be the best option for the adoption of an international instrument to recognise the right to a healthy environment.

Space Debris Mitigation: Some Lessons from International Environmental Law

The Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I in 1957 which led to the era of space activities. Although human race has benefited numerous from space activities, unlimited use of outer space has caused pollutions in outer space and consequently at the earth environment. Space debris has become a threat to the security of space activities. Space debris is the most important of these pollutions that, not only creates numerous threats and risks for Orbiting Satellites, It also has harmful effects on earth environment. During drafting UN space treaties, little attention was paid to environmental problems and these treaties did not mentioned of space debris and its hazards. in recent decades, Ethics of Outer Space activities, paid more attention to the environment of outer space and environmental issue of space activities. Therefore, the experiences of environmental law and its preventive policies can be used to reduce the threat of space debris for peaceful space activities and the environment of space and planet Earth.

Dubai and Barcelona as Smart Cities: Some Reflections on Data Protection Law and Privacy

This study introduces a descriptive analysis to carry out the transformation of the Dubai smart city as a case study in the GCC region with reference to the Barcelona smart city. Furthermore, to investigate how the Dubai smart city will deal with the huge amount of the collected personal data through Internet of Things devices and applications. The theoretical analysis shows that the Barcelona smart city can be represented as an effective model, its innovations recommends to be used in Dubai smart city. The analysis founds that the classification of the collected data inside smart city to open and shared data did not provide sufficient privacy for personal data. Therefore, the personal data should be classified explicitly in order to be processed separately under the rules of the data protection law.