International Environmental Law
By: Peter Miles
Tags: Csd, United Nations, Unesco, Undp, International Law

With our present global environmental issues such as ecosystem destruction, biological diversity loss and climate change, I thought it may be of interest to summarize international environmental law.

Flag of the United Nations. Image Public Domain Wikipedia

International law differs from domestic law in that it applies to countries, called states, not to individuals and businesses.

There is no World Parliament or World Government to introduce agreements by conventions and treaties. Instead those conventions are made by groups of countries concerned with the matter needing agreement or by the United Nations through the United Nations Development Program, UNDP. States that do not agree can choose not to participate. The community of states is effectively the parliament.

Human rights violations are dealt with in the International Court of Justice (ICJ, 2020).

The International Court of Justice at The Hague. Image— ICJ.

States that have agreed to engage in international law, work with the rights and obligations of states and the relationship between those states.

In domestic law, state institutions have enforceable powers but international law is more defined by the principle of common responsibility according to the capacity of the country, for example the Kyoto Protocol and the varying degrees of carbon reduction each state agreed to.

International law can come from three sources, the United Nations conventions and treaties, from customary law and from general principles of international law recognized by civilized nations.

The United Nations conventions and treaties source is the United Nations Environment Program, UNEP, which develops International Environmental Law, for example it drafted the Conventions on Climate Change.

Also involved in international law development are the Commission on Sustainable Development, the United Nations Development Program, the World Bank and the United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organisation UNESCO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD and the South Pacific Regional Environment Program SPREP.

One major non-government organization NGO that has been involved, is the International Union for the Conservation of nature, IUCN, which helped in the formulation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species CITIES.

Developing international agreements, referred to as conventions or treaties, is similar to making legislation in countries domestic law.

Conventions and treaties are agreements between states, multilateral agreements are between multiple states and bilateral agreements are between two. States become bound by conventions upon ratification, not by signature which should signal intention to agreement in theory. Ratification becomes so upon agreement by the states own parliament.

Environmental framework treaties are used when the states involved agree in principle with the intent of the treaty but haven’t agreed about the details. They have agreed with the framework but the details are still being negotiated. An example is the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change UNFCCC.

The next source of international law is customary law, this is generally an accepted practice or custom which has been brought into law, an example is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea UNCLOS.

Another source for international law is the general principles of international law recognized by civilized nations, one refers to the principle of ‘good faith’, for example stopping atmospheric testing of nuclear bombs. Also, the principle of ‘compensation for harm caused’, for example from toxic gases released by smelting or excessive damming or redirection of rivers and the harm caused to another state.

Enforcing international law obligations is difficult as there is no world environmental regulator and compliance comes down to decisions by a participating state. Compliance incentives are often influenced by international politics rather than responsibility. Japan’s continuing whale hunting in the Southern Ocean is an example of this.

Environmental Law is important because of its subject matter. One of its most important features are the principles which exist even without dependence on conventions and treaties, that is, environmental protection, nature conservation and sustainable development.

References:

Bates, G. (2010). Environmental Law in Australia (7th Ed.). Australia. LexisNexis Butterworths. Book.

Fisher, D., E. (2010) Australian Environmental Law (2nd Ed.). Australia. Thomson Reuters. Book.

ICJ (2020) International Court of Justice https://www.icj-cij.org/en

United Nations (2020) https://visit.un.org/