Routledge Handbook of International Environmental Law

Erika Techera, Jade Lindley, Karen N. Scott, Anastasia Telesetsky, Erika Techera, Jade Lindley, Karen N. Scott, Anastasia Telesetsky

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000320367
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Environmental Law
• Index: Law

This book critically explores the legal tools, concepts, principles and instruments, as well as cross-cutting issues, that comprise the field of international environmental law. Commencing with foundational elements, progressing on to discrete sub-fields, then exploring regional cooperative approaches, cross-cutting issues and finally emerging challenges for international environmental law, it features chapters by leading experts in the field of international environmental law, drawn from a range of countries in order to put forward a truly global approach to the subject.

The book is split into five parts:

• The foundations of international environmental law covering the principles of international environmental law, standards and voluntary commitments, sustainable development, issues of public participation and environmental rights and compliance, state responsibility, liability and dispute settlement.

• The key instruments and governance arrangements across the most critical areas of international environmental law: biodiversity, wildlife, freshwater, forestry and soils, fisheries, marine pollution, chemicals and waste, air and atmospheric pollution and climate change.

• Crucial developments in seven distinct regions of the world: Africa, Europe, North America, Latin America, South East Asia, the polar regions and small island states.

• Cross-cutting issues and multidisciplinary developments, drawing from multiple other fields of law and beyond to address human rights and Indigenous rights, war and armed conflict, trade, financing, investment, criminology, technology and energy.

• Contemporary challenges and the emerging international environmental law regimes which address these: the changing climate, forced migration, marine plastic debris and future directions in international environmental law.

Containing chapters on the most critical developments in environmental law in recent years, this comprehensive and authoritative book makes for an essential reference work for students, scholars and practitioners working in the field.

1
AN INTRODUCTION TO INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW

Karen N. Scott, Jade Lindley, Erika Techera and Anastasia Telesetsky

Introduction

In the eight years since the publication of the first edition of this Handbook, international environmental law has increased in both complexity and ambition. More significantly, the same period has also witnessed something of a transformation in the nature of global environmental governance, whereby goal-setting and informal or soft law instruments are driving international agendas, sometimes at the expense of traditional treaty arrangements. The 2010 Aichi Biodiversity Targets,¹ 2015 Sustainable Development Goals² and the 2015 Paris Agreement all utilise non-binding goals as part of governance strategies, which, moreover, are specifically designed to address stakeholders beyond the traditional nation state. On the basis of ‘new types of concerns, new actors and new standard-setting and compliance processes’³ Bodansky, Brunée and Hey argue that ‘it is no exaggeration to say that international environmental law has emerged as a distinct field’.⁴ They go on to assert that this distinctiveness is reflected in the very terminology of international environmental law, which speaks of ‘commitments’ rather than ‘obligations’; ‘non-compliance’ rather than ‘breach’; and ‘consequences’ rather than ‘remedies’ or ‘sanctions’.⁵ This Handbook explores this distinctive and still quite young field in the context of its broader relationship with international law more generally. As noted in the introduction to the first edition, the aim of the Handbook is to comprehensively cover the growing and evolving field of international environmental law. The chapters in this volume each contribute to this goal individually in various ways, and, in toto, provide a wide-ranging treatment from multiple perspectives. As in the first edition, a conscious effort has been made to include chapters focusing on all regions of the world, and to involve junior and senior scholars from within those regions where possible.

1 CBD Decision X/2 (2010), The Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets.

2 UNGA Res. 70/1 Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (25 September 2015).

3 Daniel Bodansky, Jutta Brunnée and Ellen Hey, ‘International Environmental Law: Mapping the Field’ in Daniel Bodansky, Jutta Brunnée and Ellen Hey (eds), The Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law (OUP 2007) 1, 24.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

The fact that we have ‘more’ and ‘different’ forms of environmental governance in 2020 compared to 2012 does not mean that international environmental law has been effective in preventing and mitigating global environmental harm. On the contrary, we are continuing to destroy the very atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere that we, as a species, depend on. It is estimated that 75 percent of the land-surface area of the Earth is significantly altered and 66 percent of the oceans is subject to cumulative anthropogenic impact.⁶ An average of 25 percent of animal and plant species are threatened, with predictions that around one million species are currently facing extinction.⁷ Only 7 percent of fish stocks are classed as ‘under-fished’⁸ and industrial fishing covers some 55 percent of the oceans; leaving few fisheries, and diminishing ocean areas, untouched by large commercial-scale operations.⁹ Some ecosystems are particularly vulnerable, with 85 percent of wetlands and 50 percent of coral reefs already lost.¹⁰ The climate has warmed by approximately 1°C on average above pre-industrial levels owing to anthropogenic activities,¹¹ with sea levels rising by 0.19m between 1901 and 2010.¹² Since 1993, the rate of ocean warming has more than doubled¹³ and, owing to the draw-down of CO ₂ into the ocean, ocean pH has decreased by 0.1 pH units,¹⁴ the equivalent of an increase in ocean acidity of about 30 percent.¹⁵ Although marine pollution from vessels has been improved through environmental regulation, land-based pollution continues to threaten fragile ecosystems. Marine plastic has become the most recently recognised threat to the marine environment and it is estimated that during 2010 alone, between 4.8 and 12.7 million tonnes of mismanaged land-based plastic entered the oceans.¹⁶ On land, soil erosion is up to 100 times the rate of soil formation (depending on agricultural method used),¹⁷ and agriculture accounts for 70 percent of global freshwater use.¹⁸ Moreover, the annual area of drylands in drought is increasing by approximately 1 percent per year.¹⁹ Sadly, many environmental indicators have not improved since the first edition of this volume was produced: for example, species loss and greenhouse gas emissions have significantly increased, and light and noise pollution have emerged as growing threats. In 2020, the world was dominated by COVID-19; one consequence of the disease was the cancellation of most international meetings, the implications of which for international environmental agendas are likely to be negative. However, COVID-19 and similar zoonoses are directly connected to live animal markets, land-clearing and habitat fragmentation,²⁰ and thus human and environmental health is intimately connected. Finally, the destruction of ecosystems and environmental degradation does not affect everyone equally. The loss of ecosystem services intensifies poverty, exacerbates inequality and diminishes the benefits that future generations derive from the planet’s natural capital.²¹

6 S. Díaz, J. Settele, E. S. Brondízio et al. (eds), IPBES (2019) Summary for Policy Makers of the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES Secretariat 2019) 10.

7 Ibid. 11.

8 Ibid. 28.

9 Ibid. 29.

10 Ibid. 11.

11 IPCC, 2018: Summary for Policymakers. In: Global Warming of 1.5°C. An IPPC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty [V. Masson-Delmotte, P. Zhai, H.-O. Pörtner et al. (eds) (in press)] 4.

12 D.L. Hartmann, A.M.G. Klein Tank, M. Rusticucci et al., ‘Observations: Atmosphere’ in T. F. Stocker, D. Quin, G. K. Platter et al. (eds), Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (CUP 2013) 258.

13 IPCC, 2019: Summary for Policymakers. In: IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate [H.O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, V. Masson-Delmotte et al. (eds) (in press)] 7.

14 V. Rérolle, C. Floquet and M. Mowlem, ‘Seawater-pH Measurements for Ocean-Acidification Observations’ (2012) 40 Trends in Analytical Chemistry 146, 146.

15 S. Dupont and H. Pörner, ‘A Snapshot of Ocean Acidification Research’ (2013) 160 Marine Biology 1765, 1765.

16 Patricia Villarrubia-Gómez, Sarah E. Cornell and Joan Fabres, ‘Marine Plastic Pollution as a Planetary Boundary Threat – The Drifting Piece in the Sustainability Puzzle’ (2018) 96 Marine Pol’y 213, 213.

17 IPCC, 2019: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change and Land: An IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems [P. R. Shukla, J. Skea, E. Calvo Buendia et al. (eds) (in press)] 7.

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid.

20 Díaz, Settele, Brondízio et al. (n 6) 22.

21 See United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Synthesis (Island Press 2005) 1–24 <www.millenniumassessment.org/documents/document.356.aspx.pdf> accessed 29 June 2020.

In light of this context, the Routledge Handbook of International Environmental Law critically explores the legal tools, concepts, principles and instruments, as well as cross-cutting issues, that comprise the field of international environmental law. The book is divided into five parts comprising 35 chapters. The parts have been designed to build upon each other, commencing with foundational elements, progressing on to discreet sub-fields, then exploring regional cooperative approaches, cross-cutting issues and finally emerging challenges for international environmental law.

Part I includes six chapters focused on the foundations of international environmental law. The contributions cover diverse topics such as the principles of international environmental law, as well as standards and voluntary commitments, concepts such as sustainable development, issues of public participation and environmental rights and, also, compliance, state responsibility, liability and dispute settlement. Many of the topics covered in this part are expanded upon in later chapters, focusing on discreet topic areas. Part II comprises nine chapters covering the key instruments and governance arrangements across the most critical areas of international environmental law: biodiversity, wildlife, freshwater, forestry and soils, fisheries, marine pollution, chemicals and waste, air and atmospheric pollution and climate change. Part III captures crucial developments in seven distinct regions of the world: Africa, Europe, North America, Latin America, South East Asia, the polar regions, and small island states. Part IV focuses on crossing-cutting issues and multidisciplinary developments. The eight chapters in this part draw from multiple other fields of law and beyond: human rights and Indigenous rights, war and armed conflict, trade, financing, investment, criminology, technology and energy. The final section of the book, Part V, explores four contemporary challenges and the emerging international environmental law regimes to address them: the changing climate, forced migration, marine plastic debris and future directions in international ...