'Islands and the South: Framing the Relationship between International Law and Environmental Crisis', European Journal of International Law, July 2016 (original) (raw)
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Meltdown! International Law Praxis During Socio-Ecological Crises
Third World Approaches to International Law Review, 2021
Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) is a movement encompassing scholars and practitioners of international law and policy who are concerned with issues related to the global South in its broad conception. In this publication, three TWAIL-affiliated scholars (Julia Dehm, Carmen G. Gonzalez, and Usha Natarajan) respond to questions about international law praxis at a time of systemic social, economic, and ecological meltdown -- including explosive economic inequality, COVID-19, catastrophic climate change, unprecedented species extinction, toxic masculinity, resurgent white supremacy, and the threats to life and health posed by polluted air, contaminated water, and destruction of the planet's ecosystems. This publication is based on a keynote event organized by Rose Parfitt, Luis Eslava & Marcus Gunneflo, co-directors of the International Law & Politics Collaborative Research Network, at the 2021 Law & Society Annual Meeting on 27 May 2021. This dialogue was published in the TWAIL Review, https://twailr.com/ It is available at: https://twailr.com/meltdown-international-law-praxis-during-socio-ecological-crises/#
Routledge Publishing (London/New-York), Routledge Explorations in Environmental Studies, 2021
Kirk W. Junker and Paolo Davide Farah, GLOBALIZATION, ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH: CHALLENGES FOR IMPLEMENTATION, Routledge Publishing (London/New-York), Routledge Explorations in Environmental Studies, ISBN 9780367749132, November 2021, pp. 348. Entire Book Available in Open Access: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract\_id=4354355 This volume examines the impact of globalization on international environmental law and the implementation of sustainable development in the Global South. Comprising contributions from lawyers from the Global South or who have experience in the Global South, this volume is organized into three parts, with a thematic inquiry woven through every chapter to ask how law can enable economies that can be sustained, given the limited carrying capacity of the earth. Part I describes and characterizes the status quo of environmental and economic problems in the Global South during the process of globalization. Some of those problems include redistribution of environmental burden on the public through over-reliance on the state in emerging economies and the transition to public-private partnerships, as well as extreme uncontrolled economic expansion. Building on Part I, Part II takes an international perspective by presenting some tools that are in place during the process of globalization that lead to friction and interfaces between developed and developing economies in environmental law. Recognizing the impossibility of a globalized Northern economy, the authors in Part III present some alternatives through framework ideas of human and civil rights, environmental rights, and indigenous persons’ rights, as well as concrete and specific legal tools to strengthen justice and rule of law institutions. The book gives new perspectives to familiar approaches through concrete examples by professional practitioners and theoretical discourse by academic researchers, and can thereby form the basis for changes in practices, as well as further discussions and comparisons. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental law, sustainable development, and globalization and international relations, as well as legal professionals and practitioners. Keywords: Globalization, Global South, Environment, Energy, Sustainable Development, Paris Agreement, Environmental Risks, Litigation Remedies, Governance, Extractive Industries, Mongolia, Nigeria, Uganda, Ethiopia, East Africa, South Africa, India, China, Brazil, European Union, Caribbean Small Islands Kirk W. Junker and Paolo Davide Farah, GLOBALIZATION, ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH: CHALLENGES FOR IMPLEMENTATION, Routledge Publishing (London/New-York), Routledge Explorations in Environmental Studies, ISBN 9780367749132, November 2021, pp. 348. Entire Book Available in Open Access: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract\_id=4354355
Under the paradigm of sustainable development, contemporary international law has not been able to shape an effective, nor an equitable, answer to the global ecological crisis. There is widespread consensus that environmental governance requires a major overhaul if humankind wishes to meet that challenge. Our main point is that global patterns of ecologically unequal exchange will not be corrected just by minor adaptations of existing international regimes. Nor will change come through the formal enactment of a given set of principles. Rather, correction will require a profound reconceptualisation of global governance that is able to integrate counter-hegemonic claims for environmental justice. This report has four parts. The first one is a conceptual introduction that puts in context concepts emerging from the academic or social movements, such as ecological and climate debt, against the backdrop of the legal narratives that underpin the hegemonic model of development. The second p...
Environmental Justice and International Environmental Law
2013
Environmental justice lies at the heart of many environmental disputes between the global North and the global South as well as grassroots environmental struggles within nations. However, the discourse of international environmental law is often ahistorical and technocratic. It neither educates the North about its inordinate contribution to global environmental problems nor provides an adequate response to the concerns of nations and communities disproportionately burdened by poverty and environmental degradation. This article examines some of the root causes of environmental injustice among and within nations from the colonial period to the present, and discusses several strategies that can be used to integrate environmental justice into the broader corpus of international law so as to promote social and economic justice while protecting the planet’s natural resources for the benefit of present and future generations.
Environmental Justice, Human Rights, and the Global South
From the Ogoni people devastated by oil drilling in Nigeria to the Inuit and other indigenous populations threatened by climate change, communities disparately burdened by environmental degradation are increasingly framing their demands for environmental justice in the language of environmental human rights. Domestic and international tribunals have concluded that failure to protect the environment violates a variety of human rights (including the rights to life, health, food, water, property, and privacy; the collective rights of indigenous peoples to their ancestral lands and resources; and the right to a healthy environment). Some scholars have questioned the utility of the human rights framework given the diminished governance capacity of many Third World states due to decades of intervention by international financial institutions and restrictions imposed by trade and investment agreements. Others have expressed doubts about the ability of human rights law to adequately articulate and advance the aspirations and resistance strategies of diverse grassroots social justice movements, and have warned about the susceptibility of human rights law and discourse to cooptation by powerful states to advance their own economic and political interests (for example, through “humanitarian intervention” in Third World states). This article examines the promise and the peril of environmental human rights as a means of challenging environmental injustice within nations as well as the North-South dimension of environmental injustice. Drawing a distinction between human rights discourse as a tool of popular mobilization and human rights law as codified in legal instruments and enforced by international institutions, the article examines some of the limitations of human rights law as an instrument of resistance to environmental injustice and offers several strategies to enhance its emancipatory potential.
Navigating the Waters: International Law, Environment and Human Rights
PETITA: JURNAL KAJIAN ILMU HUKUM DAN SYARIAH
Over the years, the relationship between the environment and human rights has received global attention. The connection between the individuals, environment and international law is indispensable. However, domestic environmental activities and globalisation set domino effects on climate change where the actions within one jurisdiction affect the environment of neighbouring states. Sovereignty, state obligations and human rights are instruments that can regulate the protection of the environment. Set against this background, this paper will assess the contribution of international law to the protection of the environment, particularly the extent of enforceability of general state obligations through the 'no harm rule.' Arguably, transboundary harm is inevitable in most environmental activities. Therefore, the engaging state is obligated to take measures known as due diligence to regulate the transfer of transboundary harm. The threshold for these environmental activities is s...
Netherlands Yearbook of International Law , 2023
Over the past decade and a half, various natural entities have been recognised as having rights or legal personhood in certain domestic jurisdictions. The idea of nature as rights-bearing is seen by advocates to be a new and improved response to environmental threats. While rights of nature approaches are increasingly evident in transnational law, orthodox international law has yet to engage seriously with such approaches, despite increasing calls to recognise the rights of nature in international law. In this contribution we consider the potential and limitations of rights-based protections of nature as part of the ‘greening’ of international law. We argue that attempts to incorporate the rights of nature into international law need to be understood within the wider context and history of international law, including trajectories of colonialism and economic resource exploitation. Although rights of nature approaches may offer a path towards a greener international law, this path should not be followed in a way that reproduces problematic, homogenising aspects of international law, but instead centres human relationality with nature in place. Instead, we argue that there are important lessons to be learnt from transnational attempts to protect and implement rights of nature and legal personhood, especially where models are informed by Indigenous peoples’ relationships with nature.
The American Journal of International Law, 2013
Bridging the North-South Divide: International Environmental Law in the Anthropocene
The failure of international law and institutions to address global environmental degradation has significant implications for law and society as the planet’s ecosystems approach irreversible tipping points. According to a recent study published in the journal Science, the global economy has transgressed four of the nine “planetary boundaries” critical to the planet’s self-regulating capacity. Climate change, deforestation, species extinction, and the runoff of phosphorus and nitrogen into regional watersheds and oceans have exceeded safe biophysical thresholds. Scientists refer to the current geologic era of human-induced environmental change as the Anthropocene. These environmental problems are inextricably intertwined with patterns of trade, finance, investment, and production that have created an enormous and growing economic gap between and within affluent and poor countries -- the global North and the global South. Grounded in colonialism, these North-South divisions have often paralyzed international law-making, resulting in deadlocks in environmental treaty negotiations and agreements characterized by ambiguity, lack of ambition, and inadequate compliance and enforcement mechanisms. International environmental law is a field in crisis because the problems it currently confronts are deeply embedded in the existing economic order and cannot be adequately addressed by simply tinkering on the margins. This article examines the North-South divide in international environmental law and offers several strategies to bridge the divide and create a more just and sustainable economic order grounded in a robust conception of environmental justice.