UNGA as the Anchor: Global Environmental Conferencing

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Nele Matz-Lück ◽  
Liv Christiansen
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
Human Environment ◽  
Progressive Development ◽  
Existing Structures ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The Status ◽  
Further Development

It has been nearly 50 years since the pioneering first global UN Conference on Human Environment was organized in Stockholm in 1972. After that, several global conferences took place over the last decades. Some of them have been praised for their contribution to shaping international environmental institutions and international treaties; others have passed almost unnoticed by the wider public. Yet, these global environmental conferences have cumulatively provided the foundations for the development of international environmental policies and the progressive development of law. In the light of ongoing environmental degradation in the ‘Anthropocene,’ the further development of environmental governance seems more important than ever. Hence, this chapter seeks to examine how this future pathway would look like as regards the technique of global environmental conferences have hitherto shaped the existing structures of international environmental governance. It surmises that the UNGA could be described as an anchor that merely maintains the status quo of international environmental law and policy.

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.

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.

Indigenous Environmental Movements and the Function of Governance Institutions

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Powys Whyte
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
First Century ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Environmental Movements ◽  
Market Mechanisms ◽  
Global Environmental Politics ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Governance Institutions

Indigenous environmental movements have been important actors in twentieth- and twenty-first-century global environmental politics and environmental justice. Their explicit foci range from the protection of indigenous environmental stewardship systems to upholding and expanding treaty responsibilities to securing indigenous rights in law and policy. This chapter suggests that these movements open important intellectual spaces for thinking about the function of environmental governance institutions in addressing complex environmental issues such as clean water and forest conservation. Different from institutional functions based on market mechanisms or appeals to human psychological tendencies, a variety of indigenous environmentalists suggest that institutions should function to convene reciprocal responsibilities across relatives as diverse as humans, non-human beings such as plants, entities such as water, and collectives such as forests.

The Emerging Practice of Global Environmental Law

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tseming Yang
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
General Counsel ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Human Environment ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Governance Systems ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Stockholm Conference ◽  
National Environmental

AbstractSince the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, ecological pressures on our planet have grown more acute. Yet, modern environmental law has also continued to evolve and spread within international as well as among national legal systems. With the paths of international and national environmental law becoming increasingly intertwined over the years, international environmental legal norms and principles are now penetrating deeper into national legal systems, and environmental treaties are increasingly incorporating or referencing national legal norms and practices. The shifting legal landscape is also changing contemporary environmental law practice, creating greater needs for domestic environmental lawyers to be informed by international law and vice versa. This essay describes how domestic environmental law practice is increasingly informed by international legal norms, while the effective practice of international environmental law more and more requires enhanced awareness, and even understanding, of national environmental regulatory and governance systems. It illustrates these trends with the historical role and work of the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of General Counsel.

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.

scholarly journals GERAKAN PEMBARUAN HUKUM LINGKUNGAN INDONESIA DAN PERWUJUDAN TATA KELOLA LINGKUNGAN YANG BAIK DALAM NEGARA DEMOKRASI

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mas Achmad Santosa ◽  
Margaretha Quina
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
International Regulation ◽  
Further Development

Environmental law reform movement promotes the realization of good environmental governance, rule of law, and democracy. Numerous advocacy results conducted by this movement has been recorded in the legal instruments, national and international regulation and policies, landmark judges decision, until civil society initiatives. This article will identify the important developments and the contribution of civil society, academics, and other related elements as a reference for the further development of good environmental governance

scholarly journals The Swedish initiative and the 1972 Stockholm Conference: the decisive role of science diplomacy in the emergence of global environmental governance

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Paglia
Keyword(s):  
Science Communication ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Human Environment ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Science Diplomacy ◽  
Environmental Diplomacy

AbstractThis article applies a science diplomacy lens to examine Sweden’s 1967–1968 intervention in the United Nations—the so-called “Swedish initiative”—that led to the seminal 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment. The three classic science diplomacy typologies—science in diplomacy, diplomacy for science and science for diplomacy—are employed to structure an analysis of how Swedish diplomats skillfully leveraged science for diplomatic objectives, first for convincing member states of the need to convene a major environmental conference under UN auspices and then to mobilize scientific research internationally—particularly in developing countries—during the Conference preparatory process. The empirical study, based on archival research and the oral histories of key participants, also brings to light how problems of the human environment were conceived of and shaped by Swedish scientists and diplomats during this embryonic moment of global environmental governance. Through analysis of some of the public pronouncements and key documents drafted during the first phase of the Swedish initiative, the article further considers the role of popular science as a style of science communication that is particularly relevant in the realm of environmental diplomacy.

Global Environmental Governance as Administration

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benedict Kingsbury
Keyword(s):  
Global Governance ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Normative Values ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Network Administration ◽  
Shed Light

This article argues for the analysis of global and transnational environmental governance as administration to shed light on some important but neglected themes in international environmental law scholarship. First, it outlines several basic administrative concepts that call for analysis under such an approach (delegation, accountability, deliberation and reason giving, dynamic effects, general versus specific norms), then sets forth an analytical framework of five structures of administration in global governance, namely: distributed administration, international administration, inter-governmental network administration, hybrid administration, and private administration. Normative appraisal in administrative law is often conducted by reference to basic public law values, such as legality, proportionality, rationality, accuracy, effectiveness, efficiency, and respect for basic rights. Political theory inquiries into democracy and legitimacy in global governance may be given more applied purchase by distilling normative values and implicit trade offs, embodied in such legal-administrative components as transparency, notification, participation, reason giving, and review. Inflections in the design and operation of different administrative systems may have impacts on distributive outcomes, procedural fairness, and other elements of justice.

State Sovereignty in the Planetary Management of Natural Resources

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nico J. Schrijver
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
International Law ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Environmental Conservation ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Progressive Development ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Global Values

Protagonists of global environmental governance often view the sovereign State as well as the principle of sovereignty as major stumbling blocks for effective environmental conservation and sustainable development. Some even herald the demise of the idea of the sovereign State. However, reality has it differently. Sovereignty is no longer an unqualified concept. Manifold new duties have been imposed upon the sovereign State as a result of the progressive development of international law. Much of the modern international law movement vests States with the responsibility to adopt regulations, to monitor and secure compliance and exercise justice in order to achieve its implementation, whereas supranational global environmental governance has remained notoriously weak. This article examines this proposition by reference to the environmental and developmental role of states in three landmark multilateral treaties: The United Nations Law of the Sea Convention (1982), the Convention on the Conservation of Biological Diversity (1992) and the Paris Agreement on climate change (2015). They demonstrate that sovereignty serves as a key organisational principle for the realization of global values, such as environmental conservation and sustainable development.

A New Environmental Charter for the Future

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yann Aguila ◽  
Lionel Chami
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Governance ◽  
International System ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Technical Vision ◽  
The Future ◽  
Global Agreement ◽  
New System

The environmental crisis compels humanity to redefine its relationship with nature. This calls for the principles that would guide the new pathway to be outlined and enshrined into a global treaty. An environmental charter for the future would serve the purpose of a social contract and define the norms which would allow humanity to coexist with its natural environment. In this context, this article argues that faith in the international system could be restored by a global agreement on the basic principles which are to guide the new system for international environmental governance. It will thus first focus on (i) exposing the merits of principles in a legal system, (ii) tackling the purely technical vision that weakens both the creation and implementation of international environmental law and (iii) finally, it will make the case for a global environmental charter that would enshrine fundamental principles and rejuvenate the values that founded the international system.

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