Law Presentation 30/01/2007 11:19:00

This week we are looking at the role of non-State actors in driving

legal change and the factors affecting international co-operation, using the
creation of international environmental law as an example.
First I will give an introduction to the field of international
environmental law and explain how it has developed over the years,
and explain what function it fulfils today. This will give us a
framework in order to better understand whether or not states
should follow intl envt law, which we can discuss later.
Then Milan will talk briefly about Montreal and the Kyoto protocols,
and we will finish by talking about the role of NGOs and IOs in
international lawmaking, and the basis of authority for each.


What is International Environmental Law (evolvement over time)? Why
is it important (sustainable dev for humans)? How is it formed?
(introduction)
International environmental law as the name implies is the term
used to describe body of international laws that are relevant to
environmental issues or problems
o Thus the discipline must be viewed as the application of
international law to environmental principles.
o ELaw isnt very well developed institutionally, in the sense
that there is no overarching global environmental authority,
like there can be said to exist for other fields such as for
human rights or international economic relations.
o Part of this may be due to the problem states have
encountered with trying to define the term environment for
legal interpretation.
As such, none of the major treaties, declarations, or
codes of conduct attempt to do so directly.
o Intl ELaw addresses issues at several levels:
Regional level: protecting regional seas, rivers
Global: climate, ozone protection
Trans-boundary: forests
Domestic
Or a combination of any of the above
What is International Environmental law today; how has it evolved?
The development of modern International Environmental Law
has been marked by certain events:
o 1) Up until the 1960s there was little genuine awareness of
the environment or environmental concerns. International
environmental law was mostly associated with the good
neighbour or no harm principles; by which states have a
duty to prevent, reduce, and control pollution that might
cause transboundary harm.
o 2) The turning point came with 1972 United Nations
Convention on the Human Environment (UNCHE) (aka the
Stockholm Conference)
The goals were to create a programme for sound
economic and social development and to limit the
eliminate the impairment of the human environment.
Thus while the term sustainable development was not
expressly used the concept was beginning to develop.
The conference resulted in 3 things: 1) the Declaration
on the Human Environment (aka the Stockholm
Declaration) which contained 26 principles; 2) the
creation of an agency, the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP); 3) the adoption of the Stockholm
Action plan.
However, the whole process had little effect on
international law as such: none of these outcomes
contained any legally binding principles or treaties, and
the Action Plan was never successfully followed by any
country.
That said, notable progress was made in
conjunction with UNCLOS III (1973), which
introduced an important environmental dimension
to the laws of the sea. This only came into force
in 1994 though.
 o 3) In 1987 the World Commission on Environment and
Development issued a report (the Brundtland Report) that
developed guiding principles for sustainable development as it
is generally understood today. The UN General Assembly
convened the UN Conference on Environment and
Development (UNCED, or the Rio Conference, or the Earth
Summit) and it led to three important outcomes:
it created 2 legally binding environmental treaties,
namely the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change and the 1992 Convention on
Biological Diversity.
Created the Rio Declaration on Environment and
Development, which contained 27 principles relating to
the balance of development and the environment.
This was key as it set the agenda for the principle
of sustainable development as is now endorsed by
the UN.
Created a programme of action entitled Agenda 21,
which was a guide to the implementation of the
treaties, and which created the UN Commission on
Sustainable Development (CSD) and the Global
Environment Facility (GEF)
o 4) The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)
was held in Johannesburg in 2002, and was meant to mark
the 10th anniversary of the Rio Conference. It is notable in
that it achieved limited progress towards stricter global
regulation of human impacts on the natural environment.
Thus what we can see here is the trend over time for the focus to
be on sustainable development as a key feature of environmental
law.
o It has been said that there are 2 primary arguments of why
we choose to protect the environment through legal means:
1) ethical, aesthetic, or symbolic reasons for protection
(ecocentric approach)
2) economic development, health protection, etc
reasons (anthropocentric approach)
 o Both the 1972 Stockholm Conference and 1992 Rio
Conferences were focused on protecting the human
environment: the Rio Declaration asserted that Human
beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable
development. It is also true that the international community
has not truly embraced the ecocentric approach. At most it
has sought to ensure that ecococentric concerns are
accommodated and given weight.
So now that I have introduced the evolution of environmental law and
its sources, Milan is going to talk briefly about the 1st question regarding CFC
regulations and the Kyoto protocol. Then we will return to our final question
regarding NGOs.

States, NGOs and IOs: what roles do they play?

What roles have been played by Governments, NGOs and international
organizations in the development of international environmental law?
Intl ELaw draws from the same sources as other intl laws; but the
vast majority of environmental law has been created through
treaties.
o As the question this week wants us to examine what role
nonstate actors play in the role of law creation Im going to
be describing primarily the role of NGOs in the creation of
certain treaties.
o States, IOs:
As with other international laws, states ultimately
decide on which agreements or treaties to implement
and ratify, and many of these treaties have been
negotiated under the auspices of international
organisations. The Stockhold, Rio, and Johannesburg
conferences I referred to earlier were convened by the
UN.
The Raustiala article was very through in explaining the role of
NGOs in international environmental lawmaking
o He notes that the increase in NGO activity in the past several
decades has been quite significant; but it is worth noting that
their involvement is limited, in that participation is not
automatic and they must ultimately be invited by the states
to participate; additionally they never act as negotiating
parties themselves.
o The roles of NGOs in treaty negotiations are two, and they are
able to oftentimes perform these functions better than states:
NGOs research and develop policy.
they can lobby-- both state governments for policy
change or development, and they can lobby people in a
given state, in order to give the new treaty a sense of
legitimacy and encourage ratification.
o It is worth noting however that NGOs are only beneficial to
states during certain stages of treaty development: primarily,
the early information collection stages, where their expertise
will be useful; and in the monitoring and implementation
stages, where NGOs would collect data and report back to the
states. In the later stages of negotiating a treaty, however,
NGOs are less useful and less influential.