Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
3
Almaty Guidelines on Promoting the Application of the Principles of the Aarhus
Convention in International Forums,
http://www.unece.org/fi leadmin/DAM/
5
Many people wonder how such scientifi c institutions as the IPCC are able to give
'weather forecasts' reaching into the future; they speculate about the uncertainties
of such forecasts openly admitted by scientists. However, scientists no longer
argue about whether or not climate change is caused by humans, or whether or
not it causes the changes observed in the climate system; the uncertainties pertain
instead in predicting the future behaviour of the global climate system. This is
very diffi cult, not only because the climate system is highly complex, but also
because we cannot predict future human behaviour and whether there will be a
plethora of climate friendly or climate unfriendly activities. Can our dependence
on fossil fuels be severed and on what timescale? How can the tropical forests, 'the
lungs of our planet', be preserved? How is land use in general changing? Human
behaviour is very diffi cult to predict and scientists have no other opportunity than
to simulate different potential futures on the basis of different assumptions.
6
Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem
Services (IPBES),
www.ipbes.net
7
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005,
http://www.unep.org/maweb/en/
8
The second Article in the Convention on Biological Diversity defi nes genetic
material as 'any material or plant, animal, microbial or other origin containing
functional units of heredity'.
9
The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable
Sharing of Benefi ts Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological
Diversity,
http://www.cbd.int/abs/doc/protocol/nagoya-protocol-en.pdf
10
Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from
Land-based Activities (GPA),
http://www.unep.ch/regionalseas/partners/unep_
11
This is why these types of instruments are increasingly studied as instruments of
transnational environmental law.
12
The doctrine of the sources of law defi nes how governments develop interna-
tional law, but it has other functions as well. Legal literature generally understands
the sources doctrine in terms of defi ning what sources can be applied in legal
decision-making and what the weight and mutual hierarchy of the sources are.
The judges in the International Court of Justice or other international courts are
bound to resolve a case on the basis of the sources of international law. International
law is also studied on the basis of the sources of law.
13
Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties,
http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/
14
As at 18 January 2013.
15
Article 2(d) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties defi nes what
reservation is. It means 'a unilateral statement, however phrased or named,
made by a State, when signing, ratifying, accepting, approving or acceding to
a treaty, whereby it purports to exclude or to modify the legal effect of certain
provisions of the treaty in their application to that State'.
16
This does not imply that every state will positively endorse the fi nal result.
Consensus often means that states are able to tolerate the decision of the meeting
of the parties.
17
On numerous occasions, international courts and arbitral bodies have also empha-
sized that treaties should be interpreted in a dynamic fashion: i.e. that they should
be interpreted in accordance with the changes in society. Yet only very rarely will
Search WWH ::
Custom Search