Principles of international environmental protection - Introduction to International Environmental Law - page 99

a norm or just a concept or even an objective for the international commu-
nity? When environmental disasters occur, intervention from the international
community is more likely to come in terms of humanitarian assistance.
The territorial sovereignty of states is the single most infl uential principle
governing international environmental protection, and under this principle,
the world is divided into nearly 200 separate states. The point of departure,
according to international law, is that states are entitled to pursue their own
environmental law and policy in their own territories. Even if they have
bound themselves to international environmental treaties and are liable to
observe customary international law, they are (1) free to decide by virtue
of their constitutions how (or if) the regulations of an international envi-
ronmental treaty are given legal status in their national legal systems and
what hierarchic level these international rules have; and (2) they can then
decide how the regulations are implemented so that the appropriate
authorities are made aware of the new regulations and are able to apply
them routinely. It is essential to ensure that violations of international envi-
ronmental treaties result in legal sanctions and that adherence to the rules
is regularly monitored.
With the exception of Antarctica, all of the world's land mass falls under the
jurisdiction of states (even if some areas are contested by more than one state,
especially in border areas). Sovereignty over land areas also entitles a coastal
state to exercise its sovereign rights over its continental shelf and its exclusive
economic zone. These areas, however, are not part of that state, but, as we
considered above, the state has exclusive rights to exploit the natural resources
contained therein. Moreover, those coastal states have both the authority and
the obligation to protect the environment in their exclusive economic zones
and continental shelves.
A signifi cant division occurs between the areas within a state's authority
and those outside it. A state has, in its territory, the authority to protect the
environment and the responsibility for the environment according to (a) what
international environmental treaties it has bound itself to; and (b) what rules
of customary international law bind it in environmental law and policy.
Marine environmental protection is more complex. The oceans have always
been international and the jurisdiction of coastal states at sea has only started
to expand after the Second World War. There are a huge number of interna-
tional rules that must be observed in marine environmental protection;
examples include regulation by the Convention on the Law of the Sea and the
IMO agreements related to seafaring (see Chapter 5 , 'Marine environmental
protection', p. 149).
Transboundary pollution
Territorial sovereignty, then, entitles a state to develop its social and legal
systems independently within its territory. A state can, for example, permit