Principles of international environmental protection - Introduction to International Environmental Law

Environmental Engineering Reference

In-Depth Information

27 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, http://chm.pops.int/Home/

Default.aspx

28 The Rio Declaration uses the term 'precautionary approach'.

29 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, http://unfccc.int/2860.php

30 Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, 2002, http://ozone.

31 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, http://ozone.

32 Debris and waste from manned spacecraft, tools that astronauts have lost, broken

satellites and booster stages, especially in the geostationary earth orbits. A geosta-

tionary earth orbit (GEO) is a circular orbit about 35,000 kilometres above the

Earth's equator. Communications satellites use them, because their angular speed is

equal to the Earth's rotation; a satellite can use directional antennae that need not

be turned as the Earth revolves.

33 This is the Ad Hoc Open-ended Informal Working Group to study issues relating

to the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity beyond areas of

national jurisdiction; see http://www.un.org/Depts/los/biodiversityworkinggroup/

34 The biodiversity regime has also been working on this issue but has restricted itself

to a technical and advisory role.

35 Their historical responsibility is only referred to in the introduction.

36 This Principle ends with the words: 'in accordance with their common but differen-

tiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and their social and economic con-

ditions'. The expression 'in accordance with their respective capabilities' has caused

the industrial nations to appeal to the responsibility of rising developing nations such

as China. The industrial nations can no longer prevent climate change alone, and

they claim that the responsibility of developing countries to participate in fi ghting

climate change should increase as their economic and other resources improve.

37 Robert Utter, Normativ miljökvalitet: funktionen av en rättsligt institutionaliserad mått-

stock beträffande kvaliteten av miljön , University of Helsinki Faculty of Law, 2007,

http://www.doria.fi /bitstream/handle/10024/19239/normativ.pdf?sequence=2

38 It is diffi cult to classify the precautionary principle as purely procedural or material,

since it requires early action if a certain environmental impact is possible; proce-

dures to exercise precaution are often established on its basis.

39 I use the term 'precautionary principle', which seems to be more widely adopted

by literature and governmental practice. The terms precautionary principle and

principle of preventive action have been given slightly different meanings. The

consolidated version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Ar-

ticle 191(2), refers to the precautionary principle. The precautionary principle can

also be seen as a material principle underlying or justifying procedural principles.

40 U. Beck, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity , London: Sage, 1992.

41 Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers, which became legally

binding on 8 October 2009, http://www.unece.org/env/pp/prtr.html