Branches of international environmental law - Introduction to International Environmental Law - page 136

general doctrines, principles and concepts. Research in the branch is increasing
and new textbooks are published at an accelerating rate.
The branches and regimes within international environmental law operate
relatively independently so it does not seem reasonable to lump them together
artifi cially. However, there are branches within international environmental
law which do clearly feature a kind of unity that needs to be maintained and
sustained.
This chapter considers international environmental law with a view to
a more coherent understanding of this fragmented and complex body of law.
Only in textbooks are the vast numbers of international environmental law
regulations organized into a neat whole. Textbook authors have divided the
branches of international environmental law in several different ways and on
different bases. The legal rules relating to waste, for instance, can be consid-
ered a whole, even if the various waste management regimes are, in reality,
quite unconnected. The goal of this chapter is to review, by way of examples,
some of the branches of international environmental law, such as the protec-
tion of the marine environment or biological diversity.
The section on the conservation of the atmosphere analyses the development
of the two best-known treaty regimes and their interconnection. Could the
most successful regime, the ozone regime, be an example for the development
of the climate regime, and how profoundly are these regimes interdependent?
This section will not revisit the other regimes related to international atmos-
phere protection (the LRTAP and POP regimes, for example), discussed
earlier in this topic.
An interesting regime to start with is the free trade regime, which is
highly coherent internally and has important implications for international
environmental protection.
The fragmentation of international law
International law has expanded enormously since the Second World War.
Almost every conceivable aspect of politics and law is regulated internationally
to some extent. International law has grown into such an extensive area that
only very few can with justifi cation claim to be in command of the whole.
Entire faculties of law could be established around the various sub-disciplines
of international law.
As the amount of regulation increases, international law is split into separate
branches, such as human rights, free trade rules, and international environ-
mental law. This so-called 'fragmentation' has been identifi ed as a challenge
by the UN International Law Commission. The consistency of international
law is jeopardized when semi-autonomous systems (the EU and WTO, for
example), or branches of international law (international environmental law,
human rights law, or law of the sea) interpret international law from their own
perspectives. The risk of fragmentation is primarily related to the branches