Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
one economic crisis to another, but our faith in economic growth has not
been shaken. It is also hard to believe that, at the present rate, technological
developments alone will be suffi cient to save us from ourselves. We need
changes in our attitude and consequently our everyday behaviour.
One of the major challenges for international environmental protection is the
gradual geopolitical change caused by the free trade system: many former devel-
oping countries have now become very rapidly advancing economies. Asia's
emerging economies are causing an increasingly acknowledged challenge to the
international legal system. In the 1960s and 1970s, many African and Asian
nations openly challenged the legitimacy of international law, which they
claimed had been created and developed by Europeans, and they sought to
make changes. Similarly, these emerging Asian economies - and China in
particular - have started to question whether the present international law
system adequately takes their interests and views into account. They are also
openly aiming for a standard of living that Western countries have long enjoyed.
We must now fi nd a way of taking both the new geopolitical situation and
the different stages of development into account. Professor Yasuaki Onuma of
Tokyo University argues that we need to look beyond our own civilization's
views as to the rules that should govern the world; we need to open a genu-
inely equal inter-cultural dialogue. If we fail to do so, many branches within
international law will suffer, not least international environmental law, as any
real basis for global cooperation will be lacking.
Sustainable development is a great principle, but it has not created the basis
for social decision-making that is necessary to protect life within the limited
carrying capacity of the ecosystems of our biosphere. The concept of sustain-
able development has been reduced to mean just taking the environment into
account in all social decisions. The increasing number of aggravating environ-
mental problems proves that merely taking the environment into account in
decision-making is not enough. The resilience of the biosphere's ecosystems
must be protected if we intend to go on living on this planet.
This is what makes the 'ecosystem services' idea so important. It can help
human communities realize how completely dependent we are on the func-
tions that the ecosystems in our environment perform and how vital the
services are that they provide for us. The ecosystem services idea is also a
realistic way of infl uencing our decision-making. It helps justify our decisions
by offering an increase in our well-being, even according to the terms that
states understand best: money. This is one of the critical questions for our
planet. How can we promote thinking that includes the ecosystem services as
part of a wider understanding of the functioning of the green economy?
The divergence of international environmental law from international law
International environmental law as a branch of law seems to be distancing itself
further and further from the structures of classical international law.
International environmental law has to be able to adapt to a rapidly changing
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