Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
International environmental treaties often work in a more instrumentalist
way than the more traditional areas of international law. Decisions in certain
branches of international environmental law are made through treaty regimes -
to regulate whaling, for example, or to protect the unique ecosystems in
Antarctica. This is closer to the way national legal systems work. One case
decided by a domestic judiciary can change the entire basis of a society, or a
statute drafted by a legislator can change the behaviour of the people. Similarly,
decisions by the Court of Justice of the European Union 5 (CJEU) have infl u-
enced the direction of the integration process.
As international law lacks the usual elements of a municipal legal system such
as a legislature and an executive, any meaningful changes in the world commu-
nity cannot be achieved quickly or easily. There is no world government with
executive power, no court system with mandatory jurisdiction, no world parlia-
ment to enact legislation that binds all states. On a global scale, there is no real
political community that could stretch its loyalty and solidarity to all humankind,
so it is only natural that there is no full-scale legal system either.
International law - and hence international environmental law - occupies
the middle ground between idealism and realism. There are often very high
expectations demanded from international law. The UN General Assembly,
for instance, asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for an advisory
opinion on whether threatening the use of nuclear weapons or using them
violates international law. The International Court of Justice refused to state
whether the use of nuclear weapons should be forbidden entirely or permitted
by international law in the extreme case that the very existence of a state is
threatened. 6 Many people expect international law to be able to end violent
confl icts and to force all warring parties to observe the laws of war, or that the
International Criminal Court should be able to capture and prosecute every
war criminal.
For its part, international environmental law is expected to prevent climate
change, the loss of biological diversity and the production and spreading of
persistent organic pollutants (POPs). These are not realistic expectations in a
world where the actors in international politics are made up of nearly 200 states
as well as international organizations.
Despite this, international law can still be considered to have achieved
much. The world has not, after all, turned out to be the scene of a no-rules
power game as described by the Cold War realists - rather the opposite. The
bulk of rules produced by governments and intergovernmental organizations
are expanding at an exponential rate. It is remarkable that under international
law different countries, cultures, religions, races and civilizations have organized
themselves into an international community that speaks the common language
of international law.
International environmental law, too, has accomplished a great deal. The
community of states reacted to the fi rst global environmental problem, ozone
depletion, very quickly, and ahead of their original timeline. It now seems that
the ozone layer is gradually being restored, although the ozone regime faces
 
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