Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
research in international law. International law has expanded enormously during the
past few decades, but it can still be defi ned as a legal system that mainly regulates
intergovernmental relationships. International environmental law has challenged this
government-oriented structure of classical international law. Private international
law for its part concentrates on international legal relationships between private
bodies (citizens, companies). It defi nes,
inter alia
, the national legislation which
applies to private legal relationships
.
5
This topic does not discuss EU environmental law and regulation as part of inter-
national environmental law, though some scholars do. The EU is so clearly a legal
system of its own,
sui generis
, that its environmental law is discussed separately
under
Chapter 4
('Limits of territorial sovereignty', pp. 94-104).
6
The Court did point out that in almost every case, international law, including
international environmental law, prohibits the threat or use of nuclear weapons.
7
See Frank Benjamin Golley,
A History of the Ecosystem Concept in Ecology: More than
the Sum of the Parts
, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012.
8
See
http://sedac.ciesin.org/entri/texts/acrc/cramra.txt.html
9
The Antarctic Treaty, 1 December 1959, Washington DC,
http://www.ats.aq/e/
10
See
http://sedac.ciesin.org/entri/texts/polar.bears.1973.html
11
http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/1_1_1969.pdf
12
Convention on Biological Diversity,
http://www.cbd.int/convention/text/
. The
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) convened the Ad Hoc
Working Group of Experts on Biological Diversity in November 1988 to explore
the need for an international convention on biological diversity. The Convention
was opened for signature on 5 June 1992 at the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development (the Rio 'Earth Summit') and it entered into force
on 29 December 1993.
13
See
http://www.cbd.int/traditional/
14
Holger Rotkirch, 'Tapaus Enskeri', in Timo Koivurova (ed.)
Kansainvälistyvä
oikeus. Kari Hakapään juhlakirja
, pp. 441-60, Lapin yliopiston oikeustieteellisiä
julkaisuja, series C41, 2005.
15
G.W. Downs, D.M. Rocke and P.N. Barsoom, 'Is the Good News About
Compliance Good News About Co-Operation?', at
http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/
16
Interestingly, the climate change regime's compliance committee is made up of
two branches: facilitative and enforcement.
17
China is currently the biggest greenhouse gas emitter of all states. See the respected
International Energy Statistics as compiled by the US Energy Information
Administration,
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/IEDIndex3.
18
See further
Chapter 7
for a review of the latest developments of the climate
regime.
19
Note that most of the environmental legislation in a state where a multinational
company is registered will apply to the company, although it can often be diffi cult
to bring the company to account if it operates on the other side of the world.
20
Nordic Environmental Protection Convention (Norway, Sweden, Finland and
Denmark), Stockholm, 1974,
http://sedac.ciesin.org/entri/texts/acrc/Nordic.txt.
21
There is an increasing use by the companies of mitigation hierarchy and net posi-
tive impact methodologies to conserve biodiversity. See the IUCN report on Rio
Tinto, which takes up both concepts, at
http://data.iucn.org/dbtw-wpd/
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