International Environmental Law JUS5520

Prof. Dr. Christina Voigt UiO

1. What is International Environmental Law? 2. What is the Environment?

Webster’s dictionary: the circumstances, objects, or conditions by which one is surrounded, the complex physical, chemical, and biotic factors (such as climate, soil, and living things) that act upon an organism or an ecological community and ultimately determines survival. An ecosystem is a community of living organisms (plants, animals and microbes) in conjunction with the non-living components of their environment (things like air, water and mineral soil), interacting as a system. 2. What is the Environment?

«The environment is not an abstraction, but represents the living space, the quality of life, and the very health of human beings, including generations unborn.»

(Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 1996, pp. 241-242, para. 29.)

3. Where do we find IEL?

• Treaties • Customary rules • General principles • Soft-law 4. Why do we need International Environmental Law?

Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution

The Great Pacific garbage patch, also described as the Pacific trash vortex, is a gyre of marine debris particles in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135°W to 155°W and 35°N and 42°N. The patch extends over an indeterminate area, with estimates ranging very widely depending on the degree of plastic concentration used to define the affected area.

The patch is characterized by exceptionally high concentrations of pelagic plastics, chemical sludge and other debris that have been trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre. Despite its size and density (4 particles per cubic meter), the patch is not visible from satellite photography, nor even necessarily to a casual boater or diver in the area, since it consists primarily of a small increase in suspended, often-microscopic particles in the upper water column. 4. Why do we need IEL?

– Facts: • Pollution (and other environmental problems) don’t respect political boundaries • Atmosphere/Biosphere are one, but the world is not… – Other states are often impacted by environmental degradation than those that caused it (who gets the advantages of harmful activities? Who gets the disadvantages? Who is responsible for damages? To what extent can compensation be claimed?) – Mapping and controlling of international transfers of polluting products, wastes, harmful activities - transparency

4. Why do we need IEL?

– Risk that activities prohibited in one country will move to another state whose legislation/enforcement is less vigorous («pollution havens», leakage) – Level-playing field (environmental integrity/competitiveness): A state implementing environmental laws must bear increased costs. The state risks a competitive disadvantage in the global marketplace unless international measures harmonize environmental protection requirements for all competition

4. Why do we need IEL?

– Some phenomena are global and severe in character – need long-term, multilateral cooperation (climate change, biodiversity decline ocean acidification) – What is «cooperation»? – Challenges: • Reconciliation of the fundamental independence of each state with the inherent and fundamental interdepence of the environment • Balance of all (social, economic) interests within the carrying capacity of the Earth’s ecosystems, oceans and atmosphere

What can IEL do?

• Multilateral Environmental Treaties to: – Create transparency: Fact finding, monitoring, reporting, review, accounting – Setting up procedures: for import, export, trade with certain substances, – Setting standards: pollution control (water, marine, air, land, space), quota, limits, – Setting principles: resource conservation and management, land planning, biodiversity conservation

5. Why do we need LAW?

• Highest level of commitment: Certainty, more resilient against changes, deeper democratic commitment, more likely to be implemented domestically • Stability and predictability for business and markets • Reciprocity • Cooperation (allocation of burden and benefits) • Compliance control/consequences • Cost effectiveness • Flexibility • Participation versus ambition? 6. Why could legal responses be difficult? • May take long time to negotiate • May be characterized by ‘constructive ambiguity’ and be little ambitious • May result in long and difficult ratification processes, including leaving certain states out • May be too static and inflexible • Non-legally binding agreement: – may allow for more ambitious goals – will not require ratification procedure – more realistic, at least in short term – allows focus on substance rather than form.