Whales are regarded as a totemic symbol by some nations and as a natural marine resource by others. This book presents a complex picture of legal problems surrounding the interpretation of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling and the role of its regulatory body, the International Whaling Commission. Contemporary whaling is about the competing interests of whaling nations (which are in the minority), non-whaling nations (which are in the majority) and indigenous peoples. Whales are covered by many international conventions, which has led to a very fragmented legal situation and does not necessarily ensure that whales are protected. This is one of the paradoxes of the contemporary international legal regime which are explored in this book. The book also examines the contentious issue of the right of indigenous peoples to whaling and questions whether indigenous whaling is very different from commercial practices.

This book analyses the topical and contentious issue of the human rights impacts associated with carbon projects, especially in developing countries. It outlines a human rights-based approach to carbon finance as a functional framework for mainstreaming human rights into the design, approval, finance and implementation of carbon projects. It also describes the nature and scope of carbon projects, the available legal options for their financing and the key human rights issues at stake in their planning and execution. Written in a user-friendly style, the proposal for a rights-based due diligence framework through which human rights issues can be anticipated and addressed makes this book relevant to all stakeholders in carbon, energy, and environmental investments and projects.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its companion agreement, the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), provide important and often underappreciated protection for the environmental laws of the Party states: Canada, Mexico, and the United States. On the twentieth anniversary of NAFTA's ratification, this book assesses the current state of environmental protection under those agreements. Bringing together scholars, practitioners, and regulators from all three Party states, it outlines the scope and process of NAFTA and NAAEC, their impact on specific environmental issues, and paths to reform. It includes analyses of the impact of the agreements on such matters as bioengineered crops in Mexico, assessment of marine environmental effects, potential lessons for China, climate change, and indigenous rights. Together, the chapters of this book represent an important contribution to the global conversation concerning international trade agreements and sustainable development.

Europe still retains large areas which play host to numerous native and free-functioning ecosystems and lack roads, buildings, bridges, cables and other permanent manifestations of modern society. In the past such areas were considered wastelands, whose value lay only in their potential for cultivation and economic exploitation. Today, these wilderness areas are increasingly cherished as places for rest and recreation, and as important areas for scientific research, biodiversity conservation and the mitigation of and adaptation to certain climate change effects. This book provides the first major appraisal of the role of international, European and domestic law in protecting the remaining wilderness areas and their distinguishing qualities in Europe. It also highlights the lessons that can be learned from the various international, regional and national approaches, identifies obstacles to wilderness protection in Europe and considers whether and how the legal protection of wilderness can be further advanced.

The international legal framework for valuing the carbon stored in forests, known as 'Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation' (REDD+), will have a major impact on indigenous peoples and forest communities. The REDD+ regime contains many assumptions about the identity, tenure and rights of indigenous and local communities who inhabit, use or claim rights to forested lands. The authors bring together expert analysis of public international law, climate change treaties, property law, human rights and indigenous customary land tenure to provide a systemic account of the laws governing forest carbon sequestration and their interaction. Their work covers recent developments in climate change law, including the Agreement from the Conference of the Parties in Paris that came into force in 2016. The Impact of Climate Change Mitigation on Indigenous and Forest Communities is a rich and much-needed contribution to contemporary understanding of this topic.

Cross-border trade in electricity is rapidly expanding as a result of technical innovations, economic and geopolitical developments, and the ongoing decarbonisation of the electricity sector in response to climate change. The expansion of electricity networks and the integration of increasing shares of renewable energy (RE) electricity into the grid have made long-distance electricity flows both feasible and desirable. Drawing on the work of experts in trade and energy law and policy, and offering novel, multidisciplinary perspectives on the rapidly evolving landscape shaping international trade in electricity, this book examines the most important challenges - technical, economic, legal and policy-related - posed by long-distance and sustainable electricity trade. The book explores the regulatory implications of the policy instruments aimed at supporting RE electricity and considers how best to promote greater overall coherence in international electricity governance.

With the rapid growth of the renewable energy sector, it has become increasingly important to understand how renewable energy is defined in national laws around the world and what regulatory mechanisms these countries are deploying to achieve their renewable energy goals. In Renewable Energy Law: An International Assessment, Penelope J. Crossley compares the national renewable energy laws for each of the 113 countries that have such a law, shedding light on the question of whether energy laws are converging globally to facilitate trade or engaging in regulatory competition. The book includes over sixty extracts from different national laws, case studies on the European Union and the Chinese wind sector, and many examples of the particular challenges facing specific countries. This work should be read by scholars, policymakers, regulators, employees of commercial entities operating in the energy sector, and anyone else interested in the legal and regulatory landscape of renewable energy.

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) play an increasingly prominent role in addressing global development challenges. United Nations agencies and other organizations are relying on PPPs to improve global health, facilitate access to scientific information, and encourage the diffusion of climate change technologies. For this reason, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development highlights their centrality in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). At the same time, the intellectual property dimensions and implications of these efforts remain under-examined. Through selective case studies, this illuminating work contributes to a better understanding of the relationships between PPPs and intellectual property considered within a global knowledge governance framework, that includes innovation, capacity-building, technological learning, and diffusion. Linking global governance of knowledge via intellectual property to the SDGs, this is the first book to chart the activities of PPPs at this important nexus.

On April 20, 2010, the crew of the floating drill rig Deepwater Horizon lost control of the Macondo oil well forty miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. Escaping gas and oil ignited, destroying the rig, killing eleven crew members, and injuring dozens more. The emergency spiraled into the worst human-made economic and ecological disaster in Gulf Coast history. Senior systems engineers Earl Boebert and James Blossom offer the most comprehensive account to date of BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Sifting through a mountain of evidence generated by the largest civil trial in U.S. history, the authors challenge the commonly accepted explanation that the crew, operating under pressure to cut costs, made mistakes that were compounded by the failure of a key safety device. This explanation arose from legal, political, and public relations maneuvering over the billions of dollars in damages that were ultimately paid to compensate individuals and local businesses and repair the environment. But as this book makes clear, the blowout emerged from corporate and engineering decisions which, while individually innocuous, combined to create the disaster. Rather than focusing on blame, Boebert and Blossom use the complex interactions of technology, people, and procedures involved in the high-consequence enterprise of offshore drilling to illustrate a systems approach which contributes to a better understanding of how similar disasters emerge and how they can be prevented.

In 1944 the Chicago Convention set out the foundations of public international law regulating international air transport, but until 2016 no international agreement existed to limit its environmental impact. Sustainable Development, International Aviation, and Treaty Implementation explains why the CORSIA scheme, adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organization in 2016, should be implemented in 2020 even though the adequacy of this scheme is still open to doubt and criticism. This book seeks to examine the many dimensions of the effort to contain greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft in a manner consonant with the principles of sustainable development, and examines the development of international law and policy in an area that has remained largely outside the general framework of international environmental law. International civil aviation is a significant polluter of the atmosphere, and in this volume, a group of air law and sustainable development law specialists considers how the international community can respond.

This book critically analyses the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, UNESCO's latest and ground-breaking treaty in the area of cultural heritage protection. Intangible cultural heritage is broadly understood as the social processes that inform our living cultures, and our social cohesion and identity as communities and peoples. On the basis of this conception, the Treaty proposes to turn our understanding of how, for whom, and why heritage is safeguarded on its head, by putting communities, groups and individuals at the centre of the safeguarding process. The commentary, written by leading experts in the field from all continents and multiple disciplines, provides an authoritative guide to interpreting and implementing not only this Treaty, but also its ripple effects on how we think about cultural heritage and our experience with it as a part of our living cultures. This book is of interest to lawyers, policy-makers, anthropologists, cultural diplomacy specialists, archaeologists, cultural heritage studies experts, and, foremost, the people who practice and enact this heritage.

Prevention is recognized as a cornerstone of international environmental law, but this principle remains abstract and elusive in terms of exactly what is required of states to prevent environmental harm. In this illuminating work, Leslie-Anne Duvic-Paoli addresses this issue by offering a systematic, comprehensive assessment in which she clarifies the rationale, content, and scope of the prevention principle while also placing it in a wider legal context. The book offers a detailed analysis of treaty law, custom codification works, and case law before culminating in a conceptualization of prevention based on three definitional traits: 1. Its anticipatory rationale; 2. Its due diligence content; and 3. Its wide spatial scope to protect the environment as a whole. This book should be read by anyone seeking to understand the evolving principle of prevention in international environmental law, and how it increasingly shares common ground with reparation in the arena of compliance control.

The absence of a globally recognized right to a healthy environment has not prevented the development of human rights norms relating to the environment. Indeed, one of the most noteworthy aspects of human rights law over the last twenty years is that UN treaty bodies, regional tribunals, special rapporteurs, and other human rights mechanisms have applied human rights law to environmental issues even without a stand-alone, justiciable human right to a healthy environment. In The Human Right to a Healthy Environment, a diverse set of scholars and practitioners, all of whom have been instrumental in defining the relationship between human rights and the environment, provide their thoughts on what is, or should be, the role of an international human right to a healthy environment. The right to a healthy environment could be a capstone to this field of law, could help to provide structure to it, or could move it in new directions.

The absence of a globally recognized right to a healthy environment has not prevented the development of human rights norms relating to the environment. Indeed, one of the most noteworthy aspects of human rights law over the last twenty years is that UN treaty bodies, regional tribunals, special rapporteurs, and other human rights mechanisms have applied human rights law to environmental issues even without a stand-alone, justiciable human right to a healthy environment. In The Human Right to a Healthy Environment, a diverse set of scholars and practitioners, all of whom have been instrumental in defining the relationship between human rights and the environment, provide their thoughts on what is, or should be, the role of an international human right to a healthy environment. The right to a healthy environment could be a capstone to this field of law, could help to provide structure to it, or could move it in new directions.

Despite a growing interest in critical social and political studies of climate change, the field remains fragmented and diffuse. This is the first volume to collect this body of scholarship, providing a key reference point in the growing debate about climate change across the social sciences. The book provides a new set of insights into the ways in which climate change is creating new forms of social order, and the ways in which they are structured through the workings of rationality, power and politics. Governing the Climate is invaluable for three main audiences: social science researchers and advanced students in the field of climate change; the wider research community interested in global environmental politics and global environmental governance; and policy makers and researchers concerned more broadly with environmental politics at international, national and local levels.

Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast in August 2005 with devastating consequences. Almost all analyses of the disaster have been dedicated to the way the hurricane affected New Orleans. This volume examines the impact of Katrina on southern Mississippi. While communities along Mississippi's Gulf Coast shared the impact, their socioeconomic and demographic compositions varied widely, leading to different types and rates of recovery. This volume furthers our understanding of the pace of recovery and its geographic extent, and explores the role of inequalities in the recovery process and those antecedent conditions that could give rise to a 'recovery divide'. It will be especially appealing to researchers and advanced students of natural disasters and policy makers dealing with disaster consequences and recovery.

It is increasingly clear that the world of climate politics is no longer confined to the activities of national governments and international negotiations. Critical to this transformation of the politics of climate change has been the emergence of new forms of transnational governance that cut across traditional state-based jurisdictions and operate across public and private divides. This book provides the first comprehensive, cutting-edge account of the world of transnational climate change governance. Co-authored by a team of the world's leading experts in the field and based on a survey of sixty case studies, the book traces the emergence, nature and consequences of this phenomenon, and assesses the implications for the field of global environmental politics. It will prove invaluable for researchers, graduate students and policy makers in climate change, political science, international relations, human geography, sociology and ecological economics.

This new and fully updated edition of Principles of International Environmental Law offers a comprehensive and critical account of one of the fastest growing areas of international law: the principles and rules relating to environmental protection. Introducing the reader to the key foundational principles, governance structures and regulatory techniques, Principles of International Environmental Law explores each of the major areas of international environmental regulation through substantive chapters, including climate change, atmospheric protection, oceans and freshwater, biodiversity, chemicals and waste regulation. The ever-increasing overlap with other areas of international law is also explored through examination of the inter-linkages between international environmental law and other areas of international regulation, such as trade, human rights, humanitarian law and investment law. Incorporating the latest developments in treaty and case law for key areas of environmental regulation, this text is an essential reference and textbook for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students, academics and practitioners of international environmental law.

This book examines the nuances of the relationship between development and environmental conservation policy in India over the last three decades. While India is taken as the focal point, the study extends to an analysis of global aspects and other developing countries as and when the situation demands. Understanding that development always has to take environmental issues into consideration, the book undertakes critical reviews of the different ways in which this has been done. The review is based on a grasp of the simultaneous developments in the theoretical understanding of the environment and ecosystems and provides pointers towards directions for possible change. The motivation for the book lies in the continuing distance between theoretical knowledge of the role of the environment, in particular the underlying long-term links between human wellbeing and wise use of nature, and its application in public policy. The book also proposes that whichever theoretical cornerstone is taken as the starting point, it is the ethical undertones that drive the analysis in directions that acquire meaning in terms of the quality and legitimacy of decision-making. It explores the relevance to policy of a variety of radical conceptual development and policy directions, such as dematerialising growth, the social metabolism approach and the degrowth movement. Further, the dilemma facing environmental policy continues to be how to simultaneously borrow from developments in and across disciplines while at the same time, and at a more practical level, dealing with a diversity of stakeholders.

This book examines the development and implementation of the EU's legislative framework on the commercial release of GMO products as a case study of social regulation operating within a predominantly technical framework. The analysis and findings are based on an extensive documentary analysis and interviews with regulators, risk assessors, public interest groups and biotechnology experts at the national and European levels. It argues that in the case of the EU biotechnology framework, the particular institutional settings created for the formulation and interpretation of its provisions have been of decisive importance in elaborating a proceduralised 'science-based' prior authorization scheme as the preferred framework for granting commercial permits. This interdisciplinary work will appeal to EU lawyers, decision-makers and risk managers as well as academics working in the fields of EU studies, politics, law, risk governance sociology of science/risk and technology assessment. The book is based on a PhD thesis that was awarded with the 2008 UACES Prize for the Best Thesis in European Studies in Europe and with the EPEES 1st Prize for the Best Thesis written by a Greek Researcher between 2004 and 2008.

The modern era is facing unprecedented governance challenges in striving to achieve long-term sustainability goals and to limit human impacts on the Earth system. This volume synthesizes a decade of multidisciplinary research into how diverse actors exercise authority in environmental decision making, and their capacity to deliver effective, legitimate and equitable Earth system governance. Actors from the global to the local level are considered, including governments, international organizations and corporations. Chapters cover how state and non-state actors engage with decision-making processes, the relationship between agency and structure, and the variations in governance and agency across different spheres and tiers of society. Providing an overview of the major questions, issues and debates, as well as the theories and methods used in studies of agency in earth system governance, this book provides a valuable resource for graduate students and researchers, as well as practitioners and policy makers working in environmental governance. This is one of a series of publications associated with the Earth System Governance Project. For more publications, see www.cambridge.org/earth-system-governance.

Drawing specifically on the international climate regime, Simone Schiele examines international environmental regimes from a legal perspective and analyses a core feature of international regimes - their ability to evolve over time. In particular, she develops a theoretical framework based on general international law which allows for a thorough examination of the understanding of international law and the options for law-creation in international environmental regimes. The analysis therefore provides both a coherent understanding of the international climate regime and a starting point for further research in other regimes.

Cities play a pivotal but paradoxical role in the future of our planet. As world leaders and citizens grapple with the consequences of growth, pollution, climate change, and waste, urban sustainability has become a ubiquitous catchphrase and a beacon of hope. Yet, we know little about how the concept is implemented in daily life particularly with regard to questions of social justice and equity. This volume provides a unique and vital contribution to ongoing conversations about urban sustainability by looking beyond the promises, propaganda, and policies associated with the concept in order to explore both its mythic meanings and the practical implications in a variety of everyday contexts. The authors present ethnographic studies from cities in eleven countries and six continents. Each chapter highlights the universalized assumptions underlying interpretations of sustainability while elucidating the diverse and contradictory ways in which people understand, incorporate, advocate for, and reject sustainability in the course of their daily lives."

The international community is not taking the action necessary to avert dangerous increases in greenhouse gases. Facing a potentially bleak future, the question that confronts humanity is whether the best of bad alternatives may be to counter global warming through human-engineered climate interventions. In this book, eleven prominent authorities on climate change consider the legal, policy and philosophical issues presented by geoengineering. The book asks: when, if ever, are decisions to embark on potentially risky climate modification projects justified? If such decisions can be justified, in a world without a central governing authority, who should authorize such projects and by what moral and legal right? If states or private actors undertake geoengineering ventures absent the blessing of the international community, what recourse do the rest of us have?

Conflicts between foreign investment law and environmental law are becoming increasingly frequent. On the one hand, the rise of environmental regulation poses significant challenges to foreign investors in several industries. On the other, the surge in investment arbitration proceedings is making States aware of the important litigation risks that may result from the adoption of environmental regulation. This study of the relationship between these two areas of law adopts both a policy and a practical perspective. It identifies the major challenges facing States, foreign investors and their legal advisers as a result of the potential friction between investment law and environmental law and provides a detailed analysis of all the major legal issues on the basis of a comprehensive study of the jurisprudence from investment tribunals, human rights courts and bodies, the ICJ, the WTO, the ITLOS, the CJEU and other adjudication mechanisms.