This book traces the evolution of environmental principles from their origins as vague political slogans reflecting fears about environmental hazards to their embodiment in enforceable laws. Environmental law has always responded to risks posed by industrial society but the new generation of risks have required a new set of environmental principles, emerging from a combination of public fears, science, ethics, and established legal practice. This book shows how three of the most important principles of modern environmental law grew out of this new age of ecological risk: the polluter pays principle, the preventive principle, and the precautionary principle. Since the first edition was published, the principles of polluter-pays, prevention, and precaution have been encapsulated in a swathe of legislation at domestic and international level. Courts have been invoking environmental law principles in a broad range of cases, on issues including GMOs, conservation, investment, waste, and climate change. As a result, more States are paying heed to these principles as catalysts for improving their environmental laws and regulations. This edition will integrate to a greater extent the relationship between environmental principles and human rights. The book analyses new developments including the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, which has continuously carved out environmental duties from a number of rights enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights, and the implementation of the UNECE Convention on Access to Information.

How do we begin to handle the greatest crisis affecting humanity today? Climate change is already causing droughts, flooding, and famine that are forcing people to leave their livelihoods and communities. In the years to come, millions will find their local areas uninhabitable, as mass displacement of people reaches disastrous levels. Handling Climate Displacement explains how climate change has become recognized as a human rights concern, and how human rights are key to managing the crisis. Local authorities and populations increasingly call for guidance in the absence of an internationally recognized framework. Drafted in 2013 by a committee of experts and practitioners, Hassine uses the Peninsula Principles on Climate Displacement within States to offer concrete solutions to the impending emergency. Enriched by the author's experience working with the victims of climate displacement, this book offers an effective framework to deal with the challenges presented by mass displacement while protecting human rights.

Should states intervene in situations outside of their own territory in order to safeguard or promote the common good? In this book, Cedric Ryngaert addresses this key question, looking at how the international law of state jurisdiction can be harnessed to serve interests common to the international community. The author inquires how the purpose of the law of jurisdiction may shift from protecting national interests to furthering international concerns, such as those relating to the global environment and human rights. Such a shift is enabled by the instability of the notion of jurisdiction, as well as the interpretative ambiguity of the related notions of sovereignty and territoriality. There is no denying that, in the real world, 'selfless intervention' by states tends to combine with more insular considerations. This book argues, however, that such considerations do not necessarily detract from the legitimacy of unilateralism, but may precisely serve to trigger the exercise of jurisdiction in the common interest.

The emerging field of corporate law, corporate governance and sustainability is one of the most dynamic and significant areas of law and policy in light of the convergence of environmental, social and economic crises that we face as a global society. Understanding the impact of the corporation on society and realizing its potential for contributing to sustainability is vital for the future of humanity. This Handbook comprehensively assesses the state-of-the-art in this field through in-depth discussion of sustainability-related problems, numerous case studies on regulatory responses implemented by jurisdictions around the world, and analyses of predominant strategies and potential drivers of change. This Handbook will be an essential reference for scholars, students, practitioners, policymakers, and general readers interested in how corporate law and governance have exacerbated global society's most pressing challenges, and how reforms to these fields can help us resolve those challenges and achieve sustainability.

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.

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.

Future generations, wildlife, and natural resources - collectively referred to as 'the voiceless' in this work - are the most vulnerable and least equipped populations to protect themselves from the impacts of global climate change. While domestic and international law protections are beginning to recognize rights and responsibilities that apply to the voiceless community, these legal developments have yet to be pursued in a collective manner and have not been considered together in the context of climate change and climate justice. In Climate Change and the Voiceless, Randall S. Abate identifies the common vulnerabilities of the voiceless in the Anthropocene era and demonstrates how the law, by incorporating principles of sustainable development, can evolve to protect their interests more effectively. This work should be read by anyone interested in how the law can be employed to mitigate the effects of climate change on those who stand to lose the most.

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.

Climate and energy policy needs to be durable and flexible to be successful, but these two concepts often seem to be in opposition. One venerable institution where both ideas are apparent is the Clean Air Act, first passed by the United States Congress in 1963, with amendments in 1970 and 1990. The Act is a living institution that has been hugely successful in improving the environment. It has programs that reach across the entire economy, regulating various sectors and pollutants in different ways. This illuminating book examines these successes - and failures - with the aim to offer lessons for future climate and energy policymaking in the US at the federal and state level. It provides critical information to legislators, regulators, and scholars interested in understanding environmental policymaking.

This contemporary textbook and manual for aspiring or new environmental managers provides the theory and practical examples needed to understand current environmental issues and trends. Each chapter explains the specific skills and concepts needed for today's successful environmental manager, and provides skill development exercises that allow students to relate theory to practice in the profession. Readers will obtain an understanding not only of the field, but also of how professional accountability, evolving science, social equity, and politics affect their work. This foundational textbook provides the scaffolds to allow students to understand the environmental regulatory infrastructure, and how to create partnerships to solve environmental problems ethically and implement successful environmental programs.

Worldwide, half a million people die from air pollution each year-more than perish in all wars combined. One in every five mammal species on the planet is threatened with extinction. Our climate is warming, our forests are in decline, and every day we hear news of the latest ecological crisis. What will it really take to move society onto a more sustainable path? Many of us are already doing the "little things" to help the earth, like recycling or buying organic produce. These are important steps-but they're not enough. In Who Rules the Earth?, Paul Steinberg, a leading scholar of environmental politics, shows that the shift toward a sustainable world requires modifying the very rules that guide human behavior and shape the ways we interact with the earth. We know these rules by familiar names like city codes, product design standards, business contracts, public policies, cultural norms, and national constitutions. Though these rules are largely invisible, their impact across the planet has been dramatic. By changing the rules, Ontario, Canada has cut the levels of pesticides in its waterways in half. The city of Copenhagen has adopted new planning codes that will reduce its carbon footprint to zero by 2025. In the United States, a handful of industry mavericks designed new rules to promote greener buildings, and transformed the world's largest industry into a more sustainable enterprise. Steinberg takes the reader on a series of journeys, from a familiar walk on the beach to a remote village deep in the jungles of Peru, helping the reader to "see" the social rules that pattern our physical reality and showing why these are the big levers that will ultimately determine the health of our planet. By unveiling the influence of social rules at all levels of society-from private property to government policy, and from the rules governing our oceans to the dynamics of innovation and change within corporations and communities-Who Rules the Earth? is essential reading for anyone who understands that sustainability is not just a personal choice, but a political struggle.

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?

This textbook, by three experts in the field, provides a comprehensive overview of international climate change law. Climate change is one of the fundamental challenges facing the world today, and is the cause of significant international concern. In response, states have created an international climate regime. The treaties that comprise the regime - the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2015 Paris Agreement establish a system of governance to address climate change and its impacts. This book provides a clear analytical guide to the climate regime, as well as other relevant international legal rules. The book begins by locating international climate change law within the broader context of international law and international environmental law. It considers the evolution of the international climate change regime, and the process of law-making that has led to it. It examines the key provisions of the Framework Convention, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. It analyses the principles and obligations that underpin the climate regime, as well as the elaborate institutional and governance architecture that has been created at successive international conferences to develop commitments and promote transparency and compliance. The final two chapters address the polycentric nature of international climate change law, as well as the intersections of international climate change law with other areas of international regulation. This book is an essential introduction to international climate change law for students, scholars and negotiators.

Half a century ago, on 16 December 1966, the UN General Assembly adopted the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). While the adoption of the two UN human rights covenants was celebrated all over the world, their 50th anniversary has received very little attention from the international community. The present book marks this anniversary by taking stock of the first half-century of the existence of what are probably the world's two most important human rights treaties. It does so by reflecting on what the covenants have achieved (or failed to achieve) in the years that have passed, by determining and comparing their current influence in the various regions of the world, and by assessing their potential roles in the future. The book contains papers that were presented during a symposium held in Zurich in 2016, which brought together experts and stakeholders from a range of disciplines and world regions. Some fundamental issues that are addressed by the contributors are as old as the two covenants themselves. They concern, for example, the division of human rights into first- and second-generation rights, and the question of whether there should be one central monitoring body - possibly a world court - or more than just one. However, the contributors go beyond such questions that have been explored before; they develop new answers to old questions and point to new challenges.

Climate change is leading to changing patterns of precipitation and increasingly extreme global weather. There is an urgent need to synthesize our current knowledge on climate risks to water security, which in turn is fundamental for achieving sustainable water management. Climate Risk and Sustainable Water Management discusses hydrological extremes, climate variability, climate impact assessment, risk analysis, and hydrological modelling. It provides a comprehensive interdisciplinary exploration of climate risks to water security, helping to guide sustainable water management in a changing and uncertain future. The relevant theory is accessibly explained using examples throughout, helping readers to apply the knowledge learned to their own situations and challenges. This textbook is especially valuable to students of hydrology, resource management, climate change, and geography, as well as a reference textbook for researchers, civil and environmental engineers, and water management professionals concerned with water-related hazards, water cycles, and climate change.

Climate change presents one of the greatest challenges of our time, and has become one of the defining issues of the twenty-first century. The radical changes which both developed and developing countries will need to make, in economic and in legal terms, to respond to climate change are unprecedented. International law, including treaty regimes, institutions, and customary international law, needs to address the myriad challenges and consequences of climate change, including variations in the weather patterns, sea level rise, and the resulting migration of peoples. The Oxford Handbook of International Climate Change Law provides an unprecedented and authoritative overview of all aspects of international climate change law as it currently stands, with guidance for how it should develop in the future. Over forty leading scholars and practitioners set out a comprehensive understanding of the legal issues that surround this vitally important but still emerging area of international law. This book addresses the major legal dimensions of the problems caused by climate change: not only in the content and nature of the international legal frameworks, which need implementation at the national level, but also the development of carbon trading systems as a means of reducing the costs of meeting emission reduction targets. After an introduction to the field, the Handbook assesses the relevant institutions, the key applicable principles of international law, the international mitigation regime and its consequences, and climate change litigation, before providing perspectives focused upon specific countries or regions. The Handbook will be an invaluable resource for scholars, students, and practitioners of international climate change law. It provides readers with diverse perspectives, bringing together interpretations from different disciplines, countries, and cultures.

Biodiversity is in accelerated decline and urgent action is needed. In 2020, the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity ended, and none of its Aichi Targets were met. Despite the legally disappointing situation on a global level, the role of national courts in adjudicating climate change litigation is showing potential for effective mitigation and adaptation, and judges have become key actors in linking internationally agreed goals with tangible national commitments to mitigate climate change. Can this pursuit of globally agreed goals at a local level be transposed and lead a similar trend for biodiversity governance? This edited collection gives readers an overview of the shape and reach of biodiversity litigation, drawing on specific case studies from countries such as Brazil, China, India and Canada. It considers two questions: Firstly, what is the influence of international biodiversity law on biodiversity litigation? Secondly, what are the trends of biodiversity litigation? Leading experts discuss these questions from the perspective of developing, developed and mega bio-diverse countries, promoting the concept of biodiversity litigation as a common notion of environmental law, and arguing for more creative legal thinking when dealing with and analysing biodiversity-related disputes.

Shipping is responsible for transporting 90% of the world's trade. This book provides a comprehensive review of the impact shipping has on the environment. Topics covered include pollutant discharges such as atmospheric emissions, oil, chemical waste, sewage and biocides; as well as non-pollutant impacts including invasive species, wildlife collisions, noise, physical damage, and the environmental effects associated with shipwrecks and shipbreaking. The history of relevant international legislation is also covered. With chapters written by eminent international authors, this book provides a global perspective on the environmental impact of ships, making it a useful reference for advanced students and researchers of environmental science, as well as practitioners of maritime law and policy, and marine business.

Science, which inevitably underlies environmental disputes, poses significant challenges for the scientifically untrained judges who decide such cases. In addition to disrupting ordinary fact-finding and causal inquiry, science can impact the framing of disputes and the standard of review. Judges must therefore adopt various tools to adjust the level of science allowed to enter their deliberations, which may fundamentally impact the legitimacy of their reasoning. While neglecting or replacing scientific authority can erode the convincing nature of judicial reasoning, the same authority, when treated properly, may lend persuasive force to adjudicatory findings, and buttress the legitimacy of judgments. In this work, Katalin Sulyok surveys the environmental case law of seven major jurisdictions and analyzes framing techniques, evidentiary procedures, causal inquiries and standards of review, offering valuable insight into how judges justify their choices between rival scientific claims in a convincing and legitimate manner.

Over the past twenty years considerable public attention has been focused on the decline of marine fisheries, the sustainability of world fish production, and the impacts of fishing on marine ecosystems. Many have voiced their concerns about marine conservation, as well as the sustainable and ethical consumption of fish. But are fisheries in danger of collapse? Will we soon need to find ways to replace this food system? Should we be worried that we could be fishing certain species to extinction? Can commercial fishing be carried out in a sustainable way? While overblown prognoses concerning the dire state of fisheries are plentiful, clear scientific explanations of the basic issues surrounding overfishing are less so - and there remains great confusion about the actual amount of overfishing and its ecological impact.
Overfishing: What Everyone Needs to Know(r) will provide a balanced explanation of the broad issues associated with overfishing. Guiding readers through the scientific, political, economic, and ethical issues associated with harvesting fish from the ocean, it will provide answers to questions about which fisheries are sustainably managed and which are not. Ray and Ulrike Hilborn address topics including historical overfishing, high seas fisheries, recreational fisheries, illegal fishing, climate and fisheries, trawling, economic and biological overfishing, and marine protected areas. In order to illustrate the effects of each of these issues, they will incorporate case studies of different species of fish.
Overall, the authors present a hopeful view of the future of fisheries. Most of the world's fisheries are not overfished, and many once overfished stocks are now rebuilding. In fact, we can learn from the management failures and successes to ensure that fisheries are sustainable and contribute to national wealth and food security. Concise and clear, this book presents a compelling "big picture" of the state of oceans and the solutions to ending overfishing.
What Everyone Needs to Know(r) is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

Displacement caused by climate change is an area of growing concern. With current rises in sea levels and changes to the global climate, it is an issue of fundamental importance to the future of many parts of the world.
This book critically examines whether States have obligations to protect people displaced by climate change under international refugee law, international human rights law, and the international law on statelessness. Drawing on field work undertaken in Bangladesh, India, and the Pacific island states of Kiribati and Tuvalu, it evaluates whether the phenomenon of 'climate change-induced displacement' is an empirically sound category for academic inquiry. It does so by examining the reasons why people move (or choose not to move); the extent to which climate change, as opposed to underlying socio-economic factors, provides a trigger for such movement; and whether traditional international responses, such as the conclusion of new treaties and the creation of new institutions, are appropriate solutions in this context.
In this way, the book queries whether flight from habitat destruction should be viewed as another facet of traditional international protection or as a new challenge requiring more creative legal and policy responses.

Maritime Security and the Law of the Sea examines the rights and duties of states across a broad spectrum of maritime security threats. It provides comprehensive coverage of the different dimensions of maritime security in order to assess how responses to maritime security concerns are, and should be, shaping the law of the sea. The discussion canvasses passage of military vessels and military activities at sea, law enforcement activities across the different maritime zones, information sharing and intelligence gathering, as well as armed conflict and naval warfare. In doing so, this book not only addresses traditional security concerns for naval power but also examines responses to contemporary maritime security threats, such as terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, piracy, drug-trafficking, environmental damage and illegal fishing. While the protection of sovereignty and national interests remain fundamental to maritime security and the law of the sea, there is increasing acceptance of a common interest that exists among states when seeking to respond to a variety of modern maritime security threats. It is argued that security interests should be given greater scope in our understanding of the law of the sea in light of the changing dynamics of exclusive and inclusive claims to ocean use. More flexibility may be required in the interpretation and application of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea if appropriate responses to ensure maritime security are to be allowed.

This book discusses options for an improved compliance system under the Paris Climate Agreement by addressing current weaknesses. The research is based on two cases, the Compliance Mechanisms of the Montreal and Kyoto Protocols and their outcomes in practice. This book analysed the different meanings of tthe compliance concept of Compliance Mechanisms (CMs) and Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) in chapter 3, on the theories and two basic explanatory models on compliance (chapter 4), on the development of CMs and the limitations of traditional means (chapter 5), and the questions on the CMs under the Kyoto and the Montreal Protocols (chapter 6). Based on its findings, options for an improved compliance system under the Paris Climate agreement are asked (chapter 7). This book * Offers a detailed understanding of compliance and existing compliance mechanisms (CMs),* elaborates the CMs' present features on the basis of its case studies,* includes the latest information on CMs and its case studies,* discusses options for an improved compliance system under the Paris Climate Agreement figuring out the current weaknesses

Climate disasters demand an integration of multilateral negotiations on climate change, disaster risk reduction, sustainable development, human rights and human security. Via detailed examination of recent law and policy initiatives from around the world, and making use of a capability approach, Rosemary Lyster develops a unique approach to human and non-human climate justice and its application to all stages of a disaster: prevention; response, recovery and rebuilding; and compensation and risk transfer. She comprehensively analyses the complexities of climate science and their interfaces with the law- and policy-making processes, and also provides an in-depth analysis of multilateral climate change negotiations under the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

"Rethinking Private Authority" examines the role of non-state actors in global environmental politics, arguing that a fuller understanding of their role requires a new way of conceptualizing private authority. Jessica Green identifies two distinct forms of private authority--one in which states delegate authority to private actors, and another in which entrepreneurial actors generate their own rules, persuading others to adopt them.

Drawing on a wealth of empirical evidence spanning a century of environmental rule making, Green shows how the delegation of authority to private actors has played a small but consistent role in multilateral environmental agreements over the past fifty years, largely in the area of treaty implementation. This contrasts with entrepreneurial authority, where most private environmental rules have been created in the past two decades. Green traces how this dynamic and fast-growing form of private authority is becoming increasingly common in areas ranging from organic food to green building practices to sustainable tourism. She persuasively argues that the configuration of state preferences and the existing institutional landscape are paramount to explaining why private authority emerges and assumes the form that it does. In-depth cases on climate change provide evidence for her arguments.

Groundbreaking in scope, "Rethinking Private Authority" demonstrates that authority in world politics is diffused across multiple levels and diverse actors, and it offers a more complete picture of how private actors are helping to shape our response to today's most pressing environmental problems