Legal Aspects of Sustainable Development – serie

This volume provides a framework for the doctrinal foundation of sustainable development as a principle of integration in international law.The work departs from the fragmented nature of the international legal system, a system that lacks integrative principles for creating coherent relations between, for example, the international trade regime of the WTO and multilateral environmental agreements. The specific focus is on a legal analysis of potential normative conflicts between climate measures as regulated by the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, in particular the flexibility instruments of international emissions trading and the Clean Development Mechanism, and the rules of the WTO. Attention is then given to the application of sustainable development as a principle of integration in relation to these conflicts.The book takes on several important, timely and demanding tasks related to the urgent global challenge of climate change and the capacity of international law to deal with complex and multifaceted issues. It addresses in particular:• The relations between various international legal regimes, especially between international trade law and climate law,• The legal status of sustainable development as a principle of international law, and• The analysis of interpretative methods and of principles that may serve to address conflicts between rules pertaining to different legal regimes. Here, integration as part of legal reasoning becomes particularly relevant.

The management of transboundary fish stocks might be described as a complex mosaic. Multiple fora are trying to incrementally shift the fisheries management course towards a sustainable future. Recasting Transboundary Fisheries Management Arrangements in Light of Sustainability Principles reviews and critiques key recasting efforts with a primary focus on Canada’s transboundary fisheries management arrangements for the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. It provides a primer on the international law and policy framework governing transboundary fisheries and offers bilateral and regional case studies in the search for more principled fisheries governance approaches based on the new sustainability imperatives.This book offers current Canadian and international perspectives on the challenges facing regional fisheries management organizations, as well as bilateral and national arrangements, as they face the tides of sustainability reform. Struggles to implement precautionary and ecosystem approaches are especially highlighted.

Ship recycling conserves resources, employs an unskilled workforce, and removes outdated tonnage. Operating mainly on the Indian subcontinent, this ‘primitive’ industry often results in loss of human life and pollution of the marine environment. Despite moral indignation, the international community has struggled to manage this industry and only recently completed the IMO International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships. Using the Indian experience on shipbreaking as a case study, this book assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the Convention. The author argues that the Convention may not succeed because it fails to strike a balance between environmental protection, human rights, and commercial realities. The book offers recommendations for a holistic and integrated approach to a sustainable ship recycling industry.

Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, or IUU fishing, is considered one of the most significant threats to the sustainability of fisheries resources. Since the adoption of the International Plan of Action to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (IPOA-IUU), States and regional fisheries management organisations have made sustained efforts to address the problem. This book analyses the concept of IUU fishing and the international instruments which provide the legal and policy framework to combat IUU fishing. The book also examines the range of measures adopted by States and regional organisations to address IUU fishing. These measures include flag State, coastal State, port State, and market State measures.

The World Bank Policy for Projects on International Waterways: An Historical and Legal Analysis discusses the evolution and context of the Bank policy for projects on international waterways. It starts with a brief description of how the Bank faced the challenges stemming from such projects, and analyzes the different approaches deliberated by the Bank that led to the issuance of the first policy in 1956. It then examines the main features, as well as the implementation experience, of each of the policies issued in 1956, 1965, and 1985. The principles of international water law prevailing at each stage are reviewed and compared with those of the Bank policy. The book discusses in detail the notification process, the different riparians’ responses, and how objections to Bank-financed projects are handled, as well as the exceptions to the notification requirement. It also assesses how the Bank has dealt with transboundary groundwater, and the linkages of the policy with the policies on disputed areas and environmental impact assessment. The book concludes with an overview of the main findings and lessons drawn from the implementation experience.

In recognising the significant role international law can play in supporting the objectives of justice and sustainable development, Global Justice and Sustainable Development provides a wide-ranging analysis of some of the most fundamental challenges facing global society. In particular, the volume seeks to consider the synergies between sustainable development and global justice – two notions that are simultaneously hugely important and, in equal measure, enormously contentious within both international law and international relations.Organized in a three-part structure, Global Justice and Sustainable Development revisits some of the basic assumptions on which the general principles are built, considers the implications for differing aspects of international law, and focuses on national and regional approaches.

The World Bank and Sustainable Development: Legal Essays collects works from the past ten years by David Freestone, former Deputy General Counsel and Senior Adviser at the World Bank. The essays offer a unique perspective founded on the author’s years of experience at the World Bank. They cover a wide-range of topics, including the Bank’s Sustainable Development and its Climate Change agendas as well as its project based Environmental and Social Safeguard policies, highlighting the evolution of the pioneering role of the Bank’s Inspection Panel. Other essays look at the establishment and subsequent evolution of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the design and implementation of the innovative Prototype Carbon Fund – now the basis of a $3 billion greenhouse gas reduction portfolio. Updated by current Bank Staff members, together these seven legal essays represent a seminal body of work from a uniquely qualified voice in international environmental law.

Sustainable development is the contemporary philosophy that is dominating the environmental protection movement. At a United Nations Conference in Johannesburg in 2002, sustainable development was defined as development that "promote[s] the integration of economic development, social development and environmental protection—as interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars." Sustainable Development: Towards a Judicial Interpretation examines the contribution of certain key aspects of environmental protection associated with the philosophy of sustainable development that has emerged in international, regional and national law including the right to a healthy environment. Topics include inter-generational equity, intra-generational equity, public participation in the developmental process, proper assessment of economic activities, the need for proper information, the precautionary principle, the polluter-pays principle, and access to justice.Presenting a succinct examination of international, regional and national legal regimes that provide a basis for supporting environmental protection in the global community through sustainable development, this book will be indispensible to legal practitioners, scholars and students interested in environmental law.

The Contribution of International Fisheries Law to Human Development: An Analysis of Multilateral and ACP-EU Fisheries Instruments examines whether and how legal fisheries instruments encompass a normative consensus on human development. Focusing on both multilateral (treaties and soft-law) as well as the ACP-EU bilateral fisheries instruments, Nienke van der Burgt provides a detailed analysis as to whether these different types of legal instruments reflect the principles of equity, poverty eradication and participation, which have been identified as key indicators of human development. Moreover, specific attention is paid to whether explicit reference is made to the small-scale fisheries sector and to the role of women. Concluding that despite increasing evidence of the potential and significant contribution of fisheries towards human development, legal fisheries instruments seem to be struggling with the incorporation of a human development–centred approach, The Contribution of International Fisheries Law to Human Development is essential reading for all those involved in the fields of international environmental law and sustainable human development.

In Regional Co-operation and Protection of the Marine Environment Under International Law: The Black Sea, Nilufer Oral examines the regional co-operation mechanism for protection and preservation of the Black Sea marine environment within the framework of international law, and subsequently identifies the necessary components for a robust regional regime based on best legal practices. The book provides a thorough review of the complex modern challenges related to the Black Sea, with particular emphasis on biodiversity, fisheries, land-based pollution and vessel-based sources of pollution. A history of regional co-operation in the Black Sea offers an enlightening comparison to the development of regional co-operation in international law, in particular, to Part IX of the 1982 United Nations (Montego Bay) Convention on the Law of the Sea. Further comparative analyses, such as the existing regional regime of the Black Sea as established under the 1992 UNEP Regional Seas Programme, and selected regional seas programmes, including the acquis communautaire of the European Union, cohere into a firm foundation of present findings, upon which basis the author makes recommendations for the future. All those interested in the Law of the Sea, international environmental law, and fisheries management will find a critical new text in Regional Co-operation and Protection of the Marine Environment Under International Law: The Black Sea.

The once pristine and rich marine environment of the South China Sea is degrading at an alarming rate due to the rapid socioeconomic development of the region. Despite this, and due mainly to complicated sovereignty and maritime disputes, coastal States have not been able to develop effective regional cooperation to safeguard the shared marine environment. Marine Protected Areas Network in the South China Sea discusses legal and political measures to support the development of a network of marine protected areas in the South China Sea. Such a network, if properly developed, would not only help to protect the marine environment and resources of the region but also contribute to decreasing the tension among its coastal States. These measures are suggested in accordance with international law, based on the specific geopolitical context of the South China Sea region and take into consideration experiences in developing regional networks of marine protected areas from other marine regions.

Transboundary Governance of Biodiversity compiles critical analysis of the regulatory frameworks applicable to the transboundary governance of biodiversity by specialists from Europe and Africa. Drawing on their vast experience as lawyers, political scientists and natural resource management experts, they provide a critique and contemporary perspectives on what has become one of the most challenging aspects of global environmental governance in the Anthropocene: effective biodiversity conservation in times of unprecedented environmetal crises. With a unique North-South focus and a legal focus infused by multi-disciplinary regulatory dimensions, this peer-reviewed publication offers a comprehensive analysis of international and regional environmental law frameworks applicable to the transboundary governance of biodiversity.

In Climate Change and International Shipping: The Regulatory Framework for the Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Yubing Shi provides ground-breaking analyses of the evolving regulatory framework for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping. This book examines the applicability of international environmental law principles to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from ships and assesses the responses of the key stakeholders to the challenge of regulation. Based on these in-depth analyses, Shi identifies key gaps in the current regulatory framework for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping, and proposes options for legal and institutional reforms to improve the system in place.

Can—and should—participation be a means of achieving sustainability? The concepts of sustainability and participation are both in vogue, and many international, supranational and national legal texts and standards refer to these two concepts. However, there are still several unanswered questions that invite legal inquiry: which sustainability? Which kinds of participation? Participation by whom? How are the two concepts of sustainability and participation effectively interlinked in legal provisions? This book approaches the interconnection between sustainability and participation inductively and precisely in areas of law which are commonly associated with sustainability and sustainable development: national, European and international environmental and economic law.