EnvStud 620 – International Environmental Law
Content:
Environmental changes have reached new levels of global complexity and a need exists to cope more comprehensively with the human interactions that are helping to shape these changes, to help further the development and application of international law in a changing global environment. Contents are to assess the impact of environmental changes on international law, proposals on how existing legal norms may be adapted to the changing conditions and what new ones are needed, as well as develop and analyse different possible scenarios and their likely impact.
Course Lecturer: Gerhard Berchtold, PhD
ECTS credits: 6
Coursebook:
Environmental change and international law: New challenges and dimensions
Edited by Edith Brown Weiss
United
© The United
United Nations University Press
The United Nations University
53-70, Jingumae 5-chome, Shibuya-ku,
Tokyo 150, Japan
Typeset by Asco Trade Typesetting Limited, Hong Kong
Printed by Permanent Typesetting and Printing Co., Ltd., Hong Kong
Cover design by Apex Production, Hong Kong
HDGC-1/UNUP-818
ISBN 92-808-0818-4
United Nations Sales No. E.92.III.A.5
04000 P
Contents
This book addresses issues relating to the changing role of international law and includes topics such as the emerging principles of prevention and mitigation, the implementation of environmental law and the third world, risk assessment, international organizational restructuring, state responsibilities, and quality. Particular focus is given to the need to anticipate approaches to international law for the prevention of environmental harm and the role scientific information can play in establishing cross-national agreements.
Modern international environmental law dates to approximately 1972, when countries gathered for the United Nations Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment and the United Nations Environment Programme was established. Many important legal developments took place in the period surrounding the Conference. Since then, there has been a rapid rise in international legal instruments concerned with the environment, to the point where we are concerned today with developing new means for coordinating the negotiation and implementation of related agreements, in particular their administrative, monitoring, and financial provisions. Ever since 1972, the scope of international agreements has expanded significantly. The duties have also become more comprehensive: from a focus on research and monitoring to provisions for reductions in pollutants. Most notably, there is not a single example in which the provisions of earlier conventions have been weakened; in all cases, they have been strengthened or their scope has been expanded.
- Teacher: Gerhard Berchtold
- Teacher: Peter Hodecek