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The present energy economy, with its heavy dependence on fossil fuels, is not sustainable over the medium to long term for many interconnected reasons. Climate change is now recognized as posing a serious threat. Energy and resource decisions involving carbon fuels play a role in this threat. Fossil fuel reserves may be running short and many major reserves are in politically unstable parts of the world. Yet citizens in nations with rapidly developing economies aspire to the benefits of the modern energy economy. China and India alone have 2.4 billion potential customers for cars, industries, and electrical services. Even so, more than half of the world's citizens still lack access to energy. Decisions involving fossil fuels are therefore a significant part of the development equation. This volume explains how the law can impede or advance the shift to a world energy picture significantly different from that which exists today. It first examines the factors that create the problems of the present carbon economy, including environmental concerns and development goals. It then provides international and regional legal perspectives, examining public international law, regional legal structures, the responses of international legal bodies, and the role of major international nongovernmental actors. The book then moves on to explore sectoral perspectives including the variety of renewable energy sources, new carbon fuels, nuclear power, demand controls, and energy efficiency. Finally, it examines how particular states are, could, or should, be adapting legally to the challenges of moving beyond the carbon economy.

Ocean and Coastal Law has grown rapidly in the past three decades as a specialty area within Natural Resources Law and Environmental Law. The protection of oceans and coasts has received increased attention because of sea-level rise, beach erosion, ocean acidification, the global overfishing crisis, widespread depletion of marine living resources such as marine mammals and coral reefs, and marine pollution. Dozens of law schools in the United States and abroad now offer courses on topics including Ocean and Coastal Law, law of the sea, and marine pollution, and several have developed specialty programs in these areas. During this same period, climate change regulation has emerged as a focus of international environmental diplomacy, and has gained increased attention in the wake of disturbing and abrupt climate-change-related impacts throughout the world that have profound implications for ocean and coastal regulation and marine resources. This book unites the two worlds of climate change regulation and ocean and coastal management. It raises important questions about whether and how ocean and coastal law will respond to the regulatory challenges that climate change presents to resources in the oceans and coasts of the United States and the world. Divided into two major units—one for oceans and the other for coasts—this comprehensive work assembles the insights of global experts from academia and major NGOs (e.g., Center for International Environmental Law, Ocean Conservancy, and Environmental Law Institute) to address regulatory challenges from the perspectives of U.S. law foreign domestic law, and international law.

Global climate change presents one of the most difficult problems the international community has ever faced. Recent events at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference suggest that the United Nations is not yet equipped to address the issue, and national politics reveal that, in most cases, domestic politicians have neither the political will nor the regulatory tools at their disposal to structure effective policy regimes. Against this daunting backdrop, the experiences of United States and European Union climate policy over the last two decades offers instructive lessons. The historical evolution in US and EU climate policy exemplifies how climate change has risen to the top of political agendas in divergent contexts while the spans separating US and EU climate policy to date epitomize the struggles inherent in on-going global efforts to address climate change. Neither the EU nor the US offer unqualified lessons in success, but both offer many lessons, some of which reveal successes but all of which offer opportunities to learn from social, political, and regulatory experiments. Premised on the notion that US and EU efforts to address climate change are closely linked to global climate change politics, this book explores the content and process of climate change law and policymaking in the US and the EU to reveal policy convergences and divergences, and to examine how these convergences and divergences influence the ability of the global community to structure a sustainable, effective, and equitable long-term climate strategy.

This book examines the highly topical question of the current and future role of international environmental law in directing and controlling the environmental conduct of business enterprises, in particular multinational corporations. It replies to this question through the identification of corporate accountability standards and their implementation by international organizations. The book examines systematically all international sources of corporate accountability standards in the specific area of environmental protection and elaborates on their theoretical and practical implications for international environmental law. The book argues that although international environmental treaties do not bind multinational corporations and other business entities, growing international practice points to the emergence of legal standards that allow adapting and translating inter-State obligations embodied in international environmental law into specific normative benchmarks to determine the legitimacy of the conduct of the private sector against internationally recognized values and rules. The book also focuses on the role of international organizations in selecting international environmental standards and promote their application to business entities, in the absence of State intervention. The book analyses the growing practice of international organizations, which are driving a process of emergence of international standards for corporate environmental accountability. Furthermore, the impact of international organizations' direct relations with the private sector is also assessed, as it significantly contributes to ensuring that private companies comply with international environmental standards.

The history of international environmental dialogue is a history of conflict between developing and industrial countries encompassing the framework, nature, and agenda of international environmental law. The conflict is focused on who should take responsibility, in what measure, and under what conditions to contain global environmental degradation. In the face of inequality in resources and contributions to global environmental degradation, sovereign states have crafted a burden sharing arrangement rooted in differential treatment. Differential treatment refers to the use of norms that provide for different, more advantageous, treatment to some states. Real differences exist between states, and the norms of differential treatment recognize and respond to these differences by instituting different standards for different states or groups of states. This book explores the value of differential treatment in integrating developing countries into international environmental regimes. It systematically categorizes and analyses the terms of integration, respecting differential treatment across new generation environmental treaties. It ferrets out the philosophical and practical bases for differential treatment in environmental treaties, and creates a framework within which differential treatment can be assessed. It suggests certain boundaries to differential treatment in international environmental law, and explores in detail the reach of differential treatment in the climate regime. The conflict between industrial and developing countries has thus far significantly impaired the ambition of the international environmental agenda. The relevance of this book lies in its ability to provide a principled framework within which the conflict between industrial and developing countries in the international environmental realm can be examined and resolved.

The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is one of the longest established and more controversial of the common policies of the EC. It deals principally with the management of fishery resources, relations between the EC and third States in fisheries matters, the marketing of and trade in fishery products, financial assistance to the fisheries sector, and aquaculture. However, the CFP is not just a matter for those with an economic interest in fisheries. It also raises many issues of more general concern, such as the capacity of the EC and its member states to manage important natural resources sustainably, the impact of fishing on the wider marine environment, and relations between developed and developing states. This book addresses the CFP from a legal perspective. It provides a detailed account of the very large body of EC law comprising the CFP, and draws on the European Commission's associated documents to aid interpretation and add context. As a result, the book will be of value to anyone wanting knowledge of the law of the CFP. Although not addressing the Commission's 2009 Green Paper on reform of the CFP, the book should provide a reference point against which to view the reform of parts of the CFP that is anticipated to take place over the next few years.

The book Achieving Sustainable Energy for All in Africa addresses the role of law in securing energy access for huge numbers of people in Africa who live without the benefit of modern energy services. Contributions to the book offer a variety of legal and socio-legal perspectives on the subject of energy access, describing the dire situation of energy poverty on the African continent and emphasizing its implications for overall development. Specific themes addressed include the concept of energy justice, the international human rights framework for advancing the notion of a right to energy, and the role of regulation and legal reform in achieving the desired levels of energy access. In particular, attention is focused on the use of law and policy to create an enabling environment, including appropriate dispute resolution mechanisms, for the financing of energy infrastructure and the development of new forms of energy. In relation to the latter, key considerations for constituting intellectual property governance regimes that promote access to relevant technology are canvassed. Furthermore, the disproportionate impact of energy poverty on women, children, and disabled persons is highlighted in the context of the limitations of existing law and the growing recognition of this reality in emerging legal interventions. The environmental dimension, which similarly affects these vulnerable population groups, is directed at the water-energy nexus, critical to the provision of clean water and clean energy. The focus on Nigeria and South Africa in some chapters reflects the institutional collaboration from which this volume has emerged.

Energy justice has emerged as a matter of vital concern in energy law, with resonances in the attention directed to energy poverty, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. There are energy justice concerns in areas of law as diverse as human rights, consumer protection, international law and trade, and in many forms of regional and national energy law and regulation. The book covers main themes related to justice. Distributive justice, the equitable distribution of the benefits and burdens of energy activities, is challenged mainly by the existence of people suffering from energy poverty. This concept is also associated with substantive energy equity through such measures as the realization of ‘energy’ rights. There is also a procedural (or participation) justice, consisting in the right of all communities to participate in decision-making regarding energy projects and policies that affect them (this dimension of energy justice often includes procedural rights to information and access to courts). Under the concept of reparation (or restorative) justice, the book includes even-handed enforcement of energy statutes and regulations, as well as access to remedies when legal rights are violated. Finally, the idea of recognition or social justice means that energy injustice cannot be separated from other social ills, such as poverty and subordination based on caste, race, gender, or indigeneity, the need to take into account people who are often ignored. These issues are given specific momentum by thinking through how we might achieve a ‘just’ energy transition as the world faces the climate change challenges.

Networks such as cables and pipelines are essential for a functioning energy market. This book provides an overview of the legal challenges this poses in the modern world. The construction and use of these networks depends on developments in technology, policies, and legal regulation. Recently, the energy sector has been faced with considerable challenges and changes. Energy liberalization and deregulation, and the fact that traditional energy supplies like fossil fuels and large hydro plants are increasingly located far from the area of demand has drastically changed the energy landscape. The need for new sources of energy supply can therefore be found all over the world. This book investigates the challenges that face governments engaged in this renewal, particularly since in many cases these networks are, by necessity, international. The construction of new networks always involves the application of planning and environmental laws, and the complications these pose only increase as networks pass through the territory of several different countries. This book analyses the evolution of this area from several angles, both geographical and legal.

This volume examines energy security in a privatized, liberalized, and increasingly global energy market, in which the concept of sustainability has developed together with a higher awareness of environmental issues, but where the potential for supply disruptions, price fluctuation, and threats to infrastructure safety must also be considered. Part I commences with an essential introductory chapter which defines energy security and sets forth the key issues and themes of the book. There then follows several cross-cutting chapters which include sceptical analysis of energy security claims from an environmental perspective and a broader geopolitical analysis of energy security. Part II examines a wide variety of international, regional, and national approaches to energy security issues. Energy security concerns differ considerably from country to country; however, most of the chapters examining particular nations provide an economic and historical context of their energy security concerns, followed by a detailed analysis of the legal provisions relating to each of the main energy sectors (oil, gas, coal, electricity, nuclear, and renewable). This entails examination of regulation, organization, and planning for security and other purposes. In a number of cases, energy security law is shaped by other factors such as market liberalization, environmental protection, and competition policy. Part III comprises two final chapters, the first contrasting the various national and regional approaches and analysing cross-cutting issues, whilst the concluding chapter forecasts future trends in the legal regulation of energy security.

It is widely accepted that the future development of environmental law depends not on further legislation, but on more effective enforcement. Within the EC legal system, the conventional view is that the enforcement deficit is due to the fact that the environment is distinct from other fields of Community law. EC environmental law does not normally confer rights on individuals and may therefore not be judicially enforced in the same manner as rules concerning the internal market, competition and gender discrimination. This book explores and challenges this assumption. Drawing from constitutional aspects of EC law, the book examines to what extent the general case law on procedures and remedies may be transposed to the field of environment, whilst at the same time taking stock of the existing environmental case law and the distinctive features of environmental legislation. In a critical exposition and assessment of 50 years of jurisprudence by the European Court of Justice as well as recent legislative developments, the book explores the potential of enforcement of environmental law through lawsuits by individuals as well as the European Commission. By demonstrating that the environment is not so different from other fields of law in terms of rights and remedies, the book provides not only new insights to the enforcement of EC environmental law but also to the central characteristics of Community constitutional law.

Most studies of law enforcement deal with police work, and many are concerned with under-enforcement of selective enforcement as problems. This book shifts the focus to social and economic regulation and the issue of compliance.

Environmental Assessment is an inherently interdisciplinary and increasingly important legal mechanism that is concerned with the input and quality of information about the likely effects of development upon the environment. It is a useful tool for examining aspects of the relationship between law, governance, and the regulation of decision-making, which have been central to the development of environmental law. In this book, the procedural mechanism of environmental assessment is analyzed theoretically and historically. The book argues that, notwithstanding its procedural nature, environmental assessment is highly material to the outcome of a decision. A major focus of this analysis is the enhanced role of the developer in shaping the outcome of a decision by assuming responsibility for providing information on which a decision will be based, in accordance with a broader agenda of expanding the roles and responsibilities of participants in environmental decision-making. The book draws upon several contemporary projects as case studies: a global port, an offshore windfarm, a flood defence strategy, and a recreation centre. In analyzing these sites of decision making from a legal perspective, the book touches upon the key determinants of environmental assessment: discretion, the significance of environmental effects, alternative options, and participatory rights. Finally, the volume looks to the future development of environmental assessment: as an avenue for protest, and, alternatively, as a standardized component of international contracts for development.

This study considers the problems of defining and valuing ‘environmental damage’ from the perspective of international and comparative law. The need for a broad and systematic evaluation of this issue is illustrated by the number of topics presently on the international law-making agenda to which it is relevant, including the UN Compensation Commission's decisions on compensation for environmental losses suffered by Kuwait in the Gulf War, nuclear and oil pollution liability regimes, the development of an environmental liability protocol to the Antarctic Treaty and other agreements on bio-safety and genetically modified organisms. It is thus an important element in contemporary efforts to strengthen legal remedies for environmental harm which does not necessarily come within traditional categories of legally protected personal or property rights. The contributors include experts in national and international law, civil and common law, as well as in the laws of developed and developing states, an economist and a member of the UN Compensation Commission.

International environmental agreements have increased exponentially within the last five decades. According to an estimate from the United Nations Environment Programme world leaders have signed up to over 500 internationally recognized agreements, including 61 atmosphere-related; 155 biodiversity-related; 179 related to chemicals, hazardous substances and waste; 46 land conventions; and 196 conventions that are broadly related to issues dealing with water. Following trade, environment is now the most common area of global rule-making. In 1994, the first edition of this book was published following the momentous Rio Summit (The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development); the book synthesizes lessons about international environmental treaty making. Twenty years hence, much has changed and the Rio+20 summit held in 2012 has provided an impetus to update this pioneering study. Although several books on specific international environmental treaties have been published since 1994, this second edition of the book provides a contribution as a panoramic analysis of the process of environmental treaty making. What have been the successes and failures in the environmental treaty-making arena? How has the role of civil society and scientific consensus contributed to this maturing process? Why have some treaties been more enforceable than others, and which theories of international relations can further inform efforts in this regard?

The past few decades have seen a slow but steady convergence of certain aspects of the realms of environmental law and human rights at international and national levels. A high quality environment is coming to be regarded as a necessary prerequisite for the enjoyment of some of the most fundamental human rights especially as the rights to life, health, adequate food, clean water and proper housing are also dependent on a quality environment. Each chapter of this book records some aspect of the links between environmental law and human rights in substantive and/or procedural terms. The chapters fall loosely into four themes. The first explores human rights and the environment in the context of the private sector. The second canvasses the decisions of the European and Inter-American courts in respect of substantive and procedural aspects of human rights and environmental justice. The third theme examines human rights and the environment in the Asian and Pacific regions with respect to constitutional, legislative, institutional and judicial developments on the one hand, and the issues of rights associated with various kinds of forced human displacement on the other; the final theme is about the future direction of human rights and environment. The United Nations Independent Expert’s reports on the human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy, and sustainable environment are also explored in several chapters.

In recent years, China's leaders have started to confront the environmental, economic, and social costs of unchecked development. China's increasing reliance on foreign oil has engendered national security fears and launched a drive for more efficient transportation systems and domestic renewable energy projects. Meanwhile, pressure from a rising middle class and the international community has focused leadership attention on ways to make China's economic engine run more efficiently and with less impact upon the domestic and global environment. This profound shift in priorities has elevated environmental sustainability to the top of the national agenda. To advance this new agenda, the environmental laws that China has enacted over the past thirty years are being strengthened, and new environmental regulations and standards are being issued everyday. Entities operating in China are faced with the need to understand the impact of China's environmental law requirements upon their businesses, and to take actions to ensure that they are in compliance with those requirements. This book addresses how China's environmental regulatory and legal frameworks are structured; how to maintain operational compliance with the environmental laws and regulations; how to ensure products sold in China comply with environmental regulations; and the potential risks and liabilities that attend non-compliance. The book offers insight into how environmental law is in fact applied, setting forth a realistic account of the way companies encounter Chinese environmental regulations at both the local and national levels.

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. Since the early 1970s environmental issues have taken on an ever increasing profile. This has been due in part to a fundamental change in the type and scale of risk posed by industry. Issues such as global warming, GM food, and mad cow disease typify the new kinds of risk: potentially catastrophic consequences could ensue yet there is no scientific agreement over their precise causation, duration and other concerns. 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. The author examines the legal force of these principles and in the process offers a novel theory of norm formation in environmental law by unearthing new grounds of legality, comparing environmental laws across Europe, the Unites States and Australia. The book will be of interest to all with an interest in environmental law and policy, in the relationship between law and science, and in the ways in which political and ethical values can become embodied in laws.

The EU has emerged as a major source of innovation in environmental governance. This is manifested through the frameworks it is putting in place for environmental governance, and through its position on the world stage for international environmental law. An institutional richness has developed which is sometimes daunting in its complexity but which offers much promise for the future. This book seeks to give a taste of this, and of the challenges which face the EU in its sustainable development phase. The book opens with a broad historical overview of the evolution of EU environmental governance. This discussion characterizes the most recent phase as that of sustainable development, in which the political dynamic is one of destabilization and the preferred instrument of decision-making, the reflexive framework directive. There follows a series of case studies, ranging from the general to the particular, that cover both the internal and external aspects of EU policy. These include recent key issues in EU environmental law and governance, such as the water framework directive, the new chemicals regime (REACH), and European responses to the challenge of climate change. These case studies engage with key issues in environmental law and governance, including environmental justice, the relationship between trade and environment, and participation in environmental decision-making.