Part VIII Compliance, Implementation, and Effectiveness, Ch.53 Market Mechanisms

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehling Michael A
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Law ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Social Constructs ◽  
Market Mechanisms ◽  
Efficient Operation ◽  
Environmental Markets ◽  
Conceptual Foundations

This chapter provides an overview of market mechanisms and their contemporary role in international environmental law. It considers the conceptual foundations and theoretical rationale of market mechanisms when deployed for environmental ends, citing the main arguments levelled on different sides of the debate. As social constructs built on legal rights and obligations, moreover, markets rely on a sound regulatory framework for their efficient operation. With environmental markets, this need for legal parameters is further accentuated by the fact that the article of trade is itself a regulatory artifice. The chapter then looks at legal issues arising in the design and implementation of market mechanisms. It surveys the most important environmental markets currently in place at the international level. The chapter concludes with an outlook on the future role of market mechanisms in international environmental law.

scholarly journals A legal paradigm shift towards climate justice in the Anthropocene

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-68
Author(s):  
Sam Adelman ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Main Driver ◽  
Business As Usual ◽  
Ecological Catastrophe

Business as usual is widely acknowledged as the main driver of ecological collapse and climate breakdown, but less attention is paid to the role of law as usual as an impediment to climate justice. This article analyses how domestic and international environmental law facilitate injustices against living entities and nature. It calls for a paradigm shift in legal theory, practice and teaching to reflect the scale and urgency of the unfolding ecological catastrophe. Section 2 outlines the links between climatic harms and climate injustices. This is followed by discussions of unsustainable law and economic development in sections 3 and 4. Section 5 examines the potential contribution of new materialist legal theory in bringing about a legal paradigm shift that reflects the jurisgenerative role of nature in promoting climate justice.

Part III Conceptual Pillars, Ch.16 Harm Prevention

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brunnée Jutta
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Law ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Significant Harm ◽  
Actual Harm ◽  
The Face ◽  
Harm Prevention ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter addresses how international environmental law originates from and revolves around the harm prevention rule. It focuses on three points of contention, each related to the role of due diligence in harm prevention, and each highlighted by recent judicial engagements with the harm prevention rule. First, it is generally accepted that a state's obligation to prevent environmental harm is not absolute, but requires due diligence in the face of risk of significant harm. However, it is unclear whether a failure to act diligently to avert harm on its own—absent actual harm—can amount to a breach of the harm prevention rule. Second, the relationship between the procedural and substantive dimensions of the harm prevention rule remains ambiguous. Third, there is some uncertainty as to where the line runs between the harm prevention obligation and the precautionary principle, given the focus of both notions on risk. These inter-related conceptual questions affect the harm prevention rule's function as a reference point for international environmental law.

Part VI Actors, Ch.40 Epistemic Communities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haas Peter M
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Epistemic Community ◽  
Epistemic Communities ◽  
Causal Beliefs ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
History Of

This chapter begins with a definition and intellectual history of epistemic communities. ‘Epistemic communities’ is a concept developed by ‘soft’ constructivist scholars of international relations concerned with agency. Soft constructivists in general focus on the role of various types of norms, principled beliefs, causal beliefs, and discourses in establishing roles and rules in international relations: that is, determining the identities, interests, and practices that shape the identification of actors in international relations. The chapter then applies this definition to the study of international environmental law and discusses whether or not international lawyers constitute an epistemic community. It concludes with a discussion of some of the recent challenges to the influence of epistemic communities in world politics more broadly, and thus the future of international environmental law.

Innovativeness and Paralysis in International Climate Policy

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Streck
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
International Law ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Market Mechanisms ◽  
International Climate Policy ◽  
To Come ◽  
Private Actors

AbstractThis article describes the challenges of using the constrained tools of international law to negotiate a sustainable framework to address climate change. It sets out to show how the particularities of the problem have led to creative and innovative solutions expanding the borders of international law. To this end, the article discusses carbon market mechanisms, the compliance regime of the Kyoto Protocol, and the emerging framework to create incentives to reduce land-based emissions in developing countries. These examples illustrate that the recognition of the role of sub-national and private entities in mitigating climate change has had significant impact on the rules of the climate regime. But the article also asserts that the un process, while recognizing the role of private actors, is still inadequately equipped to involve non-state actors in a meaningful way. The climate regime therefore challenges the traditional thinking about interstate relationships. No longer solely a matter for international environmental law, contemporary environmental governance has become a global affair, which makes the lens of transnational law a useful tool to think about these issues in practice in a more intellectually fruitful and relevant way. This article thereby provides a snapshot of the type of issues and discussion that readers of this journal can look forward to in the years to come.

Locating Nature: Making and Unmaking International Law: Introduction

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 571-572 ◽  
Author(s):  
KISHAN KHODAY ◽  
VANESSA LAMB ◽  
TYLER MCCREARY ◽  
KARIN MICKELSON ◽  
USHA NATARAJAN ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Sustainable Livelihoods ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
Behavioural Patterns ◽  
The World

Environmental harm is of increasing concern to peoples and states all over the world, whether in relation to ensuring access to healthy air, water, food, and sustainable livelihoods, or coping with the diversity of challenges posed by changing climates and ecologies. While international lawyers have focused on crafting solutions to environmental problems, less attention is paid to the disciplinary role in fostering harmful and unsustainable behavioural patterns. Environmental issues are usually relegated to the specialized field of international environmental law. This project explores instead the role of nature in the general discipline, arguing that the natural environment is a determinative factor in shaping international law, and that assumptions about nature lie at the heart of disciplinary concepts such as sovereignty, development, economy, property, and human rights.

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