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The list of potential calamities that are like to become more frequent as a result of climate change seems to be growing by the day. Climate change has the potential to affect the enjoyment of human rights and is estimated to affect the most vulnerable populations the most. For some time now, discussions have taken [...]
Filed under: Africa, Environmental Law, International Environmental Law | Leave a Comment »
A number of newspapers report this morning that a UNEP report examining oil spills in the Niger region of Nigeria is set to argue that the main proportion of spills causing widespread environmental damage and human suffering in the region is caused by criminal activity. The report (to be published later this year) points out [...]
Filed under: Africa, Environmental Law, International Environmental Law, United Nations | 1 Comment »
Yesterday’s NY Times reports that eight former executives of Union Carbide India Limited (a subsidiary of the American chemical company Union Carbide) were convicted of negligence as a result of their failure to stop the explosion at the Union Carbide India factory which killed more than 2500 people in 1984. The NY Times reports that [...]
Filed under: Corporations in International Law, Environmental Law, International Environmental Law | 1 Comment »
The Pulp Mills case arose from an allegation by Argentina that Uruguay had violated its obligations under the 1975 Statute of the River Uruguay and other rules of international law by the fact that Uruguay had unilaterally authorised the construction of two pulp mills on the River Uruguay, which forms the boundary between the two [...]
Filed under: Environmental Law, International Court of Justice, Public International Law | 3 Comments »
The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) is composed of a group of low-lying islands situated in middle of the Indian Ocean. The largest of the islands, Diego Garcia, is only 30 km2 in area. The islands are subject to British control, although sovereignty over the islands is also claimed by Mauritius. The British Government entered [...]
Filed under: Environmental Law, Human Rights, International Environmental Law, Law of the sea, Public International Law | Leave a Comment »
The OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises are non-binding principles concerning the conduct of multinational enterprises operating in or from the territories of adhering countries. The Guidelines were first adopted in 1976 as part of the Declaration on International Investment and Multinational Enterprises. Today, adhering countries include all 30 OECD Members as well as Argentina, Brazil, [...]
Filed under: Environmental Law, Human Rights, Public International Law, human rights and business | Leave a Comment »
So the long-anticipated Copenhagen Summit is over. The politicians and protesters have all gone home and there is a sense of anticlimax in the air. The result of the Summit is the so-called “Copenhagen Accord”, a non-binding commitments amongst countries to decrease their carbon emissions. Observers have now started asking what are the implications of [...]
Filed under: Environmental Law, Public International Law | Leave a Comment »
The following is a guest post by Jennifer Kelleher, LLB Law with European Studies (German and History), LLM in Comparative and European Laws. Jennifer previously interned at the Office of the Co-Investigating Judges in Cambodia and is currently working with the International Council of Environmental Law on Arctic Law and Policy. Next month, 191 countries [...]
Filed under: Conference, Environmental Law, Guest Blogging, International Environmental Law | Leave a Comment »
By Graciela Chichilnisky The global summit in Copenhagen in December will decide the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, the only international agreement we have ever had to combat the dangers of climate change. But the Protocol expires in 2012 and – like Cinderella – it will become a pumpkin as the clock strikes 12. The Danish [...]
Filed under: Environmental Law, Guest Blogging, International Environmental Law, Public International Law | 4 Comments »
An issue related to Innocent’s post on environmental rights and Michele’s on “climate refugees” is the question of to what extent does climate change affect human rights in general? This is a question which is undergoing a lot of scrutiny not least since the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was, in 2008, charged with [...]
Filed under: Environmental Law, Europeam Court of Human Rights, Human Rights, International Environmental Law | Leave a Comment »
Today is Blog Action Day, the annual event in which bloggers worldwide unite to draw attention to a particularly urgent topic. After last year’s topic of ‘poverty’, this year the organizers have chosen ‘climate change’ as the common subject. And what would be better suited for an international law blog to write about in support [...]
Filed under: Blogroll, Environmental Law | 1 Comment »
Professor Douglas Cassel’s commentary “Do we Have a Human Right to a Healthy Environment?” critique the existance of the right to a healthy environment in the international law discourse. The author argues that the matter has complex underlying legal challenges that have to be unmasked for it to be clearly comprehended. He brings an interesting dimension regarding the relationship [...]
Filed under: Environmental Law, Human Rights, International Environmental Law, Regional Human Rights | Leave a Comment »
No week passes without a newspaper article, television news or a documentary describing the plight of “climate refugees”. In this post, I would like to explain why, in my opinion, “survival migrants” is a more adequate term than “climate refugees” from a humanitarian and legal protection perspective. Secondly, I would like to examine to what [...]
Filed under: Environmental Law, Guest Blogging, Human Rights, International Environmental Law, International Humanitarian Law | Leave a Comment »
International Law Observer is pleased to welcome Michèle Morel as guest contributor. Michèle is currently undertaking PhD studies at Ghent University, Belgium, Faculty of Law, Department of Public International Law, into the topic of “environmental migration” (more specifically the interplay between International Human Rights Law and Refugee Law). Prior to commencing her PhD work, Michèle [...]
Filed under: Environmental Law, Guest Blogging, Human Rights | Leave a Comment »
According to the Environment News Service (ENS), the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer, a protocol to the 1985 Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, achieved universal ratification this week when the prime minister of Timor-Leste ratified the Protocol. This is the first time ever that a multinational [...]
Filed under: Environmental Law, History of International Law, International Environmental Law | Leave a Comment »
A brief follow-up on the ECJ’s Kadi decision and the Court of First Instance’s (CFI) – slightly less famous – PMOI decisions we reported earlier on (see here, here and here). The Kadi decision dealt with an EU regulation implementing a UN blacklist which provided for the freezing of financial means of suspected Al Quaida [...]
Filed under: EC-Law, ECJ, ECtHR, EU-Law, EU/EC Law, Environmental Law, Human Rights, Regional Human Rights, Regional Human Rights Protection | Leave a Comment »
On International Law Reporter, Prof. Cogan links to a short piece by Ingrid Wuerth describing the recent settlement reached in the lawsuit before a district court in New York filed under the Alien Tort Statute by the relatives of Ken Saro-Wiwa against Shell. We have previously blogged about the case here.
Filed under: Africa, Corporations in International Law, Environmental Law, human rights and business | Leave a Comment »
This is the controversial question asked by BBC Radio 4’s Richard Black in a programme broadcasted on Thursday evening. Links to radio programme available here and news feature here. In the programme, Black speaks to a number of different environmental campaigners who all describe how more traditional environmental issues like nature and species conservation have [...]
Filed under: Environmental Law, International Environmental Law | Leave a Comment »
While the build-up to this year’s important climate conference in Copenhagen (where the international community is to hammer out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol) has been going on for years, the diplomatic grandstanding is now starting to reach new peaks (or rather lows if the international community is to have any success in setting [...]
Filed under: Environmental Law, International Environmental Law | Leave a Comment »
To many human rights, environmental and corporate social responsibility scholars the name of Ken Saro-Wiwa is all too familiar. Saro-Wiwa was a Nigerian author and environmental campaigner fighting the exploitation of natural resources and alleged human rights violation in his native Ogoniland in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. In 1995, Saro-Wiwa was executed by the [...]
Filed under: Corporations in International Law, Environmental Law, Responsibility to protect, human rights and business | Leave a Comment »
For some time now, the argument that the pirates terrorising the waters off the coast of Somalia are a combination of environmentalists and Robin Hoods has been popping up (although it has not received the same amount of attention as the gripping stories of how the pirates held captain Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama [...]
Filed under: Environmental Law, International Criminal Law, Law of the sea, Public International Law | Leave a Comment »
The overarching consideration that the belligerent parties in armed conflicts should adhere to must be the need to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties. This, however, is not the sole concern. In addition to taking into consideration the plight of civilians, belligerent parties will also have to take into account the environment. Environmental issues are linked to [...]
Filed under: Environmental Law, International Environmental Law, International Humanitarian Law, Peacekeeping, Public International Law, Publications | 1 Comment »
As environmental law as a legal discipline comes of age, it becomes appropriate to subject it to critical appraisals of various shapes and forms. One such appraisal is undertaken in “Environmental Law and Justice in Context”, edited by Jonas Ebbesson and Phoebe Okowa of Stockholm University and Queen Mary University respectively, with special reference to [...]
Filed under: Book review, Environmental Law, International Environmental Law, Relevant Literature, international justice, literature | Leave a Comment »
If you hold an interest in international environmental law, you might find the special rapport in this week’s Economist on waste interesting. Although waste does not at first sight concern international law and related areas, the rapport fascinatingly describes many of the challenges and problems which waste gives rise to. Given that, on average, each [...]
Filed under: EC-Law, ECJ, Environmental Law, Human Rights, International Environmental Law, Law of the sea | Leave a Comment »
