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Global Assessment and Review: The Importance of a Transparency Turn in International Environmental Law

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Charting Environmental Law Futures in the Anthropocene

Abstract

Transparency mechanisms have been recognized as a valuable tool for enhancing the effectiveness of international environmental law and global environmental governance. These mechanisms are, however, under pressure from a range of processes and impacts. Challenges including data availability and lack of comprehensive data collection, unstandardized reporting formats, unsystematic monitoring processes, and fragmentation in international environmental law have triggered a non-transparent culture. In times of a “New Earth”, international environmental law needs to keep pace with continuing global changes. New approaches are thus required to deliver a transparency turn in international environmental law. The concept of the Anthropocene has the potential to support efforts towards a more transparent and integrated approach to international environmental law. This includes inter-disciplinary responses to the human-environment interfaces, as well as information exchanges and innovative visions. This paper highlights the importance of transparency tools in international environmental law, identifies the current challenges, and explores possible opportunities created by the Anthropocene epoch to overcome transparency challenges and enhance international environmental law.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Agenda 21, Report of the UNCED, I, UN Doc A/CONF.151/26/Rev.1 (1992). Agenda 21 remains a remarkable blueprint for sustainable development via reforms to environmental law and policy. Chapter 40—entitled ‘Information for Decision-making’—calls for program areas that must be implemented to ensure that decisions are based increasingly on sound information.

  2. 2.

    Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment, 16 June 1972, Principle 20, UN Doc A/CONF.48/14 (1972). The declaration marked the first step towards the necessity to provide data and information to address environmental issues.

  3. 3.

    Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Principle 9 and 10, UN Doc A/CONF.151/6/Rev.1 (1992). Principle 10—which is known as the environmental democracy principle- seeks to change the way decisions are made by reaffirming respect for basic human rights and good decision-making procedures as way to confront the socio-ecological crisis of the Anthropocene. For more discussion, see De Silva (2012).

  4. 4.

    Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, opened for signature 25 June 1998, 38 ILM 517 (entered into force 30 October 2001). The convention creates a unified legal framework for governmental accountability, transparency and environmental democracy.

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  1. Environmental Policy Analyst, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

    Nafiseh Jafarzadeh

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Correspondence to Nafiseh Jafarzadeh .

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  1. Adelaide Law School, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia

    Michelle Lim

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Jafarzadeh, N. (2019). Global Assessment and Review: The Importance of a Transparency Turn in International Environmental Law. In: Lim, M. (eds) Charting Environmental Law Futures in the Anthropocene. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9065-4_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9065-4_12

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