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Fragmentation of Science, International Environmental Law, and International Institutions

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Abstract

The design and promulgation of International Environmental Law take place under the general principles of Public International Law, which was created during an ecologically innocent era. These principles, in combination with the existing weak international environmental governance institutions, restrain the bodies of international institutions from taking successful, collective steps to protect our global environment. As a result, environmental legislation is being created in the most unsystematic, fragmented way, with a state-specific or issue-specific perspective., International environmental laws that regulate and affect the earth’s ecosystems are not based on the logic of interdependence among the natural ecosystems and do not take into account inputs and outputs of both natural and social systems.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a seminal article contained criticism against domestic environmental legislation due to fragmentation, see JOHN WARGO, Fractured Law, Fractured Science, in OUR CHILDREN'S TOXIC LEGACY (John Wargo ed., New Haven, Conn., London: Yale University Press 1998); further, Nicholas A. Robinson, Legal Systems, Decisionmaking, and the Science of Earth’s Systems: Procedural Missing Links, 27 ECOLOGY L.Q. 1077 (2001), at 1079, addresses state sovereignty and the old-world system created after the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as a serious impediment to the development of International Environmental Law and governance.

  2. 2.

    International legislation generally is being created in an unsystematic way. Sass comments: “on the international level the diversity of initiatives is even greater [than the national level], both because of the highly decentralized nature of the entire process and because of the dearth of cumulative and up-to-date information about treaty-making…” PAUL C. SASS, SELECTED ESSAYS ON UNDERSTANDING INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS 11 (Edith Brown Weiss ed., Transnational Publishers, Inc., Ardsley, New York 2001).

  3. 3.

    SYSTEMS THEORY (Michael Decleris ed., edited by G. S. Group. Athens - Komotini: Ant. N. Sakkoulas 1986).

  4. 4.

    Charles S. Pearson, International Marine Environmental Policy: The Economic Dimension, 25 STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 41 (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD. 1975).

  5. 5.

    On fragmentation see also Conclusions of the ILC Study Group, short Report Submitted to the UN General Assembly on July 18, 2006, Doc. A/CN.4/L.702, full report: Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversifications and Expansion of International Law, Report of the Study Group of the ILC, Finalized by Marrti Koskenniemi, Doc.A/CN.4/L.682 of April 13, 2006 [hereinafter ILC Report.]; INTERNATIONAL LAW TODAY: NEW CHALLENGES AND THE NEED FOR REFORM? (Doris Konig et al. eds., Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York 2007). Regarding fragmentation in the U.S. Environmental Law see RICHARD J. LAZARUS, THE MAKING OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAW 32 (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London); Karen N. Scott, Managing fragmentation through governance: International environmental law in a globalised world, in International Law in the New Age of Globalization 207–238 (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2013).

  6. 6.

    Morgan John Carter III, Fragmentation of International Environmental Law and the Synergy: A Problem and a 21st Century Model Solution, 18 Vermont Journal of Environmental Law134–172 (2016).

  7. 7.

    UNEP was established by G.A. Res. 2997 (XXII), II.2.b, U.N. Doc. A/RES/27/2997 (Dec. 15, 1972).

  8. 8.

    P. W. BIRNIE & A. E. BOYLE, INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE ENVIRONMENT 42 (London 1992).

  9. 9.

    P. W. BIRNIE & A. E. BOYLE, INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE ENVIRONMENT 42 (London 1992) at 42-3.

  10. 10.

    Christine Chinkin, International Environmental Law, in EVOLUTION IN LAW IN ENVIRONMENTAL DECISION-MAKING: NATIONAL, EUROPEAN AND INTERNATIONAL APPROACHES 246 (Tim Jewell and Jenny Steele eds., Clarendon Press, Oxford 1998).

  11. 11.

    See a detailed list of MEAs and other environmental agreements at the official website of the “International Environmental Agreements Project”, available to http://iea-archive.uoregon.edu/page.php?query=base_agreement_list&name=Multilateral%20Environmental%20Agreements%3Cbr%3Efor%20the%20period%20from%201800%20to%202010,%20inclusive&where=start&InclusionEQ=MEA&Sig_DateGE=1800&Sig_DateLE=2010 (last accessed December 2018). See also Scott Barrett, International Environmental Agreements, in ENVIRONMENT AND STATECRAFT, 131 (2005).

  12. 12.

    Maria Ivanova & Jennifer Roy, The Architecture of Global Environmental Governance: Pros and Cons of Multiplicity (paper prepared for the Center for UN Reform Education) (January 2007), available at http://www.centerforunreform.org/sites/default/files/GEG_Ivanova-Roy.pdf (last accessed January 2019).

  13. 13.

    PETER M. HAAS, SAVING THE MEDITERRANEAN: THE POLITICS OF INTERNATIONAL Environmental Cooperation 75 (New York: Columbia University Press 1990) at 31-32.

  14. 14.

    UNEP, Global Ministerial Environment Forum, GC.25/17, Decision 25/1, art. I para. 3, February 16-20, 2009, Nairobi.

  15. 15.

    Kal Raustiala & David G. Victor, The Regime Complex for Plant Genetic Resources, 58 INT’L ORG. 277 (2004); Steinar Andersen, Global Environmental Governance, UN Fragmentation and Co-Ordination, in YEARBOOK OF INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION ON ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT (O. S. Stokke & O. B. Thommessen ed., London, Earthscan Publications 2001).

  16. 16.

    Kal Raustiala & David G. Victor, The Regime Complex for Plant Genetic Resources, 58 INT'L ORG. 277 (2004).

  17. 17.

    Daniel Bodansky, Jutta Brunnée & Ellen Hey, International Environmental Law: Mapping the Field, in The Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law (Daniel Bodansky, Jutta Brunnée & Ellen Hey eds., Oxford University Press, 2008).

  18. 18.

    See Jarle Trandel, Contending Decision-Making Dynamics within the European Commission, 5 COMPARATIVE EUROPEAN POLITICS 158, 163 (2007).

  19. 19.

    See, e.g., CHARLES H. ALEXANDROWICZ, THE LAWMAKING FUNCTIONS OF THE SPECIALIZED AGENCIES OF THE UNITED NATIONS (1973).

  20. 20.

    See Harro van Asselt, Dealing with the Fragmentation of Global Climate Governance: Legal Approaches in Interplay Management (2007) (Global Governance working paper No. 30) (on file with the Global Governance Project).

  21. 21.

    William T. Burke, Aspects of Internal Decision-Making Processes in Intergovernmental Fishery Commissions, 43 WASH. L. REV. 115 (1967).

  22. 22.

    Joseph R. Morgan, Large Marine Ecosystems: An Emerging Concept of Regional Management, 29 (10) ENVIRONMENT (December 1987).

  23. 23.

    Convention on Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, May 20, 1980, 33 U.S.T. 3476, T.I.A.S. No. 10240.

  24. 24.

    See, e.g., Josi Morishita, What is the Ecosystems Approach for Fisheries Management, 32 (1) MARINE POLICY 19 (2008).

  25. 25.

    SIMON LYSTER, INTERNATIONAL WILDLIFE LAW 158 (Grotius Publications, Cambridge 1985).

  26. 26.

    See Dan Tarlock, Slouching toward Eden: The Eco-pragmatic Challenges of Ecosystem Revival, 87 MINN. L. REV. 1173 (2003); Gilbert F. White, Reflections on Changing Perceptions of the Earth, 19 ANN. REV. ENERGY & ENV’T L. 8 (1994).

  27. 27.

    Convention on Biological Diversity, Rio de Janeiro, 1992, 31 I.L.M. 818 (1992) at art 23.4(h).

  28. 28.

    Decision 1/CP.7 (The Marrakesh Ministerial Declaration) para. 3 in Report of the Conference of the Parties on its Seventh Session, held at Marrakesh from 29 October to 10 November 2001, FCCC/CP/2001/13/Add.1 (2002).

  29. 29.

    Decision 13/CP.8 (Cooperation with Other Conventions) para. 1 in Report of the Conference of the Parties on its Eighth Session, Held at New Delhi from 23 October to 1 November 2002 FCCC/CP/2002/7/Add.1 (2002).

  30. 30.

    Decision 13/CP.8 (Cooperation with Other Conventions) para. 1 in Report of the Conference of the Parties on its Eighth Session, Held at New Delhi from 23 October to 1 November 2002 FCCC/CP/2002/7/Add.1 (2002).

  31. 31.

    Decision 13/CP.8 (Cooperation with Other Conventions) para. 1 in Report of the Conference of the Parties on its Eighth Session, Held at New Delhi from 23 October to 1 November 2002 FCCC/CP/2002/7/Add.1 (2002) at 524-525.

  32. 32.

    Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD), June 17, 1994, 33 I.L.M. 1332.

  33. 33.

    Report of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice on its Fourteenth Session, Bonn, 24-27 July 2001, FCCC/SBSTA/2001/2 (2001) para. 42(d).

  34. 34.

    Report of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice on its Fourteenth Session, Bonn, 24-27 July 2001, FCCC/SBSTA/2001/2 (2001) para. 42(d).

  35. 35.

    Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, Nov. 13, 1979, 1302 U.N.T.S. 217, available at https://treaties.un.org/doc/Treaties/1979/11/19791113%2004-16%20PM/Ch_XXVII_01p.pdf (last accessed December 2018).

  36. 36.

    Veronika Modrić, RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GLOBAL WARMING, Contemporary Legal & Economic Issues 195–219 (2015).

  37. 37.

    JAMES GUSTAVE SPETH, Two Perspectives on Globalization and the Environment, in WORLDS APART – GLOBALIZATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT 4 (James Gustave Speth ed., Island Press, Washington, Covelo, London, 2003) at 92.

  38. 38.

    RONALD B. MITCHELL, MAKING ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE RELEVANT FOR POLICY MAKERS (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 2003).

  39. 39.

    Daniel Bodansky, The art and craft of international environmental law (Harvard University Press, Cambridge 2011), pp. 139-145.

  40. 40.

    CARSTEN SCHMIDT, DESIGNING INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL AGREEMENTS – INCENTIVE COMPATIBLE STRATEGIES FOR COST-EFFECTIVE COOPERATION 9 (Edward Elgar Publ., Cheltenham, UK, Northampton, MA, U.S.A. 2000).

  41. 41.

    All relevant information is available at the official website of the IPCC, www.ipcc.ch (last accessed January 2019).

  42. 42.

    See Second Assessment Report (SAR), IPCC Report, 1995, p. 5.

  43. 43.

    For a comprehensive study on the natural science of the greenhouse effect, see William R. Cline, Scientific Basis for the Greenhouse Effect, 101 ECONOMIC JOURNAL 904 (1991); CLIMATE CHANGE 1995 – THE SCIENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE, CONTRIBUTION OF WORKING GROUP I TO THE SECOND ASSESSMENT REPORT OF THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE (John T. Houghton et al. eds, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

  44. 44.

    JAMES GUSTAVE SPETH, Two Perspectives on Globalization and the Environment, in WORLDS APART – GLOBALIZATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT 4 (James Gustave Speth ed., Island Press, Washington, Covelo, London, 2003), at 92.

  45. 45.

    RICHARD ELLIOT BENEDICK, OZONE DIPLOMACY: NEW DIRECTIONS IN SAFEGUARDING THE PLANET 129 (Enlarged Edition) (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England 1998), with reference to LYDIA DOTTO & HAROLD SCHIFF, THE OZONE WAR 149 - 165 (Doubleday, Garden City, N.Y. 1978).

  46. 46.

    See EDWARD A. PARSON, PROTECTING THE OZONE LAYER 257 (Oxford University Press 2003).

  47. 47.

    John K. Gamble, International Law and the Information Age, 17 MICH. J. INT’L L. 747 (1996); Manfred Lachs, Views from the Bench: Thoughts on Science, Technology and World Law, 86 AM. J. INT’L L. 673 (1992).

  48. 48.

    See, e.g., Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects, Mar. 29, 1972, 24 U.S.T. 2389; Agreement Relating to the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, Aug. 20, 1971, 23 U.S.T. 3813; Sea-Bed Arms Control Treaty, Feb. 11, 1971, 23 U.S.T. 701; Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, July 1, 1968, 21 U.S.T. 483; Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and under Water, Aug. 5, 1963, 14 U.S.T. 1313; Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Oct. 26, 1959, 8 U.S.T. 1093; Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, Dec. 7, 1994, 61 Stat. 1180.

  49. 49.

    See United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, arts. 87(10(f), 143, 283-65, Dec. 10, 1982, 21 I.L.M. 1261.

  50. 50.

    See Antarctic Treaty, arts. I, II, Dec. 1, 1959, 12 U.S.T. 794.

  51. 51.

    See Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, arts. I, IX,J an. 27, 1967, 18 U.S.T. 2410.

  52. 52.

    See Universal Copyright Convention, July 24, 1971, 25 U.S.T. 1341; Patent Cooperation Treaty, June 19, 1970, 28 U.S.T. 7645.

  53. 53.

    Joseph W. Dellapenna, Law in a Shrinking World: The Interaction of Science and Technology with International Law, 88 KY. L.J. 809, 823 (1999-2000) at 831.

  54. 54.

    DONELLA H. MEADOWS ET AL., THE LIMITS TO GROWTH: A REPORT FOR THE CLUB OF ROME’S PROJECT ON THE PREDICAMENT OF MANKIND xi (Potomac: New York, 1972).

  55. 55.

    PREDICTION: SCIENCE, DECISION MAKING, AND THE FUTURE OF NATURE (Sarewitz, Daniel, Roger A. Pielke, & Byerly Radford Jr., eds., Washington, D.C.: Island Press 2000).

  56. 56.

    See a parallel idea of implementing the natural sciences driven “complexity theory” in global environmental decision-making in MATTHEW J. HOFFMAN, OZONE DEPLETION AND CLIMATE CHANGE 38 (State University of New York Press 2005). Hoffman supports his theory with reference to several scholars that support the need for political science to move beyond Newtonian, linear models of decision-making: JOHN LEWIS GADDIS, History, Science and the Study of International Relations, in EXPLAINING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SINCE 1945 32 (Ngaire Woods ed., Oxford University Press 1996); Steven Bernstein et al., God Gave Physics the Easy Problems: Adapting Social Science to an Unpredictable World, 6 (1) EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 43; Matthew Hoffman & John Riley, The Science of Political Science: Linearity of Complexity in the Design of Social Inquiry, 24 (2) NEW POLITICAL SCIENCE 303. Noteworthy, Hoffman makes an interesting association between the complexity theory and the social sciences driven constructivist theory, which I also follow below in the paper, p. 38.

  57. 57.

    For more information about the experiments conducted by Du Pont back in 1972, see LYDIA DOTTO & HAROLD SCHIFF, THE OZONE WARS (Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York 1978).

  58. 58.

    Peter M. Haas, Knowledge, Power and International Policy Coordination, 46 INT’L ORG. 1, 3 (Special Issue 1992) at 218.

  59. 59.

    BHARAT H. DESAI, INSTITUTIONALIZING INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW 84 (Transnational Publishers, Ardsley, NY 2004).

  60. 60.

    BHARAT H. DESAI, INSTITUTIONALIZING INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW 84 (Transnational Publishers, Ardsley, NY 2004) at 86.

  61. 61.

    See Report of the Ad Hoc Meeting of Senior Government Officials Experts in Environmental Law, UNEP/GC10/5/Add.2, Annex, Ch. 11 (1981); Yearbook of the United Nations, vol. 35, 1981, pp. 839-40 and Yearbook of the United Nations, vol. 36, 1982, p. 1030.

  62. 62.

    The UNEP Governing Council resolution 10/21 of 31 May 1982, adopted the experts’ program and endorsed their conclusions and recommendations; see UNEP GC report A/37/25, 31 May 1982.

  63. 63.

    UNEP organized two sessions of the Meeting of Senior Government Officials Expert in Environmental Law for the Review of the Montevideo Program in Rio de Janeiro (October/November 1991) and in Nairobi (September 1992.) See UNEP, Program for the Development and Periodic Review of Environmental Law for the 1990s (Nairobi: UNEP, June 1993), p. 1-17 [hereinafter “Montevideo Program II”]. See also Yearbook of the United Nations, vol. 47, 1993, pp. 820-21.

  64. 64.

    See Yearbook of the United Nations, vol. 47, 1993, pp. 820 – 21. Also see UNEP Governing Council decision 17/25 of 21 May 1993; see UN Doc.A/17/25.

  65. 65.

    see UNEP, Montevideo Programme II, available at http://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/20586/Montevideo-II.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y (last accessed January 2019).

  66. 66.

    See Report of the Meeting of Senior Government Officials Expert in Environmental Law for the Mid-Term Review of the Programme for the Development and Periodic Review of Environmental Law for the 1990s, Nairobi, December 2 – 6, 1996; UNEP/Env.Law/3/3 of December 10. 1996.

  67. 67.

    340 UNEP GC Decision 20/3 of February 3, 1999 on “Programme for the development and periodic review of environmental law beyond the year 2000”.

  68. 68.

    See Report of the Executive Director on Policy Responses of the United Nations Environmental Programme to Tackle Emerging Environmental Problems in Sustainable Development, Items 4(b) and 5 of the provisional agenda for the Twenty-First Session of the Governing Council of UNEP/Global Ministerial Environment Forum, Nairobi, 5-9 February 2001, Doc. UNEP/GC.21/3, 18 December 2000, p. 6 para. 9.

  69. 69.

    See Report on the fourth session of the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests, Resolution No 2000/35, in Resolutions and Decisions of the Economic and Social Council, p. 64, available at http://www.un.org/documents/ecosoc/cn17/2000/ecn172000-14.htm (last accessed January 2019).

  70. 70.

    See Non-Binding Instrument on All Types of Forests (NLBI), available at https://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/cop/session%202/10-Cigar-2-10-6-The%20Non-Legally-UNFF.pdf (last accessed December 2018).

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    Dionysia-Theodora Avgerinopoulou

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Avgerinopoulou, DT. (2019). Fragmentation of Science, International Environmental Law, and International Institutions. In: Science-Based Lawmaking . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21417-3_3

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