Abstract
This chapter starts from the angle of the necessity of an absolute reduction of the Global North’s use of Earth’s sink and source capacities due to the unchangeable biophysical limitations and assesses the instruments therefore available to different types of stakeholders. In terms of methodology, this subchapter applies in a hermeneutic manner the decision support framework of 3-D Sustainability, the analytical differentiation among stakeholders as the “players of the game” and institutions as the “rules of the game” and adds to these rule-focused instruments two further types of instruments, namely economic-incentive focused and information focused ones. The findings start with a distinction between substantial inter-national and intra-national finetuning when it comes to the implementation of this absolute reduction goal in the Global North and provides justifications therefore. Then, in a rough overview, the general availability of the three instrument types to three overall types of stakeholders – namely (1) governmental ones, (2) for-profit ones and (3) not-for-profit ones is presented and discussed. For the further analysis, governmental stakeholders are picked out due to their unique availability of rule-focused instruments. Then, the different extent of availability of these instruments to governmental stakeholders on three levels (national, regional and international) of the geopolitical scale is shown and analyzed. Afterwards, national stakeholders are selected for the further analysis due to their unique availability of those rule-focused instruments that allow raising taxes as own income source. In relation to all three types of instruments discussed, concrete national actions are presented that implement absolute reductions based on four of the six 3-D Sustainability criteria, namely sufficiency, eco-effectiveness, ecological equity and socio-effectiveness. Conclusions further emphasize the global relevance of the findings and point out potential future research directions.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Adger, W., Eakin, H., & Winkels, A. (2008). Nested and teleconnected vulnerabilities to environmental change. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 7(3), 150–157.
Alcott, B. (2008). The sufficiency strategy: Would rich-world frugality lower environmental impact? Ecological Economics, 64, 770–786.
Anderies, J. M. (2015). Managing variance: Key policy challenges for the Anthropocene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112, 14402–14403.
Bevir, M. (2009). Key concepts of governance (SAGE key concepts series) (p. 232).
Binswanger, M. (2001). Technological progress and sustainable development: What about the rebound effect? (2001). Ecological Economics, 36, 119–132.
Bruch, C. E., & Czerbiniak, R. (2002). Globalizing environmental governance: Making the leap from regional initiatives on transparency, participation and accountability in environmental matters. Environmental Law Reporter News and Analysis, 32(4), 10428–10453.
Capra, F. (1997). The web of life: A new understanding of living systems. Parklands: Random House (Pty) Ltd.
Carpenter, S. R., Brock, W. A., Folke, C., van Nes, E. H., & Scheffer, M. (2015). Allowing variance may enlarge the safe operating space for exploited ecosystems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(46), 14384–14389.
Cash, D. W., Adger, W. N., Berkes, F., Garden, P., Lebel, L., Olsson, P., Pritchard, L., & Young, O. (2006). Scale and cross-scale dynamics: Governance and information in a multilevel world. Ecology and Society, 11(2), 8.
Cichowski, R. A. (2006). Courts, rights, and democratic participation. Comparative Political Studies, 39, 50–75.
CJEU. (2017). Order of the Grand Chamber delivered on 20 November 2017 in Commission v Poland. “Białowieża forest” (C-441/17 R, EU:C:2017:877). Retrieved at October 27, 2019, from http://curia.europa.eu/juris/documents.jsf?language=EN&critereEcli=ECLI:EU:C:2017:877
CJEU. (2019a). Annual report 2018: The year in review. Luxembourg: Court of Justice of the European Union. Retrieved at October 27, 2019, from https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2019-04/ra_pan_2018_en.pdf.
CJEU. (2019b). Annual report 2018: Judicial activity. Luxembourg: Court of Justice of the European Union. Retrieved at October 27, 2019, from https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2019-04/_ra_2018_en.pdf.
CJEU. (2019c). Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Retrieved at October 27, 2019 from https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/institutions-bodies/court-justice_en
Crutzen, P. J. (2002). The “anthropocene”. Journal De Physique Iv, 12(PR10), 1–5.
Dromgool, T., & Ybarra Enquix, D. (2016). The fair and equitable treatment standard and the revocation of feed in tariffs—Foreign renewable energy investments in crisis-struck Spain. In V. Mauerhofer (Ed.), Legal aspects of sustainable development: Horizontal and sectorial policy issues (pp. 389–422). Cham: Springer.
Dyllick, T., & Hockerts, K. (2002). Beyond the business case for corporate sustainability. Business Strategy and the Environment, 11(2), 130–141. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.323m
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). (2018). Escazú agreement on access to information, public participation and justice in environmental matters. Retrieved at October 27, 2019, from https://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/43583/1/S1800428_en.pdf
EU. (2019a). EU cohesion policy – Frequently asked questions. Retrieved at October 27, 2019, from https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/faq/
EU. (2019b). About the EU. Retrieved at October 27, 2019 from https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/eu-budget/how-it-works/fact-check_enen
Gu, H. (2016). NIMBYism in China: Issues and prospects of public participation in facility siting. Land Use Policy, 52(2016), 527–534.
Hamilton, C., Gemenne, F., & Bonneuil, C. (2015). Thinking the anthopocene. In C. Hamilton, F. Gemenne, & C. Bonneuil (Eds.), The anthropocene and the global environmental crisis: Rethinking modernity in a new epoch (pp. 1–14). London/New York: Routledge.
Hubacek, K., & Mauerhofer, V. (2008). Future generations: Economic, legal and institutional aspects. Futures, 40, 413–423.
Huesemann, M. H. (2001). Can pollution problems be effectively solved by environmental science and technology? An analysis of critical limitations. Ecological Economics, 37, 271–287.
Hull, V., & Liu, J. (2018). Telecoupling: A new frontier for global sustainability. Ecology and Society, 23(4), 41. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10494-230441.
ICJ. (2014). International court of justice handbook (6th edn). The registrar of the international court of justice, The Hague, Netherlands. Retrieved at October 27, 2019, from https://www.icj-cij.org/files/publications/handbook-of-the-court-en.pdf
IRP. (2019). Global resources outlook 2019: Natural resources for the future we want. In B. Oberle, S. Bringezu, S. Hatfield-Dodds, S. Hellweg, H. Schandl, J. Clement, L. Cabernard, N. Che, D. Chen, H. Droz-Georget, P. Ekins, M. Fischer-Kowalski, M. Flörke, S. Frank, A. Froemelt, A. Geschke, M. Haupt, P. Havlik, R. Hüfner, M. Lenzen, M. Lieber, B. Liu, Y. Lu, S. Lutter, J. Mehr, A. Miatto, D. Newth, C. Oberschelp, M. Obersteiner, S. Pfister, E. Piccoli, R. Schaldach, J. Schüngel, T. Sonderegger, A. Sudheshwar, H. Tanikawa, E. van der Voet, C. Walker, J. West, Z. Wang, & B. Zhu (Eds.), A report of the international resource panel. Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme.
Janoušková, S., Hák, T., & Moldan, B. (2018). Global SDGs assessments: Helping or confusing indicators? Sustainability, 10(1540), 1–18.
Jendrośka, J. (2011). Public participation in environmental decision-making. Inter-actions between the convention and EU law and other key legal issues in its implementation in the light of the opinions of the Aarhus convention compliancecommittee. In M. Pallemaerts (Ed.), The Aarhus convention at ten. Interactions and tensions between conventional international law and EU environmental law (pp. 91–148). Groningen: Europa Law Publishing.
Jiborn, M., Kander, A., Kulionis, V., Nielsen, H., & Moran, D. D. (2018). Decoupling or delusion? Measuring emissions displacement in foreign trade. Global Environmental Change, 49, 27–34.
Kallis, G. (2018). Degrowth. Newcastle upon Tyne: Agenda Publishing. 176 pp.
Koester, V. (2007). The compliance committee of the Aarhus convention: An overview of procedures and jurisprudence. Environmental Policy and Law, 37(2–3), 83–96.
Li, W. (2016). Failure by design–National mandates and agent control of local landuse in China. Land Use Policy, 52, 518–526.
Lin, D., Hanscom, L., Murthy, A., Galli, A., Evans, M., Neill, E., Mancini, M. S., Martindill, J., Medouar, F., Huang, S., & Wackernagel, M. (2018). Ecological footprint accounting for countries: Updates and results of the national footprint accounts, 2012–2018. Resources, 7(3), 58.
Liu, J., Hull, V., Batistella, M., DeFries, R., Dietz, T., Fu, F., Hertel, T. W., Izaurralde, R. C., Lambin, E. F., Li, S., Martinelli, L. A., McConnell, W. J., Moran, E. F., Naylor, R., Ouyang, Z., Polenske, K. R., Reenberg, A., de Miranda, R. G., Simmons, C. S., Verburg, P. H., Vitousek, P. M., Zhang, F., & Zhu, C. (2013). Framing sustainability in a telecoupled world. Ecology and Society, 18(2), 26. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-05873-180226.
Mauerhofer, V. (2008). 3-D sustainability: An approach for priority setting in situation of conflicting interests towards a sustainable development. Ecological Economics, 64(3), 496–506.
Mauerhofer, V. (2013a). Lose less instead of win more: The failure of decoupling and perspectives for competition in a degrowth economy. Environmental Values, 22(1), 43–57.
Mauerhofer, V. (2013b). Social capital, social capacity and social carrying capacity: Perspectives for the social basics within environmental sustainability. Futures (Elsevier), 53, 63–73.
Mauerhofer, V. (2013c). The ‘governance-check’: Assessing the sustainability of public spatial decision-making structures. Land Use Policy, 30, 328–336.
Mauerhofer, V. (2016a). 3-D sustainability and its contribution to governance assessment in legal terms: Examples and perspectives. In V. Mauerhofer (Ed.), Legal aspects of sustainable development: Horizontal and sectorial policy issues (pp. 35–56). Cham: Springer.
Mauerhofer, V. (2016b). Public participation in environmental matters: Compendium, challenges and chances globally. Land Use Policy, 52, 481–491.
Mauerhofer, V. (2018a). Identifying legal priorities for policy making: A forest-society-economy context analysed by 3-D sustainability. Ecological Economics, 152, 183–190.
Mauerhofer, V. (2018b). Legal aspects of ecosystem services: An introduction and an overview. Ecosystem Services, 29, 185–189.
Mauerhofer, V. (2019). Legal institutions and ecological economics: Their common contribution for achieving a sustainable development. Ecological Economics, 156, 350–359.
Mauerhofer, V., & Larssen, C. (2016). Judicial perspectives from the European Union for public participation in environmental matters in East Asia. Land Use Policy, 52, 552–561.
Mauerhofer, V., Ichinose, T., Blackwell, B. D., Willig, M. R., Flint, C. G., Krause, M. S., & Penker, M. (2018). Underuse of social-ecological systems: A research agenda for addressing its challenges to biocultural diversity. Land Use Policy (Elsevier), 72, 57–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2017.12.003.
McShane TO, Hirsch, P. D., Trung, T. C., Songorwa, A. N., Kinzig, A., Monteferri, B., Mutekanga, D., Thang, H. V., Dammert, J. L., Pulgar-Vidal, M., Welch-Devine, M., Brosius, J. P., Coppolillo, P., & O’Connor, S. (2011). Hard choices: Making trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and human well-being. Biological Conservation, 144, 966–972.
North, D. C. (1990). Institutions, institutional change and economic performance (p. 152). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Norton, B. G. (1989). Intergenerational equity and environmental decisions: A model using Rawls’ veil of ignorance. Ecological Economics, 1, 137–159.
Okubo, N. (2016). The development of the Japanese legal system for public participation in land use and environmental matters. Land Use Policy, 52(2016), 492–500.
Pallemaerts, M. (2006). The Aarhus convention on access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters: Engaging the disenfranchised through the instutionalization of proceduralrights? In J. C. Green & W. B. Chambers (Eds.), The politics of participation in sustainable development governance (pp. 179–203). Tokyo/New York: United Nations University Press.
Pauwelyn, J. (2005). Judicial mechanisms: Is there a need for a world environment court. In B. W. Chambers & J. Green (Eds.), Reforming international environmental governance (pp. 150–177). Tokyo: UNU Press.
Pedersen, O. W. (2012). An international environmental court and international legalism. Journal of Environmental Law, 24(3), 547–558.
Quak, E. (2018). Tax coordination and tax harmonisation within the regional economic communities in Africa, K4D Helpdesk report, commissioned by Uk DFID – UK Government’s Department for International Development (DFID) and its partner. Retrieved at October 27, 2019 from https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5b18f76c40f0b634cfb505ce/Tax_Coordination_within_Regional_Economic_Communities_Africa.pdf.
Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Rees, W. E. (2002). Footprint: Our impact on earth is getting heavier. Nature, 420, 267–268.
Ring, I., & Barton, D. (2015). Economic instruments in policy mixes for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem governance. In J. Martinez-Alier & R. Muradian (Eds.), Handbook of ecological economics (pp. 413–446). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Ring, I., & Schröter-Schlaack, C. (2011). Justifying and assessing policy mixes for biodiversity and ecosystem service governance. In I. Ring & C. Schröter-Schlaack (Eds.), Instrument mixes for biodiversity policies (POLICYMIX report no. 2/2011) (pp. 14–35). Leipzig: Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research. Accessed on 27 Sept 2016 at http://policymix.na.no.
Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin, F. S., III, Lambin, E. F., Lenton, T. M., Scheffer, M., Folke, C., Schellnhuber, H. J., Nykvist, B., de Wit, C. A., Hughes, T., van der Leeuw, S., Rodhe, H., Sörlin, S., Snyder, P. K., Costanza, R., Svedin, U., Falkenmark, M., Karlberg, L., Corell, R. W., Fabry, V. J., Hansen, J., Walker, B., Liverman, D., Richardson, K., Crutzen, P., & Foley, J. A. (2009). A safe operating space for humanity. Nature, 461, 472–475.
Rodríguez-Labajos, B., Yánez, Y., Bond, P., Greyl, L., Munguti, S., Uyi Ojo, G., & Overbeek, W. (2019). Not so natural an alliance? Degrowth and environmental justice movements in the global south. Ecological Economics, 157, 175–184.
Rogge, S., & Reichardt, K. (2016). Policy mixes for sustainability transitions: An extended concept and framework for analysis. Research Policy, 45(8), 1620–1635.
Sachs, J., Schmidt-Traub, G., Kroll, C., Lafortune, G., & Fuller, G. (2019). Sustainable development report 2019. New York: Bertelsmann Stiftung and Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).
Saey-Volckrick, J. (this volume). What does the rebound effect tell us? Reflection on its sources and its implication for the sustainability debate. In V. Mauerhofer, D. Rupo, & L. Tarquinio (Eds.), Sustainability and Law. Cham: Springer.
Schneider, F., Martinez-Alier, J., & Kallis, G. (2011). Sustainable degrowth. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 15(5), 654–656.
Schneidewind, U., & Zarnt, A. (2014). The politics of sufficiency: Making it easier to live the good life. Munich: Oekom Publisher. 165 pp.
Serbruyns, I., & Luyssaert, S. (2006). Acceptance of sticks, carrots and sermons as policy instruments for directing private forest management. Forest Policy and Economics, 9(3), 285–296.
Spaiser, V., Ranganathan, S., Bali Swain, R., & Sumpter, D. J. T. (2017). The sustainable development oxymoron: Quantifying and modelling the incompatibility of sustainable development goals. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, 24(6), 457–470.
Steffen, W., Richardson, K., Rockström, J., Cornell, S. E., Fetzer, I., Bennett, E. M., Biggs, R., Carpenter, S. R., de Vries, W., de Wit, C. A., Folke, C., Gerten, D., Heinke, J., Mace, G. M., Persson, L. M., Ramanathan, V., Reyers, B., & Sörlin, S. (2015). Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science, 347, 1259855.
UN. (1945). Charter of the United Nations. Retrieved at October 27, 2019 from https://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/un-charter-full-text/
UN. (1992). Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, Annex I to the Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 3-14 June 1992). A/CONF.151/26 (Vol. I). https://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/Agenda%2021.pdf. Accessed 10 Apr 2020.
UN. (2000). United Nations Millennium Declaration, Resolution 55/2 adopted by the General Assembly [without reference to a Main Committee (A/55/L.2)] in the 8th plenary meeting on 8 September 2000. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United_Nations_Millennium_Declaration. Accessed 10 Apr 2020.
UN. (2012). Resolution adopted by the general assembly on 27 July 2012. “The future we want” A/RES/66/288. Retrieved at September 27, 2016 from http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/66/288&Lang=E
UN. (2015). Resolution adopted by the general assembly on 25 Sept 2015. “Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development” A/RES/70/1. Retrieved at September 27, 2016 from https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/generalassembly/docs/globalcompact/A_RES_70_1_E.pdf
UN. (2019a). Report “Composition of the secretariat: Staff demographics – Report of the Secretary-General” (A/74/82). Retrieved at October 27, 2019 from https://undocs.org/en/A/74/82
UN. (2019b). Report on the assessment of Member States’ contributions to the United Nations regular budget for the year 2019 (ST/ADM/SER.B/992). Retrieved at October 27, 2019 from https://undocs.org/en/ST/ADM/SER.B/992
UNDP. (2019). Human development reports – Income Gini coefficient. Retrieved at October 27, 2019 from http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/income-gini-coefficient
UNECE. (1998). United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Convention on access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters. Done at Aarhus, Denmark, on 25 June 1998. Retrieved at October 27, 2019 from https://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/env/pp/documents/cep43e.pdf
UNEP. (2019). Global environmental outlook 6 – GEO 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Vatn, A., & Bromley, D. W. (1994). Choices without prices without apologies. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 26(2), 129–148.
Vedung, E. (1998). Policy instruments: Typologies and theories. In M. L. Bemelmans-Videc, R. C. Rist, & E. O. Vedung (Eds.), Carrots, sticks, and sermons: Policy instruments and their evaluation (pp. 21–58). New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Wackernagel, M. (2009). Methodological advancements in footprint analysis. Ecological Economics, 68(7), 1925–1927.
Wackernagel, M., Lin, D., Evans, M., Hanscom, L., & Raven, P. (2019). Defying the footprint Oracle: Implications of country resource trends. Sustainability, 11, 2164.
Ward, J. D., Sutton, P. C., Werner, A. D., Costanza, R., Mohr, S. H., & Simmons, C. T. (2016). Is decoupling GDP growth from environmental impact possible? PLoS One, 11(10), e0164733. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0164733.
Wates, J. (2005). The Aarhus convention: A driving force for environmental democracy. Journal for European Environmental and Planning Law, 1, 1–11.
WCED. (1987). Report of the world commission on environment and development titled “our common future” (p. 383). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mauerhofer, V. (2020). Sustainable Development Law in (Only) One World: Challenges and Perspectives for Governance and Governments. In: Mauerhofer, V., Rupo, D., Tarquinio, L. (eds) Sustainability and Law. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42630-9_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42630-9_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-42629-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-42630-9
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)