a) Description
This module introduces the foundations of international environmental law, including its subjects, sources, principles and measures of implementation, compliance and dispute settlement. It explores the range of laws and norms that impact on global environmental problems. This module is built around the understanding that international environmental law is about both conservation and use (captured in the notion of sustainable development). It is also structured around an understanding that it is the North-South dimension of environmental issues that explains a large part of existing international environmental law
Objectives
The course seeks to introduce the general international legal and institutional framework relating to the environment. It is designed to equip students with analytical tools with which they may understand the international environmental law framework in its broader context, including its political, economic, social and ecological dimensions.
b) Indicative syllabus (subject to change)
1. Introduction: Context for International Environmental Law
Evolution, Principles and Techniques
2. Development of International Environmental Law and Environmental
3. Governance Sustainable Development & Sovereignty
4. Equity and Precautionary Principle – Environmental Aid
5. Transparency, Compliance & Dispute Settlement
Environmental rights
6. Procedural Environmental Rights
7. Human Right to (a clean) Environment
Selected regimes and issues
8. Nuclear Safety, State Responsibility & Civil Liability
9. Transboundary water conflict prevention and resolution
10. Plastics: Towards a global protection regime
c) Assessment (subject to change)
Assessment comprises two different elements:
Book review: 1,000 words (30 % of the mark)
Essay: 2,500 words (70% of the mark)
d) General Reference Books/textbooks Related to the Course
· Shawkat Alam, Sumudu Atapattu, Carmen G. Gonzalez & Jona Razzaque eds, International Environmental Law and the Global South (Cambridge University Press, 2015).
· Alan Boyle and Catherine Redgwell, Birnie, Boyle, and Redgwell's International Law and the Environment (OUP, 4th ed 2021).
· Neil Craik et al. eds, Global Environmental Change and Innovation in International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
· Pierre-Marie Dupuy & Jorge E. Viñuales, International Environmental Law (Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed 2018).
· Malgosia Fitzmaurice, Marcel Brus & Panos Merkouris eds, Research Handbook on International Environmental Law (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2nd ed, 2021).
· Timo Koivurova, Introduction to International Environmental Law (Routledge, 2014).
· James R. May and Erin Daly, Global Environmental Constitutionalism (Cambridge University Press, 2015).
· Lavanya Rajamani & Jacqueline Peel eds, Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law (Oxford University Press, 2021).
· Nicolas de Sadeleer, Environmental Principles – From Political Slogans to Legal Rules (Oxford University Press, 2021).
· Erika Techera et al. eds, Routledge Handbook of International Environmental Law (Routledge, 2nd ed 2021).