Dinah Shelton

International environmental law

Object and characteristics of international environmental law origin and evolution of international environmental law institutional cooperation non-state actors techniques of environmental protection international common law regulation of environmental sectors regulating sources of environmental harm trade and environment compliance with international environmental obligations.

Normative Hierarchy in International Law

Systems of law usually establish a hierarchy of norms based on the particular source from which the norms derive. In national legal systems, it is commonplace for the fundamental values of society to be given constitutional status and afforded precedence in the event of a conflict with norms enacted by legislation or adopted by administrative regulation; administrative rules themselves must conform to legislative mandates, while written law usually takes precedence over unwritten law and legal norms prevail over nonlegal (political or moral) rules. Norms of equal status must be balanced and reconciled to the extent possible. The mode of legal reasoning applied in practice is thus naturally hierarchical, establishing relationships and order between normative statements and levels of authority.

The Participation of Nongovernmental Organizations in International Judicial Proceedings

Nongovernmental organizations are playing an increasingly important role in international litigation. This study will analyze the participation of nongovernmental organizations, primarily as amici curiae, in the proceedings of four permanent international courts: the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. After discussing the impact of amici in national and regional courts, it recommends that the International Court of Justice expand its acceptance of submissions from inongovernmental organizations in appropriate cases. The Court has a jurisdictional basis to do so and amici have usefully contributed to cases before other courts.

RIGHTING WRONGS: REPARATIONS IN THE ARTICLES ON STATE RESPONSIBILITY

The International Law Commission’s articles on reparations restate the existing law on remedies, but they also innovate in significant ways to reinforce broader community interests in international legality. Given the dearth of precedents on reparations, both aspects can be helpful to tribunals and parties engaged in traditional interstate litigation, but the progressive elements, if they are accepted by states, could have wider application in supporting mechanisms to enhance implementation and observance of international obligations. The combination of codification and progressive development, however, is sometimes an uneasy fit and leaves unanswered several important questions about the theoretical foundation and practical application of the law of reparations. Even the seeming clarity of the articles is deceptive because some of the concepts included in the broadly drafted provisions can be difficult to apply in practice.

Conservation with Justice: A Rights-Based Approach

This article suggests a rights-based approach (RBA) to conservation of environmental resources. The article points out benefits of an RBA model, such as identifying the causes of environmental impacts on citizens’ human rights and bettering the regulation of environmental resources. However, the RBA also poses challenges, such as resistance from non-State actors, comparing the importance of different rights, and a commitment of many resources. The article next identifies substantive and procedural rights provided by international law. An RBA implicates, among others, the right to life, the right to health, the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to work, the rights to religion and culture, the right to property, the right to privacy and home life and the rights to information and participation. The article concludes by providing detailed guidance about how to implement an RBA, and the main steps include analyzing the situation, disseminating information, guaranteeing participation, making a decision about the activity, monitoring and evaluating the RBA, and ensuring the rights by enforcement of the commitments undertaken by various actors.

International law and domestic legal systems : incorporation, transformation, and persuasion

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Environmental Protection and Human Rights: Abbreviations

With unique scholarly analysis and practical discussion, this book provides a comprehensive introduction to the relationship between environmental protection and human rights being formalized into law in many legal systems. By illuminating human rights theory and the institutions that can be employed to meet environmental goals, this book instructs on environmental techniques and procedures that assist in the protection of human rights. The text provides cogent guidance on a growing international jurisprudence on the promotion and protection of human rights in relation to the environment that has been developed by international and regional human rights bodies and tribunals. It explores a rich body of case law that continues to develop within states on the environmental dimension of the rights to life, to health, and to public participation and access to information. Five compelling contemporary case studies are included that implicate human rights and the environment, ranging from large dam projects, to the creation of a new human rights, to a clean environment.

Environmental Protection and Human Rights: Contents

With unique scholarly analysis and practical discussion, this book provides a comprehensive introduction to the relationship between environmental protection and human rights being formalized into law in many legal systems. By illuminating human rights theory and the institutions that can be employed to meet environmental goals, this book instructs on environmental techniques and procedures that assist in the protection of human rights. The text provides cogent guidance on a growing international jurisprudence on the promotion and protection of human rights in relation to the environment that has been developed by international and regional human rights bodies and tribunals. It explores a rich body of case law that continues to develop within states on the environmental dimension of the rights to life, to health, and to public participation and access to information. Five compelling contemporary case studies are included that implicate human rights and the environment, ranging from large dam projects, to the creation of a new human rights, to a clean environment.

Self-Determination in Regional Human Rights Law: From Kosovo to Cameroon

The right of self-determination has long been celebrated for bringing independence and self-government to oppressed groups, yet it remains a highly controversial norm of international law. From the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires after World WarI to the struggle of colonial territories for independence following World War II and the later dissolution of the former Yugoslavia, there has been an unavoidable conflict between the efforts of peoples to achieve independence and the demands of existing states to preserve their territorial integrity.

Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of Jus Cogens

The doctrine of jus cogens attracts fierce advocates as well as strong sceptics, who debate the nature, functions and even the existence of such norms. Like Sherlock Holmes, the idea of jus cogens emerged as a concept in the imagination of writers. Over time both Sherlock Holmes and jus cogens have generated widespread belief in their reality, but it is a reality that is subjectively shaped by each follower. Early publicists creating and developing international law posited the existence of extra-consensual norms that constrained the exercise of state sovereignty, a theory that emerged in large part from Christian theology with its notions of overriding divine law. Later publicists argued that non-derogable norms originate either in natural law, ‘necessary’ law, the ‘dictates of the public conscience’, ‘universal law’, or international moral imperatives. Some recent scholars rely on the Vienna Conventions on the Law of Treaties to argue to the contrary that norms of jus cogens do not fundamentally differ from other international rules in their origin; they emerge only from state consent, being identified ‘by the international community of states as a whole’ as peremptory norms. Within the literature as to the origin of jus cogens, in the absence of state practice, theorists differ in their views of the functions the concept serves, some arguing that it is limited in application to treaty law. Others assert that such norms act to place absolute limits on the conduct of states, governments and individuals and establish a hierarchy of norms. This article examines the origin of jus cogens in doctrine and the scant evidence to be found in state practice. It also examines the functions of jus cogens, questioning whether these remain largely literary and theoretical, with an impact like Sherlock Holmes that derives primarily from belief in its existence.