Itzchak E. Kornfeld

Are International Courts the Best Adjudicators of Environmental Disputes

In submitting disputes over environmental harms to an international court or tribunal, the parties to the conflict seek a workable remedy for the issue(s) that triggered the action. Environmental disputes are a relatively recent class of cases that have been litigated in international courts. Indeed, it has only been over the past two decades that these disputes have found their way onto the dockets of international courts. On the other hand, the adjudication of environmental and natural resources cases, by arbitral tribunals, has long-standing origins. Four of the earliest recorded cases are the arbitrations of the Bering Fur Seals Case (US/UK) (1893), the Chamizal Arbitration (US/Mexico) (1911), The Trail Smelter Case (US/Canada) Arbitration (1941) and the Lac Lanoux Case (Spain/France) (1957) dispute. Each of the foregoing arbitrations yielded a remedy. In contrast, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has to date, at best, provided facile or questionable remedies in the environmental disputes that it has adjudicated. This Article is devoted to the adjudication of environmental issues that have come before both the ICJ and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) with a specific focus on international law remedies issued by these two bodies. Initially, it analyses disputes adjudicated by the ICJ, while reviewing their outcome and the remedies the Court issued. It then evaluates three disputes adjudicated by the ITLOS. Finally, it compares the two systems, and suggests that ad hoc arbitration may be the better course for states litigating environmental disputes.

Timo Koivurova (2014). Introduction to International Environmental Law

Introduction to International Environmental Law is a tour de force. Finnish Professor Timo Koivurova provides the reader with the benefit of his over two-decades-long study and scholarship in international environmental law (IEL). Each page is filled with and enhanced by his thoughtful and pragmatic insights about the field. This slim volume is encyclopedic in its treatment of IEL and the field’s place within the domain of public international law. At the outset of this 213page, seven-chapter book, Koivurova declares that his intention was to write a book not only for law students or legal scholars but also for the layperson. He has impressively achieved his goal. Indeed, the book stands out from its peers in presenting IEL in a coherent framework, rather than in a collection of subthemes. This volume is also eminently readable. I found Koivurova’s writing style to be clear and engrossing; it held my attention for hours on end. The book begins with an exploration of the history, nature, scope, and sources of international environmental law. Professor Koivurova effortlessly shifts to reflect on IEL’s key principles; he then appraises whether the goals of the authors of the various IEL instruments are realized in practice, and whether the environment is better for them. Thereafter, he assesses the effectiveness of how this area of the law is implemented. This book is also a virtual historical travel guide across the world of IEL treaties. Many of these are presented separately in text boxes that do not interfere with the flow of the book’s text. For example, one of the boxes provides a historical and legal analysis of the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling and its commission. There, Professor Koivurova describes how when a whaling moratorium was imposed during the 1985–86 hunting season, Norway protested that total ban, because it believed that the prohibition was not founded on valid scientific methodology. This action, we are told, resulted in friction with Norway’s neighbors Finland and Sweden,