International Environmental Law Policy And Ethics

This study of international environmental ethics shows how nations are creating environmental laws and policies which are continually inviting failure since such laws are riddled with inconsistencies and are contradictory in purpose.

This second edition of International Environmental Law, Policy, and Ethics revises and expands this groundbreaking study into the question of why the environment is protected in the international arena. This question is rarely asked because it is assumed that each member of the international community wants to achieve the same ends. However, in his innovative study of international environmental ethics, Alexander Gillespie explodes this myth. He shows how nations, like individuals, create environmental laws and policies which are continually inviting failure, as such laws can often be riddled with inconsistencies, and be ultimately contradictory in purpose. Specifically, he seeks a nexus between the reasons why nations protect the environment, how these reasons are reflected in law and policy, and what complications arise from these choices. This book takes account of the numerous developments in international environmental law and policy that have taken place the publication of the first edition, most notably at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development and the 2012 'Rio + 20' United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. Furthermore, it addresses recent debates on the economic value of nature, and the problems of the illegal trade in species and toxic waste. The cultural context has also been considerably advanced in the areas of both intangible and tangible heritage, with increasing attention being given to conservation, wildlife management, and the notion of protected areas. The book investigates the ways in which progress has been made regarding humane trapping and killing of animals, and how, in contrast, the Great Apes initiative, and similar work with whales, have failed. Finally, the book addresses the fact that while the notion of ecosystem management has been embraced by a number of environmental regimes, it has thus far failed as an international philosophy.

This collection explores a broad range of topics approaching environmental ethics from many different angles. A common thread running through the volume is the analysis of ethical principles as the backbone of practical policies and law for the benefit of the environment, and ultimately for the benefit of its inhabitants. The contributors are all at the forefront of their respective fields and fall into two essential categories: well-established scholars in the field of environmental ethics; and a group of newer voices that have followed what might be characterized as the first wave of environmental ethics scholarship.

C.O.OKIDl1 I welcome the opportunity to prepare a Foreword to the book on Environmental Policy and Law in Africa, edited by Kevin R. Gray and Beatrice Chaytor. It is a pleasure to do that because the book is a contribution to the cause of capacity building for development and implementation of environmental law in Africa, a goal towards which I have had an undivided focus over the last two decades. There is still some belief in and outside Africa that for developing countries in general, and Africa in particular, development and implementation of environmental law is not a priority. This belief prevails strongly in many quarters of the industrialised countries. In fact, the view is held either out of blatant ignorance or by some renegade industrialists who fail to appreciate Michael Royston's 1979 thesis that Pollution Prevention Pays.2 That group, for obvious reasons, must have their correspondent counterparts in Africa to provide hope that industries rejected as derelict in the West or inoperable due to rigorous environmental regulation, can find homes to which they can escape and dump their polluting industries.

Taking stock of all the major developments in the field of international environmental law, this text explores core assumptions and concepts, basic analytical tools and key challenges.

Weve had 20 years of government-level conferences at Kyoto, Copenhagen and Cancun, but greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. Taking a cosmopolitan approach to climate change in this excellent and timely book, Paul Harris and his contributors argue that citizen action is an essential complement to state action. The challenging, unsettling and absolutely vital argument of these high quality essays is that distance makes no moral difference in our globalised world; individual high emitters have a duty to reduce their emissions, wherever they are. - Andrew Dobson, Keele, University, UK This collection of provocative essays re-evaluates the worlds failed policy responses to climate change, in the process demonstrating how cosmopolitan ethics can inform global environmental governance. A cosmopolitan worldview points to climate-related policies that are less international and more global. From a cosmopolitan perspective, national borders should not delineate obligations and responsibilities associated with climate change. Human beings, rather than the narrow interests of nation-states, ought to be at the centre of moral calculations and policy responses to climate change. In this volume, expert contributors examine questions of individual and global responsibility, burden sharing among people and states, international law and environmental justice, capitalism and voluntary action, pluralist cooperation and hegemony, and alternative approaches to climate action and diplomacy. The book helps to illuminate new principles for global environmental policy that can come from cosmopolitan conceptions of climate change.