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As Patricia Birnie cautiously and prophetically put it in the inaugural issue of this journal (INEA 1, January 2001, p. 74), “we do not know whether States and the tentative regimes they have so far established can withstand the pressures of globalization of trade and degradation and over-exploitation generated by advances in technologies for locating, fertilizing, harvesting, processing and modifying natural resources and biodiversity. This is truly terra incognita in which such seeds of destruction may already be implanted.” Among the 600 or so papers and reviews published in INEA from 2001 to 2020, more than 70 deal wholly or partly with legal aspects of environmental problems and the international dimensions of environmental justice. While the main focus of INEA has been on issues of public international (inter-state) law, there have also been important inputs drawn from comparative legal analysis (of national legislation and judicial decisions) and from “transnational administrative law” that influence the effectiveness of multilateral treaties and their associated international institutions. Novel concepts and practices emerging from the environmental field (such as recourse to a range of “soft law” principles; flexible delegated standard-setting in the face of global change; and equitable differentiation of compliance duties) have inspired developments in related areas of contemporary international law-making and law-applying. At the same time, the very proliferation of multilateral and bilateral environmental instruments raised new questions and expressions of alarm over “treaty congestion” and “fragmentation” within the international law system. It is not the intention of this paper to explore the general interaction of international environmental law with neighboring disciplines such as international economic law or human rights law, but simply to record the “seismographic” impact of INEA on legal-intellectual discourse over these past two decades. To some extent, the role of the Journal in identifying both new prospects and new risks in this field could indeed be likened to that of a “canary in the coal-mine.” The lessons so learnt may thus offer new insights to help in averting the destruction which Birnie visualized, and to advance inter-generationally and intra- generationally shared values of environmental justice.

‘Climate change law’ is considered by a number of legal scholars as an emergent novel discipline. The question, then, is whether the advent (and future prospect) of climate change has resulted in a coherent autonomous new body of law, be it a nascent one; or is it nothing more or less than the application of existing national and international environmental law to climatic problems? It is perhaps worth recalling that international environmental law itself only ascended to the rank of a recognized discipline of its own in the 1990s, over considerable academic scepticism at the time. Not un-similarly, the ongoing new project of the UN International Law Commission (ILC) for the drafting of guidelines on “protection of the atmosphere” has met with resistance from a few powerful States claiming that there is no need for further codification of international law in this field. Yet, considering our common interest in conserving the quality of the Earth’s atmosphere and climate, the ILC project may indeed encourage further development of a concept of inter-generational “planetary trusteeship”, owed by States as public trustees to present and future citizens as the beneficiaries.

The new \"marine protected area\" proclaimed in 2010 in the Chagos Archipelago (British Indian Ocean Territory [BIOT]) raises a fundamental conflict between colonial nature protection and the human rights of the indigenous Chagos islanders who were expelled to make way for a U.S. military base, and whose resettlement in the archipelago the U.K. government now seeks to prevent by invoking global environmental concerns.

The authors of this book, who held leadership positions and worked directly with the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC), draw on their experience with the institution and provide a comprehensive view of the UNCC and its work in the aftermath of the Gulf War. In this book, the first of two on the UNCC’s work, the authors explain that the United Nations Security Council established the ad hoc compensation commission to address reparations as a component of the ceasefire following Iraq’s 1990–91 invasion and occupation of Kuwait. The authors also describe how the work of the UNCC addressed important questions of state responsibility, environmental liability, mass claims processing, international law, and dispute settlement institutions in the post-armed conflict context. The scope and the scale of the UNCC was extraordinary, since almost 2.7 million claims from 80-plus countries were submitted to the Commission (which awarded in excess of $55 billion and has paid out more than half of that total), and that this led to the development of innovative procedural, institutional and managerial approaches in handling mass, environmental, and corporate claims at a scale that is unparalleled. Additionally, the book notes that the UNCC also contributed to the evolution of international jurisprudence in these areas.

This article is a tribute to five old friends and distinguished Haub Prize laureates: Joseph Sax, Russell Train, Alexandre Kiss, Cyril de Klemm, and Edith Brown Weiss, each of whom, in their own way, have made major scholarly contributions to the recognition of an ancient legal concept which has experienced a phenomenal comeback in modern environmental law over the past 40 years: public trusteeship for the Earth's natural resources. The essay begins by explaining where the \"public trust doctrine\" comes from, what it is, and what it is not. It will then summarize the distinct contributions of these five colleagues from the International Council of Environmental Law to the development and elaboration of the doctrine, and conclude with a few observations on its prospects in the current context of international legal theory and practice.

The 1973 Washington Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has been labeled »one of the most successful instruments of international environmental law«. Global challenges in this field persist, however – especially illegal wildlife trafficking, as highlighted at this years CITES meeting in Johannesburg. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Conventions entry into force in Germany (now applied largely through EU directives and regulations), this article traces its evolution from a classical treaty instrument towards a dynamic institutionalized regime, several of whose features have indeed served as a model for other multilateral environmental agreements, including the expanding law-making role of the Conference of the Parties, and the functions of the secretariat in monitoring compliance. Yet, other innovative features of the CITES regime have remained unique in terms of international practice, such as the extensive use of trade sanctions, in the form of collective embargoes as retorsion measures against non-compliance with treaty obligations. While acknowledging the effectiveness of some of the lessons learned in implementing the Convention, the article concludes on a cautionary note, in light of recent case experience with a marine species (North Pacific sei whales) endangered for what are primarily diplomatic reasons.

In the wake of the designation of two new 'marine protected areas' adjacent to the coastal waters of the South Orkney Islands (British Antarctic Territory) and the Chagos Archipelago (British Indian Ocean Territory), this commentary considers some of the geographical, legal and political implications of these unilateral declarations — taking into account competing claims of jurisdiction by Mauritius and the Maldives; human rights claims of the Chagos islanders; strategic interests of the United States in the Indian Ocean; and shared legislative competences of the European Union in the field of marine fisheries. The two case studies also raise questions of global arms control, diplomatic efforts at 'greening' imperialism, and contemporary state practice with regard to the 'sacred trust of civilisation' for dependent territories, as spelled out in the United Nations Charter.

This essay places transnational environmental law in an epistemological context. Starting from the general concept of ‘transnational law’ and the specific environmental dimension of ‘international administrative law’, four case histories are presented to illustrate the integrant approach of transnational environmental law. The cases – all arising in the 1970s – deal with transboundary problems of aircraft noise, ocean dumping, river pollution, and marine protected areas. In addition to traditional aspects of public international law in the environmental field, they typically interface with questions of administrative law, private international law, criminal law, and human rights law. The essay advocates a new focus on mechanisms for participation by civil society in the operation and implementation of transnational environmental law.