Actors and Law-Making in International Environmental Law
Research Handbook of International Environmental Law (2011)
48 Pages Posted: 13 Mar 2018
There are 2 versions of this paper
Actors and Law-Making in International Environmental Law
Date Written: February 26, 2018
Abstract
This article explores in greater depth the following two questions:
(1) Who makes international environmental law? and
(2) What are the sources of international environmental law?
A strikingly diverse number of actors create international environmental law through strikingly diverse processes of law-making. The dynamism of actors and law-making in international environmental law contributes to similar developments in international law generally. Traditionally, the number of actors with international legal personality - in other words, those actors who actually could make international law - is limited. States were primary among this group, followed by international organizations. In recent years, however, considerable international environmental law effectively has been generated by non-governmental organizations, networked communities of experts, and administrative secretariats of treaty organizations. This article updates these contributions through to 2017. Major international conferences of states serve important social constructivist functions in setting norms and building consensus. The expansion in the number of actors that, whether de jure or de facto, make international environmental law has diversified the sources of international environmental law. Sources of international law include treaties, custom, general principles of law, and - in a subsidiary sense - judicial decisions and the writings of eminent publicists. However, much of international environmental law is informally generated by "soft law" - namely that which is "not yet or not only law" - in particular when it comes to setting norms and defining agendas for formal law-making processes. This article also considers in depth the effects of environmental ethics and philosophies of deep ecology upon the content of international environmental law.
Keywords: De Facto Actors, De Jure Actors, Diverse Processes of Law-Making, Dynamism, Environmental Ethics and Philosophies, International Evironmental Law, Major International Conferences of State, Network Communities of Experts, Non-Governmental Organizations, "Soft Law"
JEL Classification: K32, K33
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation