In chapter 7 of Environmental Law, Godden at al. (2019) discusses global dimensions and international application of environmental law in the contemporary world. The authors cover both vertical and horizontal integration of environmental law – that is, integration of national legal norms with international agreements and cooperation between the sovereign states to address global issues. The chapter also provides grounds for reflection on how international environmental law can be enforced. While multilateral agreements with compliance mechanisms may be a reasonably good way of horizontal integration, it is bound to suffer from a common problem of implementing international law – the conflict with the sovereignty principle.
One of the chapter’s main points is that multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) are a possible option for ensuring horizontal integration and addressing issues that surpass the borders of any given country. In the author’s own words, MEAs represent an opportunity for “overcoming the limitations of sovereignty in dealing with global commons environmental issues” (Godden et al., 2019, p. 439). However, the authors themselves recognize that most MEAs tend to have weak compliance provisions and enforcement mechanisms (Godden et al., 2019). This weakness is a common point among the criticism directed at the contemporary state of international environmental law. According to Pavoni and Piselli, “emphasis on the sovereignty of States, lack of mechanisms to ensure compliance, and/or ineffectiveness of regulatory regimes” plague contemporary MEAs up to the point of making them void (p. 47). Even in better-known agreements, such as the Kyoto Protocol, the compliance mechanisms are explicitly non-confrontational and not legally binding (Hey 2016). As a result, MEAs still leave much to be desired as the means of enforcing international environmental law.
One might reflect whether these shortcomings can be alleviated, but it appears that there is no better alternative to MEAs as of now. The base assumption and central premise of international law as it exists today is that its subjects are, first and foremost, sovereign states (Hedemann-Robinson, 2020). This assumption stems from the fact that states exercise an exclusive right on legitimate violence within their border and possess the means of doing so. In other words, states are still the only notable bearers of power that can actually enforce a given legal norm on a given territory. While sovereign states can apply economic and physical coercion to their citizens, there is no similar mechanism on a supranational level that would not be state-based. Thus, the insufficiency of compliance and enforcement mechanisms does not seem to be a fault of international environment law per se – rather, it is an inevitable consequence of the existing situation. As long as states and state-based monopolize the means of coercion, the emphasis on sovereignty will remain a persistent, if hindering, feature of any multilateral agreement.
As one can see, Chapter 7 provides enough information for a meaningful reflection regarding the implementation of international environmental law. While MEAs remain the primary way of doing it, they still suffer from poor compliance and enforcement mechanisms, which results in limited efficiency at best. While one can try to mitigate this downside by crafting better compliance and enforcement clauses, the core of the issue is that sovereign states remain the main subjects of international law. Since they effectively monopolize the means of coercion, the limitations on enforcement of international law imposed by state sovereignty are unlikely to disappear any time soon.
References
Godden. L., Peel, J., & McDonald, J. (2019). Environmental law (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
Hedemann-Robinson, M. (2020). Enforcement of international environmental law: Challenges and responses at the international level. Routledge.
Hey, E. (2016). Advanced introduction to international environmental law. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Pavoni, R., & Pisselli, D. (2016). The sustainable development goals and international environmental law: Normative value and challenges for implementation. Veredas Do Direito, 13(26), 13-60.