Concepts and Principles of International Environmental Law

The document provides an overview of the legal frameworks guiding sustainable development, focusing on the duties of states to cooperate, avoid environmental harm, and compensate for damages, while examining the legal status of natural resources and the global commons.

• Sustainable development is framed through an anthropocentric lens, where the primary goal of environmental protection is to improve the human condition, positioning human beings as the "centre of concerns for sustainable development."
• The duty to cooperate in international environmental law includes specific obligations such as the exchange of information, coordination of scientific research, prior notification of potentially damaging activities, and the requirement for prior informed consent when acting within another state's territory.
• States have a general duty to prevent environmental harm, established by the principle that no state has the right to use its territory to cause injury to another state or the global commons, a rule often associated with the Trail Smelter Arbitration.
• The precautionary principle dictates that a lack of full scientific certainty should not be used to postpone cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation when there are threats of serious or irreversible damage.
• International law distinguishes between 'common heritage of humankind', which applies to global commons like the deep sea-bed and Antarctica where no state can claim sovereignty, and 'common concern of humankind', which provides a framework for regulating resources within sovereign boundaries, such as biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions.

APA

Hunter, D., Sommer, J., & Vaughan, S. (1994). Concepts and Principles of International Environmental Law. Center for International Environmental Law. https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Concepts_Principles_1993.pdf

Chicago

Hunter, David, Julia Sommer, and Scott Vaughan. Concepts and Principles of International Environmental Law. Center for International Environmental Law, 1994. https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Concepts_Principles_1993.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Hunter |first1=David |last2=Sommer |first2=Julia |last3=Vaughan |first3=Scott |title=Concepts and Principles of International Environmental Law |publisher=Center for International Environmental Law |date=1994 |url=https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Concepts_Principles_1993.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{hunter1994concepts, author = {Hunter, David and Sommer, Julia and Vaughan, Scott}, title = {{Concepts and Principles of International Environmental Law}}, institution = {Center for International Environmental Law}, year = {1994}, url = {https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Concepts_Principles_1993.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }