Certain aspects of international criminal environmental law

Abstract

In today's world the safeguarding and preservation of the environment, our natural as well as cultural heritage, has become one of the most vital, and therefore most discussed, issues on a national, regional, as well international level. Consequently the law has been used in order to attempt to regulate the actions of individuals as well as of states themselves. Hundreds of Treaties, Conventions and Protocols have been drawn up over the last thirty years concerning a very wide range of environmental matters. However there are only a mere handful of cases where International Environmental Law includes individual penal responsibility for violations. Nevertheless, the proliferation of domestic legislation around the world criminally sanctioning the violation of environmental norms raises the possibility of a general principle of international law relating to environmental criminality. This thesis aims to make an analysis of recent trends in International Environmental Law in order to determine whether there is a scope for an International Environmental Criminal Law. It takes into consideration the attitudes of the international community towards International Environmental Law over the past few years and the inclusion of penal provisions relating to violations of environmental norms in international environmental agreements. The initial chapter consists of an introduction to International Environmental Law, its development over the years and an analysis of the implementation of various International Environmental Law Principles found in treaties and conventions, such as the Stockholm and the Rio Declarations. This study analyses the development of the concept of an International Environmental Human Right, and its increased significance in international environmental treaties. It also considers the development of protection of the environment in international law of war treaties. An analysis of the most important International Conventions regulating these areas of International Law accompanies these analyses. The European Union's environmental legislation is considered in depth in order to establish recent trends which are at the forefront of international environmental lawmaking. The thesis also analyses International Environmental Law treaty compliance and enforcement trends in order to determine the most adequate methods for improved state compliance methods and better prosecution of environmental criminals. Finally, this thesis proposes an improvement of the enforcement of International Environmental Law by the creation of a World Court for the Environment. This court would be the ideal seat for prosecuting environmental criminals of serious International Environmental Law breaches, as well as being an ideal arbitration tribunal for Dispute Resolution between States.