What is international environmental law?

International environmental law is a set of rules and regulations at a global level which governs humanity’s care for the environment. some of the major ways in which international regulation protects gloats environmental assets is through World Heritage listing. In Australia some of the World Heritage listed sites include the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu National Park and the Snowy Mountains National Park. Some other agreements which existed at an international level in an attempt to protect the global environment are obviously the Kyoto protocol which was an attempt to limit greenhouse gas emissions globally but which has so far not been implemented by many of the signatories to the agreement. In addition to this many of the large polluting nations have simply refused to sign the agreement. Although the failure of the Kyoto agreement is discouraging is wrong to say the global environmental law has always failed to protect the global environment. There have been some successes such as the international agreement to limit the use of CFCs which were causing the hole in the ozone layer. UNESCO, the United Nations educational scientific cultural organisation which is the UN agency charged with the responsibility of administering the world Heritage system has also had numerous successes in terms of protecting areas of enormous natural significance around the globe. However when compared to the amount of environmental destruction occurring around the globe it can be depressing to try to assert that international environmental law may one day save the world from the pollution and destruction and rapacious use of natural resources which human beings have brought to bear on our planet. There is always great resistance to the setting up of binding targets in relation to international environmental treaties because nationstates realise that they will often have to be concessions made in order to apease polluting industries which cannot change their practices to environmentally friendly approaches. In addition to this the fact that the Earth’s population continues to grow at an enormous rate makes the outlook international environmental law coloured by the context of the increasing use of natural resources to the point of unsustainability. It is very true that international environmental problems often have a legal character because they are concerned with the relative assignment of rights to certain groups and individuals which is the ultimate content of the law. particularly in relation to the mining industry indigenous groups often fight against the incursions of global mining companies using arguments which are borne out of the principles of international environmental law. However a consequence of the growth of the world’s population is that the demands of these resources grows exponentially and the profits to be made from does as well. If you have an international environmental problem which you would like assessed we would like to chat about we have lawyers available online now or you can post your query to the contact form to the right and we will endeavour to reach your query as soon as possible.