Crimes of (a) global nature: forging environmental treaties is difficult. Enforcing them is even tougher.
Last February, armed troops and fisheries officials on two Australian navy ships and a helicopter boarded and seized the Volga and the Lena, Russian-flagged fishing vessels operating near Heard Island, some 2,200 nautical miles southwest of Perth. The two ships were found to be carrying about 200 tons of...

How Europe employs disguised regulatory protectionism to weaken American free enterprise *.
Abstract The European region regulates more than any single country in the world, and such over-regulation, along with higher taxes and labor and environmental standards, has increasingly caused European industry to lag behind its Asian and American competitors. As a result, a growing competitiveness and technology gap...

Trade measures and the environment: can the WTO and UNCLOS be reconciled?
I INTRODUCTION Critics frequently lambaste the World Trade Organization's (WTO) (1) actions as detrimental to the goal of environmental conservation. While the WTO's success in fostering free trade and open markets is indisputable, these critics have lamented the Organization's seeming lack of tolerance for measures...

A foot in the door.
Environmental groups pursue a stronger role in ensuring compliance in international agreements In 1987, the Brundtland Commission issued its blueprint for a global partnership, recognizing that the community of non-governmental organizations offered an international network to be tapped, enabled and strengthened in order to achieve the goal of sustainable...

IUCN as catalyst for a law of the biosphere: acting globally and locally.
I. INTRODUCTION II. ENVIRONMENTAL LAW: MEDIATING BETWEEN NATURE AND HUMANS III. CHANGE AS THE "DEFAULT" LEGAL ASSUMPTION IV. IUCN's INTEGRATED VISION OF HUMANS IN NATURE A. The Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) B. Part XII of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) C...

"Hot air" as precedent for developing countries? Equity considerations.
I. INTRODUCTION In June 1992, the world's nations met at the Rio Earth Summit Conference to discuss the various challenges facing the global environment.(1) One of the outcomes of the conference was the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a...

The mutual supportiveness of trade and environment.
INTRODUCTION The trade and environment relationship has become a most contentious issue involving concerns, fears, misinterpretations, and, of course, a rich and rapid growing list of academic and non-academic publications. While some are afraid of attempts to veil protectionism with green arguments, others are concerned that the...

Last tango in Buenos Aires.
WHILE CLIMATE TREATY NEGOTIATORS DANCE ON WITH THEIR SLOW GIVE-AND-TAKE, THE CLIMATE ITSELF IS RUNNING AMOK. When the Kyoto Protocol was signed a year ago, hopes ran high that the world was finally on the way to reducing carbon dioxide emissions and getting the global climate back under control....

Multilateral treaties and the environment: a case study in the formation of customary international law.
I. INTRODUCTION Although the question of whether multilateral treaties create customary international law upon coming into force remains controversial, there is good reason to suppose that they do.(1) Pressing global problems demand cooperative solutions, and cooperative solutions are best achieved by means of the treaty process. Yet...

Collapse: can international law protect the earth's natural resources?
The panel was convened at 1:00 p.m., Thursday, March 29, by its moderator, John Setear of the University of Virginia School of Law, who introduced the panelists: Edith Brown Weiss of the University of Georgetown School of Law; David Freestone of the World Bank; and Lakshman Guruswamy of the...