Global governance principles for the sustainable development of groundwater resources

A normative framework for the governance of groundwater is emerging at the global level. However, existing analyses have not comprehensively covered all the governance texts that have a bearing on transboundary groundwater resources or looked at them from the perspective of sustainable groundwater governance. Therefore, this paper responds to the questions: What are the global governance texts (including international laws) applicable to groundwater resources; to which forms of the resource do they apply; which principles have been included over time; and what are the implications for sustainable development of groundwater resources now and in the future? The analysis highlights key groundwater concepts, discusses twelve global groundwater governance texts and the thirty principles therein, classifies the principles into ideal–typical categories based on the sustainable development concept; and assesses the gaps and conflicts between the principles and texts. The paper has three key findings. First, groundwater governance is rapidly evolving and there are a number of principles available to promote sustainable development. Second, however, these collective principles do not adequately address (a) the link with all water resources; (b) the potential impact of climate change on water resources; and (c) the impact of trade on equitable sharing of groundwater and protection of groundwater-related ecosystems. Third, to the extent that this collection of principles can contribute to sustainable development, they are inconsistently included in the legally binding groundwater governance texts. Therefore, much progress is needed to ensure a global normative framework that can guide the sustainable governance of groundwater resources.     

Achieving the 1.5 °C objective: just implementation through a right to (sustainable) development approach

Achieving the 1.5 °C objective of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in a just manner requires equitably sharing the responsibilities and rights that relate to this objective. This paper examines how international law concerning the Right to Promote (Sustainable) Development can contribute to determining what would be a “just” approach to achieving the 1.5 °C objective. This entails building on both the Right to Development (RtD) and the Right to Promote Sustainable Development (RtPSD). The RtD is a central notion within international human rights law and the RtPSD has been adopted under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Based on a literature review and legal analysis, we argue that, although the two Rights are prima facie different, in the context of the unanimously adopted Agenda 2030, including the SDGs, they partly complement and partly merge with each other. Together they provide a framework for assessing how a just transition towards a low greenhouse gas development process could be achieved and what this means for phasing out fossil fuels especially in the context of prospective oil producing countries.     

可持续发展法律初探

文章针对法学界将可持续发展法律仅仅局限于环境法或从属于经济法的观点 ,提出理论争鸣 ,认为可持续发展法律是指 ,符合可持续发展战略的要求 ,适用于可持续发展时期的法律制度。同时 ,文章还对可持续发展法律的生态性、代际性、协调性、超前性、综合性等特征 ,以及可持续发展法律的体系进行了深入的探讨。     

Cross-sectoral strategies in global sustainability governance: towards a nexus approach

The recent shift from the Millennium Development Goals to the much broader Sustainable Development Goals has given further impetus to the debate on the nexus between the multiple sectors of policy-making that the Goals are to cover. The key message in this debate is that different domains—for instance, water, energy and food—are interconnected and can thus not be effectively resolved unless they are addressed as being fully interrelated and interdependent. Yet while this overall narrative is forcefully supported in the new UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals that are the main part of this agenda, many Goals still remain sectoral in their basic outlook. This now requires, we argue, a new focus in both policy and research on the nexus between different Sustainable Development Goals, especially with a view to reforms in the overall institutional setting that is required to sufficiently support such a nexus approach. This article thus examines the nexus approach in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and identifies multiple avenues for its institutionalisation in global governance.     

Sustainability labelling as a tool for reporting the sustainable development impacts of climate actions relevant to Article 6 of the Paris Agreement

The architecture of global carbon markets has changed significantly since the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals were both agreed in 2015. Voluntary, international cooperative approaches established in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement allow Parties to work together to achieve the targets set out in their respective Nationally Determined Contributions to limit global warming to an increase below 1.5–2 °C. In Article 6.4, a sustainable mitigation mechanism is established for which rules, modalities and procedures will be developed internationally considering the experience and lessons learned from existing mechanisms, such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and its Sustainable Development (SD) Tool. Historically the issue of making integrated assessments of sustainable development and mitigation actions has been politically and methodologically controversial for many reasons: developing countries fear that an international definition of SD will interfere with their sovereignty and therefore their ability to define their own development pathways; players in the carbon market fear that markets can only handle one objective, namely mitigation outcomes; and sustainable development is regarded as too complex and costly to be measured and quantified. In an effort to address these concerns, the article proposes a new methodology for the sustainability labelling of climate mitigation actions relevant to Article 6 approaches. The article draws on an application of the CDM SD tool to analyse 2098 Component Programme Activities that had entered the CDM Pipeline by January 2017. The article demonstrates that assessment of the sustainable development benefits of climate actions can be graded and labelled based on the analysis of qualitative data, which is less costly than applying a quantitative approach.

     

The rule of law and sustainable development

This paper examines the relationship between the rule of law and sustainable development. It does so from the perspective of the rule of law as a development end, and as a means to sustainable development. It offers a model for conceptualising and measuring the rule of law, including the two global indicators for SDG Target 16.3. It explores the wider relationship between the rule of law and other Sustainable Development Goals, and proposes a thematic approach to better understanding the associations between legal frameworks and development outcomes.     

Commercial and company law and sustainable development

This paper reviews key areas of commercial and company law that are relevant to sustainable development. It includes an overview of international and regional frameworks, and examines good practice in national laws in the specific areas of company law, securities law and corporate insolvency. It does so with a view to providing conclusions and recommendations that represent a starting point for Commonwealth member countries when engaging with law reform and strengthening in the area of commercial law. The recommendations aim, in particular, at supporting law reform that enables commercial law frameworks to make a clear contribution to attainment of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.     

Global Sustainable Development Governance: Institutional Challenges from a Theoretical Perspective

This paper submits that efforts to achieve sustainable development at global level call for, inter alia, institutional reform. It argues that there is no optimal institutional design, and that different schools of thought have different perspectives of the future. It briefly presents the history of institutional evolution in the area of sustainable development up to the latest developments in the context of the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development. This history sets the context for the rest of the discussions. It then presents a taxonomy of the various options suggested in the literature for improving the institutional structure of the United Nations in order to achieve sustainable development. This paper critically examines the feasibility of these options from the perspective of the different schools of thought in international relations theory. It argues that from the point of view of idealistic supranationalists, a hierarchic supranational environment and/or development organisation should be established to integrate and coordinate activities in the UN in order to promote sustainable development governance. It argues that from a realist/neo-realist and neo-liberal institutionalist approach, coordination, whether hierarchical or horizontal, is doomed to failure. From a historical materialist approach all efforts at institutional design are likely to lead to asymmetrical results reflecting global power relations. This paper concludes with a speculative argument that institutional design is not a question of the best architectural option, but calls for multiple pathways including strengthening of individual organisations, promoting the progressive development of the law of sustainable development, developing a high level advisory body to advise the Secretary General, promoting the concept of the decentralised network organisation and possibly finding ways to cluster regimes. The effectiveness of these multiple efforts are dependent on the support of civil society. In order for sustainable development to take the key concerns of developing countries into account, it is necessary that institutions are able to represent the variety of views of their members and that countries develop good policies domestically.     

Connecting the dots: relevance of sustainable development principles in addressing environmental protection issues in Nigeria’s oil industry

Sustainable Development Principles are fundamental to addressing environmental protection issues in Nigeria’s oil industry. The paper examined sustainable development in its globally accepted meaning. Furthermore, this principle of environmental protection has in recent years evolved into international standards popularly called global best practices. The objective of the paper is to examine the sustainable development principle and its relevance in addressing the environmental challenges in Nigeria’s oil industry.     

New Governance,Old Norms,and the Potential for Corporate Governance Reform

While the new governance approach to corporate governance offers intriguing ideas about participatory governance, it cannot evade the effects of economic self‐interest. This article addresses three nested concerns relating to the potential of new governance in the corporate context, using three specific examples that illustrate the challenges. The first case illustrates that new governance principles cannot be easily integrated with models of corporate governance that rest on the logic of shareholder primary. The second case study offers an example of a new governance type corporation, but illustrates that new governance faces thorny internal structural challenges, given economic incentives and power imbalance. The third example illustrates that even without these normative and structural problems, new governance would face issues arising out of current strategies employed by corporate decision makers to hedge their own personal risk through equity swaps and other derivatives products, which in turn create new incentives for shirking their responsibilities.     

The Sustainable Development Goals and REDD+: assessing institutional interactions and the pursuit of synergies

This paper analyzes potential synergies between two recent sustainable development initiatives, namely the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+), a climate mitigation mechanism negotiated under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The paper elaborates a conceptual framework based on institutional interactions and distinguishes core, complementary, and supplementary synergies that may be realized between the SDGs and REDD+. Potential synergies are analyzed at the global level, as well as within two national-level contexts: Indonesia, with its long-standing REDD+ programme, and Myanmar, which is in the early stages of implementing REDD+. Both are now also engaging nationally with the SDG implementation process. Our research draws on literature review and document analysis, direct observations of global policy processes relating to REDD+ and SDGs, as well as extensive engagement (of one author) at national level in Indonesia and Myanmar. Our analysis reveals that there are currently significant opportunities to pursue synergies in the implementation of these international initiatives at the national level, although pro-active interaction management is necessary, especially to achieve complementary synergies.     

Normative Principles of China’s Political-Legal System

As a system that is symbolic of contemporary China, the politicallegal system refers to the governance structure that under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), law-enforcement and judicial agencies and various governance subjects jointly promote a peaceful China initiative and build a China under the rule of law. The historical evolution from the classical rites-law tradition to the modern politicallegal system reflects the consistent political focus and ideological exploration of China’s politicians and thinkers about the national rise and fall. The basic structure of the political-legal system can be divided into three principal groups of relationships, namely, the relationships between various law-enforcement and judicial agencies, the relationships between law-enforcement and judicial agencies and external bodies, and the relationships between the CPC and law-enforcement and judicial agencies. The normative principles concerning these three principal groups of relationships constitute the basic rules for the institutional design and practical operation of the political-legal system. The normative principles of the first group of relationships relate to self-integration, division of responsibilities, mutual cooperation and mutual restraint. The normative principles of the second group of relationships involve prioritizing social autonomy, primary-level governance and front-end governance. The normative principles of the third group of relationships are concerned with macro-leadership, centralized leadership and leadership under the rule of law. The analysis of these three sets of normative principles shows that China’s political-legal system not only follows the universal law and common mechanism of modern national governance, but also accumulates the local experience and unique wisdom of China’s governance.     

法律-文件共治模式的生成逻辑与规范路径 ——基于四十年教育规范性文件的考察

行政机关或党政机关联合制发规范性文件是行政实践中的现实图景。通过对教育领域的实证考察发现,法律和规范性文件在不同时期呈现不同的互动模式,并在当前改革背景下形成了法律文件共同治理的格局。新时期法律文件共治模式既具有法律位阶理论和功能主义视角下的法理基础,也源于“文件治国”在社会政策变迁中的功能多元化需求,以及行政效能原则下的实践基础。法律文件共治模式在治理实践中的功能发挥,需要以厘清二者内容边界作为前提条件、以二者体系共存的相容性作为价值指引,以及以法律的立改废释与文件的清理备案作为程序保障。     

Breaking the mold: a new type of multilateral sustainable development negotiation

Participants in the Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were reminded time and again that there is no model for the process to develop the SDGs. They resolved to not repeat the closed process used to develop the Millennium Development Goals, but the OWG began work when failures to reach consensus and fatigue with multilateral environmental negotiations dominated delegates’ minds, rather than examples of successfully negotiated outcomes. The OWG Co-Chairs were faced with the daunting task of guiding delegates’ efforts to develop a proposed set of crisp SDGs and targets that all could agree to, and thus, had to accomplish the following goals: (1) reduce delegation rigidity, both of individual Member States and within coalitions; (2) maximize the sense of participation, transparency, and ownership to get the most buy-in at the end; and (3) develop a sense of trust that would change the relationship between Member States. To do this, the OWG Co-Chairs broke the mold of UN multilateral negotiations that Member States and observers had become familiar with and created a different approach. This article examines how the OWG accomplished these goals and overcame the shortcomings of other multilateral negotiating processes on sustainable development to produce a widely supported consensus outcome at a time when governments have struggled to achieve agreement in many multilateral negotiation tracks.     

可持续发展的森林资源立法研究

可持续发展是当今世界发展的主旋律,森林资源立法应当以可持续发展为基本原则.我国虽然已经形成了比较完备的森林资源保护的法律架构,但囿于立法时代的局限尚有不足.森林资源立法应当确立可持续发展的原则,建立广泛的公众参与机制及非公有制林业的激励机制.此外,森林资源立法可以规定评估和监测制度作为森林资源发展的保障制度,同时还应该注意与其他相关法律法规的协调,使森林资源在合理、稳定、相互协调的法律与政策的环境下实现可持续发展.     

The accountability of non-governmental actors in the digital sphere: A theoretical framework

The last decade has seen increasing demands for greater accountability in digital governance. What, however, does accountability require and what normative goods does it serve? This article develops a general framework for assessing digital accountability focused on four normative goods: openness, non-arbitrariness, effectiveness and publicness. As the article will evidence, claims for digital accountability often refer to deficits relating to one or more of these goods. While scholarly attention has deservedly focused on tying powerful digital actors to rule of law guarantees, the article argues that accountability offers an important normative yardstick to allow citizens to contest digital decisions beyond strict legality. The framework therefore provides a basis for both conceptually disaggregating and normatively forwarding accountability claims in the digital sphere.     

Epistemological and ethical understandings of access and allocation in Earth System Governance: a 10-year review of the literature

“Access and allocation” is one of the five analytical problems identified as key for analysing earth system governance in the first Earth System Governance Science and Implementation Plan officially published in 2009. Ten years later and with a new Science and Implementation Plan in place, it is time to take stock. Therefore, this paper addresses the question: What does a decadal review of the Earth System Governance literature tell us about how to conceptualize and define access and allocation, what ethical norms and epistemologies underlie access and allocation research, and what does Earth System Governance scholarship reveal about the interplay between access and allocation and other norms? We find that: (a) there is a relatively small body of the Earth System Governance literature on access and allocation, albeit growing; (b) this literature is largely empirical and dispersed across a variety of topics; and (c) there is a diversity of ethical norms and principles emphasized in Earth System Governance scholarship, but the dynamics between different forms of access and related implications for allocation are relatively underexplored. In light of these findings and with a new Earth System Governance Science and Implementation Plan in place, this paper highlights key areas for further research and development.

     

A community in the Orange: the development of a multi-level water governance framework in the Orange-Senqu River basin in Southern Africa

An ensemble of normative codes of conduct in the form of global, regional and domestic norms, principles of best practice and laws have developed over time providing standards of appropriate behaviour in the governance of transboundary rivers in an attempt to eradicate or minimise real or perceived conflicts. Through a multi-levelled analysis of water governance in the Orange-Senqu River basin in Southern Africa, this paper investigates the relationships between co-operative management norms constructed at different levels of scale, and the ways in which both norm and context are transformed as a result of the other. At the basin level, legal and institutional processes symbolise a movement towards norm convergence in the basin. However, norm drivers (such as technical co-operation, personalised politics, trust and confidence building) and norm barriers (such as skills flight and the lack of trust) to the development of a ‘community of interest’ in the Orange-Senqu River basin have also been significant in shaping the legal and normative landscape. An analysis of global, regional, basin-wide and local norms is therefore useful because it illustrates the interconnectedness of their interactions as well as how their content is affected.     

Regulating the Oil Palm Boom: Assessing the Effectiveness of Environmental Governance Approaches to Agro-industrial Pollution in Indonesia

The large environmental impacts associated with agro-industrial development in Indonesia are both striking and increasingly important, especially with increased demand for biofuels and the rapid extension of oil palm plantations. Recently, Indonesia has also seen a series of transformations in the regulatory regime for pollution control with decentralization and a shift towards new environmental policy instruments. This article considers the effectiveness of these new approaches, including the widely influential International Organization for Standardizations (ISO) 14001 series for environmental management systems and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certification system. Despite the turn towards these new governance approaches, the underlying problems that have undermined bureaucratic regulation in the past continue to haunt attempts to make the sector more sustainable. Efforts to mitigate the increasingly large-scale pollution associated with agro-industrial development will need to be better crafted and combined to suit the characteristics of the industry concerned and to address the wider socio-economic and political realities within which problems are embedded and where any policy tool must be applied.     

THE EVOLUTION OF POLICY AND LAW FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN CHINA

This article examines the evolution of politics and laws related to sustainable development in China. Sustainable development has been positioned as an economic development strategy many years ago. However, in earlier times, it bore a heavy tint of national strategy, followed by a kind of soft sustainable development with a technological orientation. The recent decade has seen China on track for strong sustainable development. At the present, China is around the turning point of the ＂Environmental Kuznets Curve,＂ where both domestic and international multiple pressures are forcing the whole country to make new choices for its dimension of sustainable development strategy. Although sustainable development has been recognized by the legal field of environmental resources, it is still not yet fully integrated into other areas of law. The period from weak to strong sustainable transition is accompanied by another transition, more significant in China, from industrial civilization to ecological civilization. Compared to weak sustainable development, the complex and contradictory character of strength has brought more challenges. Sustainable development of dualism and compromise, which corresponds with the actual needs in China, is an important theoretical basis and practical standards for implementing the scientific view of development. Finally, it concludes by noting that ecological civilization is attempting to solve the problems from a more broad perspective, and to pay more attention to public participation, at the same time to cover the shortage of environmental legislation.