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.     

A New Context for the Ramsar Convention: Wetlands in a Changing World

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) has had a considerable influence on the work under multilateral environmental agreements dealing with biological diversity, including the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. The MA developed a strong conceptual framework which brought together the natural and social sciences, and through that synergy promoted what it means to be sustainable. The MA provided a means to redefine the Ramsar Convention's wise use concept in terms of sustainability, especially the capacity of the ecosystem to continue to deliver the services on which other ecosystems and people depend. The messages from the MA impact also on the Ramsar Convention's concept of maintenance of ecological character; and thus the list of Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar sites). 'Change in ecological character', which is a concept that is important in measuring Ramsar site effectiveness, can also be resolved in terms of ecosystem services – and thus the criterion for being and continuing to be a Wetland of International Importance essentially becomes an issue of capacity to deliver ecosystem services.     

The critical perspective in psychological jurisprudence theoretical advances and epistemological assumptions

The critical perspectives of psychological jurisprudence identified above, along with their corresponding epistemological assumptions, reflect a radical agenda for change at the law-psychology divide. Although not exhaustively reviewed, the individual theories represent different approaches by which structural reform can be enacted and citizen well-being can therefore be realized. Collectively, the critical perspectives and their attending presuppositions challenge conventional wisdom about prospects for transforming (i.e., humanizing) the legal apparatus. I submit that the future viability of the law-psychology movement, and its overall utility for society, considerably depends on its capacity to facilitate and secure such widespread change. By focusing on critical theoretical inquiry, this article makes painfully clear that much of what is wrong with the legal system, especially in its interactions with and interpretations of people, cannot be amended or solved through it. Indeed, as Roesch (1995) observed, "changes in the justice system will never be sufficient to create a just society, nor will within system changes by themselves ever have much of an impact on individuals who come into conflict with the law" (p. 3). I agree. Accordingly, it is time to move on and, where necessary, to look elsewhere for guidance. The radical agenda in psychological jurisprudence represents a provocative strategy, providing a meaningful basis for critique and a sustainable basis for reform. Both are integral to the call for justice embodied in the founding of the AP-LS decades ago. Realizing this challenge, however, remains an unfulfilled dream. Thus, the task that awaits is to apply the insights of critical psychological jurisprudence to relevant areas of research and policy. I submit that the academy can ill afford to dismiss this task. Indeed, in the final analysis, to do so would not only defer prospects for justice but would destroy its very possibility, especially for citizens disillusioned by the status quo and desperate for change that makes a difference.     

China and climate justice: moving beyond statism

China is the largest national source of greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution causing climate change. However, despite some rhetorical progress at the 2011 Durban climate conference, it has consistently rejected calls to take on binding targets to reduce its GHG emissions. The Chinese Government has understandably argued that developed states are responsible for the predominant share of historical GHG emissions, have greater capacity to pay for the cost of mitigation, and indeed have an obligation to do so before China is required to take action. However, due to the explosive growth in its GHG emissions, China is now in a position to single-handedly dash any hope of climate stability if its position does not change. On the diplomatic level, other big polluters, particularly the United States, will not enter into new binding agreements to reduce substantially their own GHG emissions without a credible commitment from China. Challenging the “statist” framing of the climate justice, this article explores the possibility for China to take on a leadership role in climate change diplomacy in a way that allows it to maintain its long-standing principled resistance to binding national emissions targets while making meaningful progress toward combating the problem. Action by China’s rapidly growing affluent classes may hold the key to long-term climate stability.     

The Problem That Is Global Warming: Introduction

Global warming poses significant challenges to society at every level, evading easy definitions that would make the usual instrumental approaches to policymaking and regulation a relatively straightforward task. The embeddedness of the carbon economy in contemporary methods of industrialization and development means that climate protection is at once a problem of environment, the global economy, and human rights. It requires us to understand the strengths and limitations of a regulatory approach, to tease apart the intricacies of international law and governance to find ways to turn economic, legal, and cultural norms toward creating climate justice. Sector specific approaches to dealing with human rights and refugees, as well as international relations based on interstate relations, also have limitations. These include insufficient capacity to appreciate the differentiated responsibility of various actors in the creation of this ecological crisis as well as creating obstacles in finding appropriate ways to motivate those with the most ability to reduce our impact on the climate. Mutual reinforcement and “virtuous” arbitrage across fragmented regulatory regimes might create new synergies with potentially positive transformative effects for climate protection. To achieve this, the development and maintenance of legitimacy is central. The articles in this edition tackle these issues and, taken as a whole, provide a springboard for future scholarship.     

Whose Justice? Rethinking Transitional Justice from the Bottom Up

This paper argues that transitional justice needs to adopt a participatory approach to achieve longer-term sustainability, shifting away from the top-down 'one-size-fits-all' approach to allow 'voices from below' to be heard and heeded. It critiques dominant interpretations of key transitional justice concepts, and links them to the difficulties of post-conflict transitional justice in a range of violently divided societies. Popular participation and local agency, it is argued, is necessary to achieve ends identified in much transitional justice discourse, and to embed mechanisms for the creation of sustainable peace. A Northern Ireland initiative (the Ardoyne Commemoration Project) will be explored in-depth, illustrating how a bottom-up 'truth-telling' process can make a significant contribution to transitional justice and casting doubt on the validity of the deference to legal dominance in current policy and practice. The paper recommends that knowledge available in development studies and participatory theory be applied more clearly in debates and approaches in transitional justice.     

Exploring the agency of Africa in climate change negotiations: the case of REDD+

Emerging climate change regimes, such as the mechanism for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+), are increasingly aiming to engage developing countries such as those in Africa, in sustainable development through carbon markets. The contribution of African countries to global climate negotiations determines how compatible the negotiated rules could be with the existing socioeconomic and policy circumstances of African countries. The aim of this paper is to explore the agency of Africa (African States) in the global climate change negotiations and discuss possible implications for implementing these rules using REDD+ as a case study. Drawing on document analysis and semi-structured expert interviews, our findings suggest that although African countries are extensively involved in the implementation of REDD+ interventions, the continent has a weak agency on the design of the global REDD+ architecture. This weak agency results from a number of factors including the inability of African countries to send large and diverse delegations to the negotiations as well lack of capacity to generate and transmit research evidence to the global platform. African countries also perceive themselves as victims of climate change who should be eligible for support rather than sources of technological solutions. Again, Africa’s position is fragmented across negotiation coalitions which weakens the continent's collective influence on the REDD+ agenda. This paper discusses a number of implementation deficits which could result from this weak agency. These include concerns about implementation capacity and a potential lack of coherence between REDD+ rules and existing policies in African countries. These findings call for a rethink of pathways to enhancing Africa’s strategies in engaging in multilateral climate change negotiations, especially if climate change regimes specifically targeted at developing countries are to be effective.     

Council of Europe/UNEP,Pan‐European biological and landscape diversity strategy,Invasive Alien Species

Abstract

The notion of sustainable development has become, over the last fifteen years, an integral part of international environmental law and policy. It is recognition that environmental issues do not exist in a vacuum, but rather arc part of much wider structural issues involving both economic and social dimensions. However, does this concern for sustainable development now mean that protecting the natural environment is no longer about ecological conservation per se, but rather is simply abour ensuring an adequate environment to maintain economic development? And if so, what of those environments where the economic value is a secondary consideration? Or where human activity has a disproportionate effect? Can sustainable development be interpreted in a way that reconciles these seemingly opposite demands? This paper examines these issues from the perspective of the 1991 Madrid Protocol on Environmental Protection to the 1959 Antarctic Treaty. It will suggest that sustainable development is a broader concept than one that simply requires an instrumental approach to environmental protection. In fact, the paper will conclude that sustainable development is a relatively meaningless notion if it docs not also contain a strong element of environmental conservation, and not only in such ecologically important areas as Antarctica.     

Climate agreements and India: aligning options and opportunities on a new track

The Climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December 2009 witnessed the emerging power of Brazil, South Africa, India, and China (BASIC). Although still focussed on domestic development goals, BASIC countries have made important steps toward a greater engagement in the global climate agenda. For India, the shift was marked by a voluntary, but conditional, target of reducing emission intensity, away from the past normative position based on “equal per capita,” emissions entitlements. The new track aims at finding cost-effective mitigation strategies that align national development goals and climate actions. This paper examines the mitigation potential of a domestic sustainable development policy using a suite of integrated assessment models. The long-term goal is to keep temperature increase below 2°C. This article shows that it is possible to match domestic development goals and climate mitigation. Win–win options exist and side benefits—in terms of energy security and local pollution—are important. However, development policies are not sufficient to achieve the desired emissions reductions. We find that it is necessary to introduce a constraint on the carbon budget. The price of carbon that emerges is however much lower than in a conventional mitigation scenario. Finally, this paper proposes to shift the negotiations away from the current climate-centric focus toward “development,” in order to reduce conflicts and deliver greater global and national benefits.     

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.     

Climate change and adaptive capacity in fisheries management: the case of Norway

Climate variability and change drive changes in marine ecosystems, such as growth in and geographic distribution of living marine resources. Mitigating measures in response to anthropogenic climate change are insufficient, and more attention must be directed toward adaptation to climate change. In the management of living marine resources, successful management will rest on the capacity of management regimes to be adaptive and flexible. This article addresses the management of living marine resources, and how management regimes cope with change and bolster the resilience of ecosystems. Experiences from the Norwegian management regime for living marine resources are used to illustrate how an existing regime can respond to change. We conclude that management regimes with sufficient capacity, in terms of robust science, regulatory frameworks that contribute to reduced fishing effort and maintenance of sustainable stock levels, and enforcement capability, are more likely to respond adequately to the challenges posed by climate change than those that do not.     

绿色经济在中国的启蒙与复兴

绿色经济的概念为突破可持续发展机制面临的这个瓶颈在理念和方法上提供了一个新的机遇和选择,为可持续发展注入了新的活力。绿色经济体现了生态文明的理念,追求经济发展与环境保护的共赢与和谐。绿色经济的概念在当今经济全球化背景下尤其珍贵,有利于克服经济高度商品化带来的环境问题深化和危机,实现全球经济的可持续发展;绿色经济对中国等经济高速发展国家尤其重要。在中国经历了举步维艰的绿色经济目前正在获得新的发展契机。     

Mobilizing Market Forces to Combat Global Environmental Change: Lessons from UN–Private Sector Partnerships in China

While globalization has brought far-reaching benefits to communities around the world in the form of increasing foreign investment and trade, and reduced levels of poverty, the externalities of the global market have also taken on greater prominence. In particular, issues of global environmental change now stand as a central concern for governments around the world, with increasing threats to the sustainability of hard-won development gains. While international frameworks such as the United Nations conventions on climate change and biodiversity have been enacted to take joint action on issues of common concern, a major challenge has been to enact effective implementation regimes to achieve results on the ground. One hope lays in the forces of the market itself, engaging global market forces and the role of the private sector to facilitate a global shift to sustainable growth and business practices. This article analyses this challenge and emerging opportunities for market-based approaches to implement international environmental law through a case study of China and the innovative partnerships being forged there between the UN, governmental and private institutions.     

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.

     

Fostering a triple response mechanism to combat global climate change: Emission abatement,carbon capture and water improvement

The Kyoto Protocol has established emission abatement and carbon sink increase to cope with climate change. However, in recent years, developed countries tend to focus more on the former. The simplifying of GHG causes has posed challenges for the understanding of climate change issues and for the development of consequent counter-measures, leading to present controversy and dilemma over mechanisms to combat global climate change. It is held that a desirable global cooperative stance should be “harmonious but differentiated,” i.e., the division of responsibilities and co-operation among the countries should be conducted after the diversities of different countries are recognized in terms of climate change, interests and functions. To meet this end, it is necessary to have UNFCCC play a leading role, under which emission abatement, carbon sink and water cycle improvement are concurrently reinforced. Under this triple mechanism, industrialized countries ought to continue to take the lead in emission abatement, while developing countries, especially those with great potentialities to strengthen carbon sink and water conservancy, ought to conduct ecological preservation and to develop hydraulic capacity so as to strengthen the natural carbon cycle and water cycle to combat climatic impacts.     

气候变化背景下国际投资规则的发展趋势及我国对策研究

传统国际投资条约与应对气候变化存在一些矛盾和冲突,因此应实现国际投资条约与气候变化应对条约之间的衔接,兼顾投资自由化与政府管制.要实现这一目标,最佳方式是通过改变国际投资条约以顺应应对气候变化的低碳运动,改变国际投资条约将促进和保护投资作为唯一重心的现状,并采纳环境保护等其他领域的国际法规则.近年来国际投资领域呈现可持续发展的投资政策趋势.目前一些投资保护协定范本和新签订的双边和区域性投资协定已经纳入并不断完善环境保护等有关东道国管制外资内容的条款,逐步实现投资者利益与东道国利益保护的平衡.我国对现有国际投资条约进行调整、修订以及新投资条约的谈判,应考虑国际投资条约的这一发展趋势,以顺应国际投资的可持续发展政策.     

Africa in the global climate change negotiations

The African Group of Negotiators (AGN) has become a much more significant bargaining coalition in the global climate change negotiations. It has been participating more proactively and on a much more significant scale, and, as a result, it has had a greater impact on bargaining outcomes, notably in Nairobi, Copenhagen and Durban. Yet, at present, the group remains poorly understood by both scholars and policymakers. Compared to other groups in the climate negotiations, such as the Group of 77 and Alliance of Small Island States, it has received relatively little attention. This paper fills this gap by tracking the evolution of the AGN over the course of the climate change negotiations. In the early years after the Earth Summit, it shows that the AGN faced tremendous difficulties pursing regional objectives effectively, largely due to a number of “internal” barriers to participation, which compounded the structural barriers that the continent faced by making it difficult to use “low-power” negotiating strategies such as coalition building, agenda-setting and persuasion. However, in recent years, the group has become much more proactive as a result of greater access to material, ideational and institutional resources. These have relieved, somewhat, the internal barriers that the group faced, making it possible for the AGN to negotiate much more confidently and effectively than before.     

Legal Steps Outside the Climate Convention: Litigation as a Tool to Address Climate Change

This article examines the recent academic interest in litigation as a tool to address climate change, as well as the surge of legal actions worldwide to bring the problem to the attention of judiciaries. This new interest reveals the frustration of legal scholars and activists at the slow rate at which policy makers are addressing the climate change problem. This article shows the slow build-up of academic interest in litigation, before moving on to analyse the kinds of legal causes of action that are being used in different parts of the world. Most of these cases have not been fully resolved, and it is more than likely that the judgments may not always be favourable to the plaintiffs, but at least a first step has been made to involve yet another forum for addressing the climate change problem.     

人格与财产的关系——兼论法国民法的“总体财产”理论

罗马法以财产和地域为基础的身份人格,人的伦理价值被排斥于人格的构成之外,罗马法上的“财产”之享有,乃是“人格”享有之标志。在古典自然法学说和理性主义思潮的影响下,人的理性与价值得以在实在法中成为人格的基础,财产要素在人格基础上被摒除。较之于法国民法总体财产的“财产能力”或者“财产权利能力”本质而未能扬弃强烈的人格的伦理性,德国民法中的权利能力彻底张扬了人格的权利载体意义,并且为民法的发展创造了至关重要的条件。从而可以说,财产、伦理要素从人格中不断剥离正是人格平等的历史进程。那种将财产作为人格要素的认识,乃是以否定人格平等的近代法律的基本价值作为代价的。