Download This PaperEmergence and Convergence
Environmental Forum (March/April 2020)
7 Pages Posted: 7 May 2020
Date Written: March 1, 2020
Abstract
Over the past several decades, environmental law has seen a significant transformation. As the world’s most important environmental challenges are now global in scope, humanity’s attention and societal concern have shifted accordingly. Most remarkable, however, has been the evolution of legal and institutional responses. Though much of modern environmental law initially arose in the United States and other developed economies, its reach is now worldwide. Public international law has been transformed by environmental issues, and environmental norms and principles now permeate the legal systems of developing countries and emerging economies. The result has been the emergence of widely adopted environmental law principles and regulatory mechanisms that appear in jurisdictions across the world. In fact, regulatory tools such as environmental impact assessment (EIA) and the associated legal principle that EIAs must be prepared for projects that could have significant environmental effects can now be found in virtually all of the world’s jurisdictions. Robert Percival and I have previously made the argument that these legal principles, substantive policies, and regulatory mechanisms are emerging as an interrelated body of policies and connected set of principles that command widespread international adherence, in some areas even supported by a near-global consensus, and are broadly used by regulators and policy-makers to manage environmental quality. (Emergence of Global Environmental Law, 36 Ecology Law Quarterly 615 (2009)). The essay here is designed to provide an overview of some developments, especially in the legal systems of developing world, through the lens of three questions: What are these developments? How have they have been arising? And why are they significant?
Keywords: Global Environmental Law, Comparative Environmental Law, Convergence, Sustainability
JEL Classification: F00, F50, K23,K33, O00, O44, O57, Q01
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Tseming Yang (Contact Author)
Santa Clara Law School ( email )
500 El Camino Real
Santa Clara, CA 95053
United States
408-551-6037 (Phone)