The Ocean and International Environmental Law: Swimming, Sinking, and Treading Water at the Millennium

43 Ocean & Coastal Management 141 (2000)

21 Pages Posted: 9 Aug 2012

See all articles by Douglas Johnston

Douglas Johnston

University of Victoria

David VanderZwaag

Dalhousie University - Schulich School of Law

Date Written: 2000

Abstract

Various images help capture the status and trends of international law and policy efforts to protect the ocean environment. While “treading water” and “sinking” partly describe legal conditions at the millennium, this paper examines seven challenges in the international environmental law field which at the very least promise to make for a “hard swim” in coming decades. Those challenges include: coping with the proliferation of negotiated instruments; overcoming political opposition to environmental commitments; clarifying the jurisprudential underpinnings of international environmental law; sorting out the relation of environmental ethics, science and the rule of law; fleshing out the principles of sustainable development; addressing practical problems of implementing international responsibilities; and visioning future paths of ocean governance.

Keywords: environmental law, international law, sustainable development, ocean governance, environmental ethics, negotiated instruments, political opposition

Suggested Citation

Johnston, Douglas and VanderZwaag, David, The Ocean and International Environmental Law: Swimming, Sinking, and Treading Water at the Millennium (2000). 43 Ocean & Coastal Management 141 (2000), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2126158

Douglas Johnston

University of Victoria ( email )

3800 Finnerty Rd
Victoria, British Columbia V8P 5C2
Canada

David VanderZwaag (Contact Author)

Dalhousie University - Schulich School of Law ( email )

6061 University Avenue
6061 University Ave
Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4H9
Canada

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