Oldal 106 [106]
104 Attia PANovics
h) industrial accidents and other disasters demonstrate that human negligence
cannot be eliminated as a factor of uncertainty;
i) when the environment is damaged, restoring it to its original state is often
impossible, no matter how stringent the legislation is.
International environmental law
Environmental pollution does not stop at national borders, and therefore effective
international cooperation (global environmental governance) is essential for tackling
global environmental problems. However, the fundamental organizing principle
in international relations is the sovereign equality of states (at least in a formal
sense). Current international law is in fact “inter-state law”, since the most
important actors are nation states and, to a lesser extent, international organizations
organized and operating on an intergovernmental basis.
A further problem of timing is that the framework for international cooperation
was established during the Second World War (mainly with the creation of the
UN and its specialized agencies), so that the recognition of global environmental
problems and the launch of international environmental cooperation had to fit
into the existing institutional and legal systems (Kotzé 2012). It is also no
coincidence that the UN includes three organizations that form the backbone of
the international economic system (the World Bank, the International Monetary
Fund and the World Trade Organisation), but there is no specialized organization
explicitly dealing with environmental problems that could counterbalance the
dominance of the former (Faragé 2021: 153-154).”
International law is created through international treaties or the development
of general rules of international law. The latter are binding on all members of the
international community and include the rules already mentioned, which require
unconditional application (ius cogens), certain general principles of law, and
customary international law, which is ‘evidence of general practice accepted as
law’. Customary international law has also played a prominent role in the
development of international environmental law, based on the general and actual
practice of states and their belief that they follow this practice on the basis of a
legal obligation (Kende et al. 2014: 422). Principle 21 of the Stockholm Protocol,
which states that “Jn accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the
principles of international law, States have the sovereign right to exploit their own
resources pursuant to their own environmental policies, and the responsibility to ensure
that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment
of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction” spells out just
such a rule of customary law”.* Customary rules may even be enshrined in
international treaties at some point (Bruhács 2011: 135).
Another fundamental feature of international environmental law is that it is
mostly made up of non-binding documents that fall into the category of ‘oft law”
(Boyle — Redgwell 2012: 35-38). Of course, the number of international
7 The UN Environment Programme (UNEP), founded after the Stockholm Conference and based
in Nairobi (Kenya), is certainly not one of them.
8 https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/29567/ELGP 1 StockD.pdf.