International environmental law

Abstract

International environmental law is generally considered to be comprised of a large number of bilateral, regional and global treaties negotiated and ratified by the states that choose to be bound by them; certain customary or general principles of environmental law and a growing number of international judicial or arbitral decisions resolving inter-State disputes. This chapter discusses the sources of international environmental law. International environmental law is a subset of the broader field of public international law – the law that governs the relationship between nation-states. The first three sources – treaty, custom and general principles of international law – create binding legal obligations for states. The chapter reviews the contribution of each of these sources of international law to the field of international environmental law. The final sources of international law are “judicial decisions and the writings of eminent publicists,” which are subsidiary means for determining international law.