Unravelling the Maze of Multilateral Environmental Agreements: A Macroscopic Analysis of International Environmental Law and Governance for the Anthropocene

Complex adaptive systems are a special kind of self-organizing system with emergent properties and adaptive capacity in response to changing external conditions. In this article, we investigate the proposition that international environmental law, as a network of treaties and institutions, exhibits some key characteristics of a complex adaptive system. This proposition is premised on the scientific understanding that the Earth system displays properties of a complex adaptive system. If so, international environmental law, as a control system, may benefit from the insights gained and from being modelled in ways more appropriately aligned with the functioning of the Earth system itself. In this exploratory review, we found evidence suggesting that international environmental law is a complex system where treaties and institutions self-organize and exhibit emergent properties. Furthermore, we contend that international environmental law as a whole is adapting to exogenous changes through an institutional process akin to natural selection in biological evolution. However, the adequacy of the direction and rate of adaptation for the purpose of safeguarding the integrity of Earth’s life-support system is questioned. This paper concludes with an emphasis on the need for system-level interventions to steer the direction of self-organization while maintaining institutional diversity. This recommendation stands in contrast to the reductionist approach to institutional fragmentation and aims at embracing the existing complexity in international environmental law.

Although multilateral agreements to protect environmental goods have existed for more than a century, the development of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) as we know them in the 21st century is a recent phenomenon stretching back approximately four to five decades. The selections in this bibliography focus on global MEAs. They provide references to literature on regional MEAs in fields where such treaties are particularly important. There is no generally accepted definition of MEAs. This bibliography builds on a rather broad definition, including treaties that at least partly aim to protect the environment. Some fields of international law have been extensively discussed in relation to MEAs. Literature on the relationships between MEAs and human rights, trade, and investment has been included in the following sections. The UN Environment Programme is the main UN organ responsible for the environment and has initiated negotiations of core MEAs. In addition, many specialized agencies and other organs of the United Nations have initiated MEAs and act as hosts to the institutional structures established through MEAs. The following sections are not categorized according to the institutional affiliation of MEAs. They also do not specifically focus on customary international environmental law (IEL). But there are close links between customary law and MEAs. For example, there have been significant efforts to codify customary IEL within some areas, particularly in state responsibility and the duty to cooperate to prevent environmental harm. The most significant elements of customary IEL fall within the scope of this bibliography. MEAs can be described, examined, and analyzed from a broad range of perspectives. The main perspective of this bibliography is international law. In addition, important contributions from other social sciences, in particular political science, have been referenced. Given the fragmented nature of IEL and the numerous MEAs, we can only include a few references for each topic. Consequently, the following citations will almost exclusively refer to monographs and edited books. Articles or publications written by treaty bodies, host institutions, nongovernmental organizations, or states are only referenced in exceptional cases. Moreover, as IEL is a young field of law, substantive and procedural rules are still evolving in many areas. Consequently, the following citations focus on recent and updated literature in most areas. For practical purposes, they have generally been limited to literature in English.

Multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) illustrate the maturation and sophistication of international environmental law. If anything, the diversity and flexibility of compliance approaches under MEAs highlight the limited purchase of simple dichotomies such as binding vs. non-binding or vs. ineffectiveness. This chapter begins by exploring the concept of in international law in general. It suggests that a concept of enforcement as imposition of legal sanctions, or penalties, is unduly narrow. The chapter then canvasses some of the main theoretical assumptions about international law and compliance. An exploration of this theoretical context illuminates the reasons underlying common misconceptions about international law and its enforcement, and helps put in perspective the evolution of approaches to compliance in international environmental law. Finally, against the backdrop of these general considerations, the chapter examines key features of the approaches to compliance and enforcement in international environmental law and MEAs. Keywords: enforcement; international environmental law; international law; multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs); treaty compliance

The purpose of this article is to reveal the essence, identify the causes and determine the characteristics of non-compliance mechanisms under multilateral agreements on environmental protection.Nowadays the issue of non-compliance with multilateral environmental agreements occupies one of the key places among the largest problems of international environmental law. Although some multilateral environmental agreements are accepted by most states and are considered universal, they still do not have the desired effect on the environment. This is due to a number of reasons which we are going to discuss in this article.The relevance and importance of the article is based on the following factors: 1) international environmental law is relatively new and dynamically developing; 2) almost complete lack of thorough and systematic study of theoretical and practical aspects of non-compliance mechanisms under multilateral environmental agreements in the domestic science of international law; 3) there is no single approach to understanding the concept and characteristics of non-compliance mechanisms under multilateral environmental agreements; 4) the need to raise the level of environmental legal awareness of both members of the public and those who make daily decisions in the field of environmental protection. Taking into consideration that Ukraine is a party to many international environmental agreements, the study of non-compliance mechanisms is important for both Ukrainian legal science and for the international legal practice of Ukraine.In this regard, an analysis of researches of well-known scientists such as V. Butkevych, V. Mytsyk, O. Zadorozhniy, I. Lukashuk, V. Suvorova, M. Buromensky, O. Tiunov, M. Ushakov was conducted. Problems of non-compliance mechanisms under multilateral environmental agreements have been the subject of researches by some Ukrainian (M. Medvedieva, A. Andrusevych, N. Andrusevych, S. Kravchenko) and foreign (E. Weiss, T. Crossen, K. Raustil, M. Fitzmaurice, J. Brunni, G. Lobble, O. Yoshida, O. Stoke, G. Wiser) scientists.The methods used in the writing of the work are formal-logical, comparatively legal, formal-legal, systematic method.In the article we have given the definition of non-compliance mechanisms under multilateral environmental agreements, identified its causes and main characteristics.

This essay aims to launch the proceedings of international law on a high note, and to suggest that many common impressions of it are wrong in general, and particularly wrong in the context of international environmental law. Even more particularly, multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) illustrate the maturation and sophistication of international environmental law. If anything, the diversity and flexibility of compliance approaches under MEAs highlight the limited purchase of simple dichotomies such as “binding vs. non-binding” or “enforcement vs. ineffectiveness”. The essay begins by exploring the concept of “enforcement” in international law in general. It suggests that a concept of enforcement as imposition of legal sanctions, or penalties, is unduly narrow. The essay then canvasses some of the main theoretical assumptions about international law and compliance. An exploration of this theoretical context illuminates the reasons underlying common misconceptions about international law and its enforcement, and helps put in perspective the evolution of approaches to compliance in international environmental law. Finally, against the backdrop of these general considerations, the author examines key features of the approaches to compliance and enforcement in international environmental law and MEAs. The aim is to provide a ‘bigger picture’, a context for the detailed discussions of compliance mechanisms that make up the bulk of the conference proceedings.

In this article we argue that international environmental law cannot continue to exist in its present form for the purpose of the Anthropocene. We show that analytically, international environmental law and its lawyers are unable to fully understand and respond to the complex governance challenges arising from a complex Earth system. Normatively, international environmental law has failed to provide appropriate norms to prevent humans from encroaching on Earth system limits. In a transformative sense, international environmental law has not been sufficiently ambitious to achieve the type of radical transformations necessary to ensure planetary integrity and socio-ecological justice. We need a new legal paradigm that is better suited for the purpose of the Anthropocene that must address international environmental law’s analytical, normative and transformative concerns. We call this new paradigm earth system law. Building on our recent work, we offer here some preliminary thoughts about what we think the analytical, normative, and transformative dimensions of earth system law could and should entail, and why they would be more appropriate for the purpose of governing a complex Earth system in the Anthropocene.

In this article we argue that international environmental law cannot continue to exist in its present form for the purpose of the Anthropocene. We show that analytically, international environmental law and its lawyers are unable to fully understand and respond to the complex governance challenges arising from a complex Earth system. Normatively, international environmental law has failed to provide appropriate norms to prevent humans from encroaching on Earth system limits. In a transformative sense, international environmental law has not been sufficiently ambitious to achieve the type of radical transformations necessary to ensure planetary integrity and socio-ecological justice. We need a new legal paradigm that is better suited for the purpose of the Anthropocene that must address international environmental law’s analytical, normative and transformative concerns. We call this new paradigm earth system law. Building on our recent work, we offer here some preliminary thoughts about what we think the analytical, normative, and transformative dimensions of earth system law could and should entail, and why they would be more appropriate for the purpose of governing a complex Earth system in the Anthropocene.

The emergent network structure of the multilateral environmental agreement system

The issue of environment protection during armed conflicts is considered a very important issue in the international law, particularly for the environment destruction due to wars and armed conflicts which affects the land ,water and air. However, these conflicts use various types of weapons such as traditional , mass destruction, nuclear and overall chemical or germ weapons. The reality shows wars that have been happening in the world have led to the violation of the fundamental of human rights, the human right to live in a peaceful , healthy and clean environment.Internationally and before the establishment of the United Nations, there are a quite number of international agreements in the field of environmental protection during the armed conflicts, but these international agreements lacked effective tools to compel parties of the conflict to abide by and comply with the these approved agreements between the conflicting parties during the armed conflicts.These international agreements and mechanisms need to be continuously developed and reformed in order to activate them, and bringing them to the main goal, which is to strengthen the protection of the human right to live in a healthy and clean environment, not only at the time of peace but also during war time.In recent decades, many armed conflicts have been associated with a variety of threats to the environment, and among these threats include: chemical pollution in the long term for the land, water, atmosphere and other elements that formed on the surface of the earth as well as the incapability of using the earth's resources because of mines and other hazardous substances exist; a threat of water supplies and other essential materials to ensure life.These threats do not only affect the conflicting countries, but also affect the civilians and neutral countries, and these effects often remain for a long time after the end of the armed conflict. Perhaps the conditions of the world today, including armed conflicts, and no considerations relating to the need of protecting the environment encourage legal systems to develop and protect the environment issues among the priorities and concerns.As the international environment law is only interested in the issues of the environment during a period of peace, so it is necessary to look for other laws related to the period of armed conflict, which is the international humanitarian law. Hence, this research studies and analyzes the international conventions in this field, and explaining the international humanitarian law on the protection of the environment during armed conflicts through:A) Studying the environmental crime of Ecocide which is considered the most serious international crimes recently because there is a clear increase in the recognition by the scientific community in international law that the crime of ecocide is considered an international crime.B) Studying the international responsibility of countries and international criminal responsibility of individuals for the damage to the environment during the armed conflict, and how to carry out this responsibility.Finally, it should be emphasized that the prosecution of countries and individuals for the violation of both international humanitarian law and to protect the environment in times of armed conflict, in particular, are extremely rare, in addition to mechanisms of international humanitarian law in its current state has not ensured the natural environment protection during the period of armed conflicts. Moreover, there are shortages and deficiencies in these mechanisms, which should fill this legal vacuum.

In this article, we use a case study of 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) to examine role of precautionary principle in international environmental law and policy. Our findings indicate that a major function of principle is to redistribute burden of scientific uncertainty. By lowering threshold of evidence of threats to human health or environment required to trigger deliberations about taking action, precautionary principle speeds up process by which underlying ecological interdependence and scientific uncertainty are translated into policy interdependence and uncertainty. This prompts states to coordinate their policymaking, which reinforces multilateral processes and underlines importance of convening, coordinating, and facilitating roles of international institutions such as United Nations Environment Programme. KEY-WORDS: precautionary principle, persistent organic pollutants (POPs), multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), scientific uncertainty, management of interdependence. ********** The precautionary principle has emerged as an important yet contentious issue in multilateral environmental agreements. Even as it progressively becomes consolidated into international law and widely acknowledged as an appropriate response to scientific uncertainty, application of precautionary principle internationally has, as some state and nonstate actors claim, generated even more uncertainty. The principle's contentious nature was obvious during negotiations leading to 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, (1) which provides an excellent opportunity to examine role of principle not only in that particular regime but also in international environmental law more generally. We thus draw on these negotiations to anchor an analysis of implications of precautionary principle and to explore paradox of uncertainty associated with it. Our findings indicate that a major function of precautionary principle is redistribution of burden of scientific uncertainty. Whereas actors could formerly act as if they were ecologically independent by ignoring weak signals of transboundary damage, such behavior is no longer acceptable. By lowering threshold of scientific evidence of threats of serious or irreversible damage to human health or environment required to trigger deliberations, precautionary principle is speeding up process by which underlying ecological interdependence is recognized and translated into policy interdependence. By triggering deliberations on appropriate response to transboundary threats about which there is scientific uncertainty, precautionary principle translates scientific uncertainty borne by exposed populations into policy uncertainty borne by state and nonstate actors, which then prompts these actors to take a much more coordinated approach to policymaking to manage their ecological and economic interdependence. Thus, institutionalization of precautionary norms and ideas means that segments of what would once have been considered domestic policymaking may, increasingly, be carried out at international level, which reinforces multilateral processes and underlines importance of convening, coordinating, and facilitating roles of international institutions such as United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The Precautionary Principle Response to, or Generator of, Uncertainty? The German Vorsorgeprinzip is typically credited as containing conceptual origins of precautionary principle. (2) By 1991, precautionary principle was heralded as the most important new policy approach in international environmental cooperation. (3) Enshrined in 1992 Rio Conference on Environment and Development, principle has also been incorporated into a number of international environmental instruments. …

A review of the national environmental legislation in each ASEAN member state illustrates that ASEAN displays both centrifugal and disparate tendencies in legal integration. ASEAN cooperation seeks harmonization and integration to facilitate steps toward region-wide environmental sustainability. However, individual states are driven by their historical and developmental legacies; priorities for ASEAN's sustainability are not always the same for national leaders. Most have not attained the recommended actions described in Agenda 21 to be considered sustainable societies, much less a model for sustainable development. Because of limitations in development state economies, problems with corruption and insufficient expertise, among other challenges, it may be unrealistic to assess legal integration in ASEAN solely from a classical model of international law. Conversely, if ASEAN member states chose to do so, the international environmental law agreements to which they are members provide them with many cooperative tools and legal frameworks for resolving environmental problems and attaining sustainable development. ASEAN could collaborate with its member states to avail themselves of such opportunities.

Transboundary environmental problems pose a specific challenge to the international legal system, as they often demand instruments providing for collective and far-reaching measures on a global scale. Such measures may interfere with other areas of international law, including trade law, human rights law and international humanitarian law (IHL), which may permit conflicting behaviour. The interference creates tensions between contradictory international legal obligations. Traditional legal tools have proven unable to respond satisfactorily to solve the tensions because they need a political solution going beyond law in many cases. In this chapter, I argue that the particular structure of environmental treaties, also referred to as multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), allows their treaty institutions to adopt a ‘reconciliatory approach’. The approach describes how normative and institutional interactions take place under MEAs for the purpose of avoiding conflicts and tensions with other international legal obligations but at the same time furthers the common concern to mitigate global environmental problems. Such an approach contributes to overcome fragmentation of international law. This is possible because of the MEAs’ capability to go beyond treaty interpretations and adopt more practical and political oriented strategies to further their objectives. In the application of the World Heritage Convention (WHC), activities interfering and reconciling with obligations in IHL and the UN Charter have been noted to protect natural world heritage sites in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). (Less)

Compliance mechanisms can be found in treaties regulating such diverse issues as human rights, disarmament law, and environmental law. In this article, the focus will be on compliance mechanisms of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). Compliance with norms of international environmental law, in particular those included in MEAs, has been of interest for many years, both from a theoretical and practical point of view. Compliance with MEAs is a matter that differs greatly from compliance with domestic environmental rules. In relation to compliance with the norms of environmental agreements, the focus of this article is on sovereign countries. There are a number of theories that attempt to address the complex issues involved in the legal basis of compliance as well as the best methods to ensure it, ranging from facilitative to compulsory techniques. The theory of compliance comprises the debate on the extent of functions of the organs established by MEAs (such as the compliance committees Conference of the Parties [COPs], Meeting of the Parties [MOPs], or both). There are already a great number of diverse compliance procedures attached to various MEAs, such as in the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer (see United Nations Environment Programme 2000, cited under Montreal Protocol) and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It should be kept in mind that MEAs and noncompliance procedures do not exist in a normative vacuum. Compliance theories are linked with general international law; for instance, in terms of the question of the use of countermeasures in compliance control and material breach of treaties. Even nonbinding norms may have a role in promoting compliance with obligations undertaken under MEAs. In practice, environmental compliance and the gradual evolution of compliance procedures in international environmental law is one of most vibrant and stimulating subject matters in international law and is still evolving.

In popular dialogues, describing a system as "complex" is often the point of resignation, inferring that the system cannot be sufficiently described, predicted nor managed. Transport networks, management infrastructure and supply chain logistics are all often described in this way. Academic dialogues have begun to explore the collective behaviors of complex systems to define a complex system specifically as an adaptive one; i.e. a system that demonstrates 'self organising' principles and 'emergent' properties. Based upon the key principles of interaction and emergence in relation to adaptive and self organising systems in cultural artifacts and processes, this paper will argue that complex systems are cultural systems. By introducing generic principles of complex systems, and looking at the exploration of such principles in art, design and media research, this paper argues that a science of cultural systems as part of complex systems theory is the post modern science for the digital age. Furthermore, that such a science was predicated by post structuralism and has been manifest in art, design and media practice since the late 1960s.

The inaugural meeting of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) held in June 2014 in Nairobi, was a culmination of more than four decades of environmental governance since the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was established in 1972 in Stockholm. The meeting addressed weighty and contentious issues including strengthening of UNEP’s role in promoting environmental governance and enhancing science- policy interface. Yet despite the historical significance of the meeting following universalization of the governing body of UNEP and current debates on the post-2015 development agenda, questions persist about the role of UNEP, its establishment, performance, and fragmentation of programmes and secretariats of the multilateral environmental agreements associated with it. This paper reviews the outcome of the inaugural UNEA session, while developing a political economy account of institutional arrangements of international environmental governance to clarify the potential for, and barriers to effective environmental reform. Multilaterally, international environmental governance continues to exhibit elements of complexity, fragmentation, lack of coordination as well as redundancy. In more critical terms, lack of policy integration between environmental regimes is a concern of environmental governance that the new UNEA should address as a matter of priority. Furthermore, incoherent policy objectives in international environmental law often characterised as a governance patchwork have been criticized for their economic orthodoxies that only serve to marginalize and delegitimize alternative modes of environmental governance. In this regard, a core part of UNEA’s institutional legitimacy depends on its success in coevolving to keep up with environmental challenges as they themselves change, as well as enhancing consensus-based stakeholder engagement, perspectives, and participation on environmental governance. This will be its true litmus test on how it responds coherently and effectively to international environmental governance in a post-2015 development world. Keywords : International environmental governance, institutional arrangements, UNEA, political economy, fragmentation, SDGs, post-2015 goals