Environmental Concerns and Globalisation

Environmental Concerns and Globalisation

Protection of Global Environment

The protection of environment as a global requirement is a post-industrialization revelation. Major concerns like deforestation, industrial pollution, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, depletion of ozone layer, global warming and the consequent rise sea levels etc. have been acknowledged to be matters that require immediate and serious interventions given the adverse impacts they cause. In 1982, the UN General Assembly, through its “World Charter for Nature”, underscored that the entire humanity is a part of nature, and life depends on nature. The idea of sustainable development that propels the contemporary debate of environmentalism focusses immensely on conservation of biodiversity in terms of prevention of environmental pollution, protection of wetlands, and promotion of ecological balance. Globally, the UN continues to be the lynchpin in global environmental governance, through its organs and various specialized agencies.

Top Ten Global Carbon Emitters

1. China

2. Th e US

3. Th e EU

4. India

5. Russia

6. Japan

7. Germany

8. Iran

9. Saudi Arabia

10. South Korea

Genesis of Institutional Protection of Environment

The topics of securitization and protection of environment is a natural offshoot of the complex relations that exist between the human life and ecology. Nature in its capacity as a life-supporting system has various implications across different spectra including ecology, peace, conflict, human rights and security. Given the irreplaceable role played by nature in the sustenance of life, an institutional approach vis-à-vis environment was found necessary. Hence, environmental law emerged as the sole option which could transact proper business in the realm of ecological equilibrium. Although the institutional manifestations and legal frameworks as an expression of international interests in the protection of environment is a 20th century product, the very germination of the seeds of environmental thought from an institutional perspective dates back to 1872 since the formation of a non-governmental congress of private citizens for the protection of nature. It later led to the establishment of a consultative commission at Berne to deal with international protection of nature. However, the First World War made the commission’s activities futile. But, after the World War II, the commission was rechristened as the first intergovernmental body, with legal recognition, for environmental protection.

The Brunnen Conference for Protection of Nature in 1947, sponsored by the Swiss League, adopted a draft constitution for the International Union for the Protection of Nature. There has been further institutional evolution on environmental matters. As far as the UN is concerned, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) is the only organ which directly works on environmental policies. Besides, around eight of the specialized bodies within the UN ambit also directly engage with environmental concerns. With the constitution of UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 1945, the post-war phase gained a boost on building consensus on environmental issues. The second overture in this track with the establishment of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 1948 which lifted the global environmental narrative to a higher trajectory.

Since then, efforts were accelerated on lines of crafting a set of international laws regarding environmental protection. Environmental law, in its policy dimension, is a collection of agreements, treaties, conventions, declarations, principles, opinions of jurists, practices and pertaining to mutual rights and obligations among states. The success of environmental law as method relies upon the cooperation and coordination among states by means of international responsibility on ecological considerations at any policy arena given.