Human rights and environment

The article describes new international approaches linking human rights instruments and environmental protection and their current application in the Czech Republic, which has been rather poor so far. The Czech Constitution guarantees the right of everyone to a favourable environment but this right remains rarely applied.

Citation:
MÜLLEROVÁ, H. Human rights approaches to environmental protection at the international level and their application in the Czech republic. Common Law Review, 2009, No. 11, p. 24-27. ISSN 1213-4678. Available from  <http://www.commonlawreview.cz/human-rights-approaches-to-environmental-protection-at-the-international-level-and-their-application-in-the-czech-r>.

Atendiendo a su Pilar II, los Principios Rectores de John Ruggie permiten evaluar los efectos adversos de las actividades de las corporaciones sobre el cuerpo de derechos humanos codificado a nivel internacional (determinados en el principio 12). Los dos requisitos básicos que deben cumplirse para ello son que en el impacto se pueda identificar la vulneración de alguno de estos derechos fundamentales y que se pueda establecer una relación causal con la conducta de la empresa (definida en referencia al proceso de debida diligencia). Teniendo estos parámetros en cuenta, hay situaciones de impacto corporativo sobre los derechos humanos cuyo diagnóstico es especialmente difícil. Un ejemplo son los casos donde la vulneración del ejercicio de los derechos es resultado de la degradación ambiental producida por la corporación, y en los que, entre otros obstáculos, la relación causal conducta-efecto es más compleja. A pesar de estas dificultades, los conflictos ambientales tienen hoy día una envergadura innegable e implican derechos básicos como la salud, la vida, la alimentación y otros tantos, según ha reconocido el propio Tribunal de Estrasburgo. Tomando como base el análisis de un caso paradigmático y aún no resuelto (el de la petrolera Shell en el Delta del Níger), la presente comunicación pretende exponer las posibilidades y dificultades a la hora de aplicar la responsabilidad de respetar a estas situaciones.

This edited collection brings together internationally renowned scholars to explore green criminology through the interdisciplinary lenses of power, justice and harm. The chapters provide innovative case study analyses from North America, Europe and Australia that seek to advance theoretical, policy and practice discourses about environmental harm. The book unifies transnational debates in environmental law, policy and justice, and in doing so examines international agreements and policy within diverse environmental discourses of sociology, criminology and political economy.

The present model of global development is unsustainable. The ecological crisis, of which climate change is just one aspect, is a daily reality for millions upon millions, in particular the most marginalized peoplethose who were not responsible for the crisis in the first place. Nonetheless, international action is lacking, and awareness of the scale of this crisis is yet to cause a transformation of development practice. Without a livable planet, further human development is impossible.

Even though the emergency of floriculture industry is a recent phenomenon, it has brought many blessing to Ethiopia. It is a source of export earnings; it is a means of employment for many, especially for women; it is a cause for the expansion of infrastructure and other advantages. But there are critiques in relation with social and environmental shortcoming of the sector. It is blamed that many workers who are employed in this sector are working in poor working conditions. Due to the intensive utilization of chemicals, pesticides, fungicides and fertilizers by this sector, workers exposed to occupational safety and health problems. This research examines safety and health condition of the floriculture workers in and around Batu/Ziway. Results of qualitative data gathered indicate that the safety and health of workers in the study area are at risk. This research indicate that the elements of safety and health, like the provision of personal protective equipment's, the availability of regular medical checkups by the employers to employees, the provision of training on occupational safety and health were not provided as required by law. There are also some weaknesses from the government on implementing those laws made to protect and promote safety and health of workers. There is a problem of budget, motivation, authority and lack of coordination or networking among the stakeholders. After identifying the existing problems on safety and health in the study area, this research has given a substantial recommendation to relieve existing problems.

From the Ogoni people devastated by oil drilling in Nigeria to the Inuit and other indigenous populations threatened by climate change, communities disparately burdened by environmental degradation are increasingly framing their demands for environmental justice in the language of environmental human rights. Domestic and international tribunals have concluded that failure to protect the environment violates a variety of human rights (including the rights to life, health, food, water, property, and privacy; the collective rights of indigenous peoples to their ancestral lands and resources; and the right to a healthy environment).

Some scholars have questioned the utility of the human rights framework given the diminished governance capacity of many Third World states due to decades of intervention by international financial institutions and restrictions imposed by trade and investment agreements. Others have expressed doubts about the ability of human rights law to adequately articulate and advance the aspirations and resistance strategies of diverse grassroots social justice movements, and have warned about the susceptibility of human rights law and discourse to cooptation by powerful states to advance their own economic and political interests (for example, through “humanitarian intervention” in Third World states).

This article examines the promise and the peril of environmental human rights as a means of challenging environmental injustice within nations as well as the North-South dimension of environmental injustice. Drawing a distinction between human rights discourse as a tool of popular mobilization and human rights law as codified in legal instruments and enforced by international institutions, the article examines some of the limitations of human rights law as an instrument of resistance to environmental injustice and offers several strategies to enhance its emancipatory potential.

This thesis researches if human rights law can be the foundation of a legal framework to stop climate change.

First, it is proved that climate change meets the definition of Hardin’s ‘tragedy of the commons’: a common resource is exploited without a regulatory framework that prevents overexploitation. The atmosphere is a common resource that suffers from overexploitation due to the emissions of greenhouse gases by human activities. This causes climate change. Only a regulatory framework that entails all the subjects that are responsible for this overexploitation can avoid a tragedy commons such as climate change. The attempts made in the past to create an effective global regulatory framework have failed.

There are clear linkages between climate change and human rights. Climate change interferes with the enjoyment of several human rights. Both civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights are under pressure due to climate change. For that reason, it is justified to research if international human rights law can be the foundation of a global regulatory framework to stop climate change. Human rights law could be a basis to force states and non-state actors to lower their greenhouse gas emissions and avoid the tragedy of the commons of climate change.

Environmental human rights jurisprudence has developed procedural and substantive standards and requires states to regulate private actors. This is derived from economic, social and cultural rights and from civil and political rights. However, this jurisprudence is in the context of environmental problems within one state. If these principles were to be applied to a global problem such as climate change, the duties arising out of human rights must be extended extraterritorially.

The duties arising from civil and political rights are not easily translated in extraterritorial obligations. However, the duties arising out of economic, social and cultural rights can be extended extraterritorially using the ‘duty to cooperate’. The duty to cooperate makes it possible to apply the standards developed in environmental human rights jurisprudence to the global problem of climate change. It requires states to work together to solve climate change. This can found the regulatory framework to avoid the tragedy of the commons of climate change in international human rights law. Using the duty to cooperate proves to be a legitimate option to come to a human rights based approach to climate change.

Edited by Marco Armiero, Federica Giardini, Dario Gentili, Daniela Angelucci, Ilaria Bussoni

The environmental crisis that has been declared for several decades strongly challenges the human and political sciences. Not only because they are called to measure themselves against economic and political issues and to rethink the sustainability of human forms of life and their impact on the planet, in relation to which the intense debate on the Anthropocene was an example. But above all because the complex of political thought has the opportunity to innovate the categories and tools through which it has focused on objects such as modernity, development, changes ... For some years, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world but not only, It is possible to identify a new area of ​​academic research, which arose between different political and social disciplines, which has strongly innovated the way of understanding the relationship between forms of human life as a whole and ecological issues. This has made it possible to overcome the barriers between life sciences and social sciences, introducing an observation point which, starting from the world of plants, from institutions among animals, from the crisis of the environments, has made it possible to innovate ecological thinking and relationships. among the living beings of this planet.

The first volume of this anthology dedicated to Environmental Humanities, or rather the human environmental sciences, collects and translates the most significant texts of these new ecologies, capable of re-establishing that political thought that from modernity onwards has delivered us to the current crisis and planetary emergency. The authors summoned here are among the major international exponents.

Texts by Frédérique Aït-Touati, Stefania Barca, Jane Bennett, Paola Berenstein Jacques, Hannes Bergthaller, Deborah Bird Rose, Rosi Braidotti, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Matthew Chrulew, Emanuele Coccia, Stuart Cooke, Rob Emmett, Malcom Ferdinand, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, Amitav Ghosh, Agnes Kneitz, Donna Haraway, Tim Ingold, Matthew Kearnes, Goda Klumbyte, Bruno Latour, Simon Lewis, Susanna Lidström, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Mark Maslin, Shane McCorristine, Achille Mbembe, Jason Moore, Emily O'Gorman, Isabel Pérez Ramos, Dana Phillips, Johns-Putra, Kate Rigby, Libby Robin, Thom van Dooren, Chad Weidner

Trans. by Elisa Bosisio

Ce travail se concentre sur la protection du droit de vivre dans un environnement sain dans le
cadre de la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme de 1948 sous contrôle du Conseil de l’Europe.

PS: L'auteur a changé son nom de famille comme "Bozdoğan", veuillez référez comme ça si vous souhaitez de l'utiliser dans votre travail.

"Environmental law finds itself in a very delicate position. Its role is to elaborate rules and principles for addressing multiple ecological crises, yet environmental law is structurally and conceptually rooted in a broader legal tradition thoroughly implicated in the domination and ‘othering’ of nature. The ecological worldview challenges the roots of modern law, casting critical light upon Cartesian dualism and the epistemology of mastery. While environmental law has incorporated some of the new knowledge offered by ecology into its normative texture, and has shifted its focus from fragmented parts and individuals (e.g. individual species) towards wholes, relationships and complexity (e.g. biodiversity, ecosystems processes), it remains far from being a comprehensive translation of the ecological worldview into law. Against this background, this article will discuss and compare two frameworks - Earth Jurisprudence and Law for Nature –
both of which aim to elaborate an ecological philosophy of law. It will be suggested that while their critical premises are similarly grounded on ecological critiques of central legal categories such as subject (persons), object (things) and property (ownership), their respective ethical stances
and central strategies are quite different: Earth Jurisprudence aims at articulating an ecocentric narrative in which nature is understood as a plurality of legal subjects endowed with rights; Law for nature starts from a concept of ecological normativity, which through a continuous transformative process re-orients law, and grounds the relationship between subject and object in the concept of patrimonium. The tensions between subjective rights and objective norms, between individual and community, and between practical action and long-lasting, radical reorientation, operate as guides for the discussion offered here."

İnsanoğlunun doğaya ve çevreye verdiği kirliliğin boyutu her geçen gün hızla artmaktadır. 20. ve 21. yüzyılda dünya nüfusunun hızla yükselmesi, çarpık kentleşme, teknoloji ve sanayinin hızla gelişmesi çevre sorunlarının da hızla artmasına neden olmuştur. Artan çevre kirliliğinin en önemli nedenlerinden bir tanesini kent öbeklerinde kontrolsüzce kullanılan enerji kaynakları oluşturmaktadır. Özellikle petrol ve kömür gibi fosil enerji kaynaklarının aşırı kullanımı, başta hava kirliliği olmak üzere birçok ciddi çevre sorununa neden olmaktadır. Çevre sorunları beraberinde çok sayıda toplumsal, ekonomik ve bireysel sorunları getirmektedir. Özellikle kontrol edilemeyen çevre kirliliği, başta yaşam hakkı olmak üzere insanın sahip olduğu temel hak ve hürriyetleri tehdit ettiği görülmektedir. Bu yönüyle çevre sorunları salt çevre kirliliği değil aynı zamanda anayasalar ve uluslararası antlaşmalar tarafından koruma altına alınmış olan temek insan haklarını tehdit eden tehlikeli bir boyut kazanmıştır. Bu çalışmanın temel amacı çevre sorunlarını insan hakları perspektiften ele alınarak temel hak ve hürriyetleriyle olan ilişkisi irdelenecektir. Çevreye verilen zararların birer insanlık suçu olup olmadığı sorunsalı tartışılacaktır.

This text is a chapter in The Human Right to A Healthy Environment (John H. Knox & Ramin Pejan, eds.) (forthcoming; Cambridge University Press).

This chapter aims to analytically and empirically unpack the question of whether there should be a human right to a healthy environment. The author draws on moral and legal theory in order to examine the premises of the question, reframe it, and offer an answer to it. Building on socio-legal studies of rights, the text explores the potential benefits and costs of using “rights talk” in environmental debates in general, and of adopting the right to a healthy environment in an international legal instrument in particular. The chapter is divided into three sections, each related to one of the main three arguments, followed by a conclusion. In the first section, the text discusses Amartya Sen’s objection to “legally parasitic” theories of rights in order to substantiate the author’s claim that, understood as a moral right, a RHE already exists. In the second section, the chapter reviews the legal evidence and arguments in favor of the existence of such a right in customary international law. In the third section, the text examines the trade-offs involved in the potential recognition of the RHE in an international legal instrument, whether a global treaty or an instrument of soft law.

States are under positive obligations to secure the social conditions necessary to protect people’s health and secure their human rights. This book shows that the protection of health can derive from the European Con-vention on Human Rights and from a non-egalitarian liberal theory.

Článek zkoumá současný status a budoucí perspektivy práva na životní prostředí jako jednoho ze základních lidských práv. Rozšíření katalogu lidských práv o toto právo se jeví jako nový nadějný prostředek právní ochrany životního prostředí. Autorka se blíže zabývá specifiky životního prostředí jakožto hodnoty velmi odlišné od hodnot tradičně chráněných pomocí lidských práv; tato specifika ztěžují formulování i případné mechanismy ochrany takového práva.

Citace:
MÜLLEROVÁ, H. Lidské právo na životní prostředí – kritický pohled. Právník. 2012, č. 3, str. 225-254. ISSN 0231 6625.

The article analyses the current status and future perspectives of the human right to environment. Extending the human rights catalogue with this new right seems to enrich the legal instruments of the environmental protection by a new promising one. However, the author proves that the environment is characterized by several particularities, differing it from any other values protected by the means of human rights, that make the formulation and recognition of the right uneasy.

Los desafíos que las amenazas medioambientales presentan en nuestra sociedad han propiciado, desde hace algunas décadas, un interés creciente de los juristas. En los últimos años, la discusión ha traspasado las fronteras del Derecho administrativo para adentrarse en el ámbito constitucional. La jurisprudencia del Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos no ha hecho sino acentuar este ascenso de lo medioambiental al plano de los derechos. El presente estudio es un análisis de las posibilidades y los límites de la conexión entre la protección del medio ambiente y los derechos fundamentales. El autor estudia todas las dimensiones constitucionales del medio ambiente e indica las dificultades que plantea considerarlo como un derecho subjetivo. Asimismo, examina los principales interrogantes que se suscitan al conferir a los derechos tradicionalmente protegidos un contenido ecológico. Por una parte, dado que las agresiones ambientales suelen provenir normalmente de sujetos privados, surge la necesidad de estudiar a fondo la dimensión de los derechos fundamentales como obligaciones estatales de protección. Por otra, la amplitud de los bienes jurídicos protegidos —en especial, el reconocimiento de un derecho a la «calidad de vida ambiental» como parte del derecho a la intimidad— produce en sí misma un amplio abanico de problemas dogmáticos e interpretativos. El autor examina críticamente estos problemas trata de precisar los términos en que debe situarse la vinculación entre medio ambiente y derechos fundamentales.

Addressing collisions between environmental protection and competing economic and social interests often constitutes the very core of environmental cases. At the constitutional level, a balancing approach based on the doctrine of proportionality is frequently employed to resolve contradictions between conflicting values. In this article, I demonstrate how the proportionality doctrine in its traditional meaning can be applied to balancing interests in environmental cases. Then I bring to the forefront two innovative ways of engaging proportionality in the environmental protection; one employing proportionality as an interpretative instrument with the power to help determining the scope and content of the right to environment; and the other adjusting proportionality to the form of eco-proportionality, offering a restructured framework to rule the human-nature relationship.

This paper draws on the work of Michel Foucault in order to analyze the constellation of political strategies and power at the US/Mexico border wall. These strategies, however, are incredibly diverse and often directly antagonistic of one another. Thus, this paper argues that in order to make sense of the seemingly multiple and contradictory political strategies deployed in the operation of the US/Mexico border wall, we have to understand the coexistence and intertwinement of at least three distinct types of power at work there: the sovereign exclusion of illegal life, the disciplinary detention of surveilled life, and the biopolitical circulation of migratory life. By doing so this paper offers an original contribution to two major areas of study: in Foucault studies this paper expands the existing literature on Foucault by analyzing the crossroads of power particular to the US/Mexico border wall, which has not yet been done, and in border studies this Foucauldian approach offers a unique political analysis that goes beyond the critique of sovereignty and toward an analysis of coexisting strategies of power.

Specijalistički rad |Pravo na zdravu životnu sredinu 2 SADRŽAJ Sadržaj 2 Uvod 4 Opšte definisanje -pravo na zdravu životnu sredinu 6 Klasifikacija i kvalifikacija prava na zdravu životnu sredinu u korpusu ljudskih prava 9 Međunarodna institucionalizacija prava na zdravu životnu sredinu 12 Kako se u Srbiji zakonski reguliše pravo na zdravu životnu sredinu? 17 Razvoj prava na zdravu životnu sredinu kroz međunarodne procese u oblasti ekologije i održivog razvoja 21 Nezavisnost, implementacija i mehanizmi jačanja prava na zdravu životnu sredinu 31 Integrisanje prava na zdravu životnu sredinu kroz savremene razvojne tendencije 34 Ostvarivanje prava na zdravu životnu sredinu u praksi -uloga osnovnih ljudskih prava 39 Specijalistički rad |Pravo na zdravu životnu sredinu 3 Praksa evropskog suda za ljudska prava: Lopez Ostra v. Spain 42 Guerra and Others v. Italy 43 Hatton and others v. United Kingdom 43 LCB v. United Kingdom 44 Pravo na zdravu životnu sredinu -od moralne do političke argumentacije 46 Objekat i subjekti prava na zdravu životnu sredinu 48

The environmental costs of economic development have received increasing attention during the recent years. According to the World Energy Outlook 2009 today´s energy policies have a severe impact on climate change, since energy accounts for 75% of the greenhouse-gas emissions.
In this context, the European Union is working for a global agreement to control climate change though the implementation of energy efficiency measures and emissions reduction. Therefore, this paper attempts to explain the impact of economic growth in the evolution of CO2 emissions within the European Union. With this aim we estimate the so called Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) using panel data models.
Since energy is at the heart of the environmental problem it should also form the core of the solution. Therefore we also propose some extensions by including renewable energy sources as explanatory variables in our model.
Our data sets are referred to the 27 countries of the European Union during the period 1950-2007. With this information, our empirical results show some interesting evidence about the significance of the European Environmental Kuznets Curve and the impact of renewable energies in CO2 emissions.

Norwegian Abstract: Klimaendringer utgjør en alvorlig trussel mot menneskerettighetene. Likevel er menneskerettighetene marginale i klimapolitikk og debatten rundt overganger til "grønne økonomier". Samtidig er mothegemoniske tilnærminger til "grønn økonomi" også marginale. Denne artikkelen utforsker rollen menneskerettighetene kan spille i overgangen til grønne økonomier, og forsøker å forene menneskerettighetene med relevante mothegemoniske ideer i diskursen rundt overganger til grønn økonomi, spesielt "rettferdig omstilling", et krav fra den internasjonale fagbevegelsen. Ved bruk av en tverrfaglig tilnærming og kritisk teori (spesielt skillet mellom "problemløsningsteori" og kritisk teori) undersøker jeg spenningene i konseptet rettferdig omstilling, en omtvistet normativ markør som kan tolkes i tråd med både problemløsningsteori og kritisk teori. På samme vis begrenser juridiske, problemløsningstilnærminger menneskerettighetenes rolle i diskurser rundt klima og grønn økonomi. Mer kritiske, strukturelle tilnærminger – inkludert solidariske rettigheter og kosmopolitiske teorier, og menneskerettighetsbaserte tilnærminger til utvikling – kan spille en betydelig rolle i å utvide kritiske versjoner av rettferdig omstilling. Sammen kan en menneskerettighetsbasert tilnærming til rettferdig omstilling beskytte mot formalismen disse konseptene kan henfalle til, og tilby et analytisk rammeverk og grunnlag for handling til sosiale bevegelse, og krav for en rettferdig og effektiv overgang til bærekraftige samfunn.

English Abstract: Climate change presents a serious challenge to human rights. Nevertheless, human rights remain marginal in climate policy and debates around transitions to 'green economies.' Simultaneously, counter-hegemonic 'green economy' approaches are themselves marginal. This article explores what role human rights can play in transitions to green economies, seeking reconciliation of human rights with relevant counter-hegemonic strands of the transition discourse, especially 'Just Transition,' a demand from the international labour movement. Using a transdisciplinary approach and the insights of critical theory (particularly the difference between 'problem-solving' and 'critical' theories), I examine tensions in the concept of a Just Transition, a contested normative marker open to problem-solving and critical interpretations. Likewise, a problem-solving, legalistic approach restricts human rights’ role in climate and transition discourses. More critical, structural approaches – including solidarity rights and cosmopolitanist theories, and human rights-based approaches to development (HRBAs) – can play a significant role in broadening critical versions of Just Transition. Together, a human rights-based approach to Just Transition protects against the formalism both concepts can fall into, offering an analytical framework and basis for action for social movements to demand a just and effective transition to sustainable societies.

This article includes a comprehensive analysis of work currently being carried out by regional and international human rights supervisory bodies in the field of disaster management, being cognizant of the fact that the past decade has seen an increased international concern for the adequate protection of persons affected by disasters. Taking on board suggestions by Walter Kälin that effective disaster management encompasses three distinct phases, i.e. preparedness, response and recovery, jointly constituting a full ‘cycle of protection’, this paper analyzes the pronouncements of bodies specifically against this backdrop. The article argues that human rights bodies have already started to engage in clarifying human rights obligations in all these phases, which is important because our improved understanding of the (man-made) causes and consequences of disasters, and any pre-existing vulnerabilities that exacerbate impacts, might require a more holistic approach to managing disaster settings generally, including from a perspective of human rights.

En los últimos cincuenta años, la preocupación por el medio ambiente ha sido creciente, como consecuencia de un desarrollismo acelerado que, iniciado sobre todo tras la Segunda Guerra Mundial, plantea serias amenazas para el planeta. Los efectos de la energía nuclear, la ingeniería genética o el cambio climático ponen de manifiesto que la capacidad humana de afectar a la naturaleza en su conjunto ha alcanzado cotas sin precedentes. Al mismo tiempo, el impacto de la acción humana sobre el ecosistema da lugar a injerencias en la vida cotidiana de las personas que, en algunas zonas, se tornan particularmente graves. La contaminación acústica y lumínica, el deterioro del paisaje o las radiaciones electromagnéticas son objeto de preocupación para los ciudadanos, que ven perturbado su modo de vivir y exigen respuestas del Derecho. En este trabajo, se exponen los derechos y deberes ambientales básicos en el ordenamiento constitucional.

This essay explores and evaluates the applicability of international conventions as promulgated by UNESCO and the UN General Assembly to the loss of African heritage. Using the extant literature up to the mid-1990s, this is the first comprehensive view of how international accords, including the decisions of the UN Commission in Social, Economic, and  Cultural Rights apply to the active loss of heritage sites.. The essay examines states' active erasures of heritage sites, the absence of protective measures against looting and development, and the failure of institutions to conserve heritage for the well-being of African populations.

In Košičiarová, S. (Ed.). Právo na životné prostredie a nástroje jeho presadzovania. Zborník príspevkov z medzinárodnej vedeckej konferenice. Trnava: Trnavská univerzita v Trnave, Právnická fakulta, 2016, s. 164-175. ISBN 978-80-8082-989-6.

Příspěvek se nejprve zamýšlí nad povahou a úlohou právních principů v právu životního prostředí a při interpretaci lidského práva na životní prostředí a poté představuje dva nové či rodící se principy práva životního prostředí, které mají potenciál pozitivně spolupůsobit při výkladu lidského práva na příznivé životní prostředí tak, aby za prvé posuzování "příznivosti" mohlo být pojato šířeji - i mimo dosah environmentálních standardů, a za druhé aby právo na příznivé životní prostředí bylo využitelné i pro ochranu těch hodnot životního prostředí, které nemají bezprostřední vazbu na život člověka, tj. aby se mohlo oprostit od úzce antropocentrického pojetí. Jde o princip zákazu regrese a princip uznání vnitřní hodnoty biodiverzity.

TO DOWNLOAD THE FULL FILE OF THE ARTICLE: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2802157

China is appraised to have the world's largest exploitable reserves of shale gas, although several legal, regulatory, environmental and investment-related issues will likely restrain its scope. China's capacity to successfully face these hurdles and produce commercial shale gas will have a crucial impact on the regional gas market and on China’s energy mix, as Beijing strives to decrease reliance on imported oil and coal, while attempting to meet growing energy demand and maintain a certain level of resource autonomy. The development of the unconventional natural gas extractive industry will also endow China with further negotiating power to obtain more advantageous prices from Russia and future liquefied natural gas (LNG) suppliers. This paper, adopting a comparative perspective, underlines the trends learned from unconventional fuel development in the United States, emphasizing their potential application to the Chinese context in light of recently signed production-sharing contracts between qualified foreign investors and China. The wide range of regulatory and enforcement problems in this matter are accrued by an extremely limited  liberalization of gas prices, lack of technological development, and political hurdles curbing the opening of resource extraction to private investors. These issues are exacerbated by concerns related to the risk of water pollution deriving from mismanaged drilling and fracturing, absence of adequate regulation framework and industry standards, entailing consequences on social stability and environmental degradation.

TO DOWNLOAD THE FULL FILE OF THE ARTICLE: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2802157

The social pillar?and thus social equity and social development?is critical to understanding what green growth (or making the economic patterns of development more sustainable) needs to do (that has not been done before), who it needs to serve (who has been left out) and why we have failed to do this before (structural realities). The emerging focus on the socio-environmental policy space in the context of Rio +20 is timely considering the staggering evidence available about the interconnectedness of environmental vulnerabilities and resource inequality in hampering and undermining social development. Resource inequity abounds in numerous areas: sanitation, access to water, and energy, to name a few. Leading voices, particularly President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, lend necessary visibility and validity to the importance of debate and discussion on this theme. While Rio 1992 signalled significant advances within global policy frameworks, the promise has been largely unfulfilled. (?)

MÜLLEROVÁ, H. Právo na příznivé životní prostředí: Zkušenosti vybraných evropských zemí a návrhy pro budoucí uplatňování v ČR. Praha: Ústav státu a práva AV ČR, 2018, 236 s. ISBN 978-80-87439-34-0, 978-80-87439-35-7 (e-kniha). Dostupné z https://www.ilaw.cas.cz/env. 

[Right to Environment: Experience of the Selected European Countries and Suggestions for its Future Application in the Czech Republic]

Kniha v první části představuje výsledky hlubší analýzy ústavního zakotvení, výkladu a dosavadní aplikační praxe práva na životní prostředí ve Francii, Belgii, Finsku, Španělsku a Portugalsku. U každé z porovnávaných zemí si všímá způsobu ústavní formulace práva a jeho pozice v ústavním řádu dané země, otázky povahy  práva a jeho přímé či nepřímé dovolatelnosti včetně případného vývoje výkladu těchto otázek před soudy, a dává příklady konkrétních kauz řešených na základě práva na životní prostředí, pokud jsou k dispozici.
V druhé části kniha shrnuje současný spíše neutěšený stav uplatňování práva na příznivé životní prostředí založeného článkem 35 české Listiny základních práv a svobod a staví možný model jeho budoucího prosazování. Východiskem pro tento budoucí model je autorce fakt umístění práva na příznivé životní prostředí v českém ústavním systému mezi základní práva hospodářská, sociální a kulturní. Proto analyzuje interpretační přístupy vyvinuté pro tuto skupinu práv Ústavním soudem ČR, zkoumá jejich aplikovatelnost na oblast životního prostředí, která je v mnohém specifická,  a dospívá k návrhu půdorysu pro výklad práva na příznivé životní prostředí, tvořenému vymezením jeho esenciálního jádra, typologií zásahů do něj a aplikací modifikovaného testu racionality při jeho přezkumu.

In its first part, the book "Right to Environment: Experience of the Selected European Countries and Suggestions for its Future Application in the Czech Republic" presents to the Czech readers the results of a deeper analysis of the constitutional provisions, interpretation and application of the right to environment in France, Belgium, Finland, Spain and Portugal. Regarding each country, the author deals with the formulation of the right in the relevant constitutional text, its position within the human rights catalogue, its character and applicability, including the development of the interpretation of these issues in courts. Moreover, she gives examples of the case law if there are any.
In the second part, the book summarizes the current state of affairs in the interpretation and application of the right to environment in the Czech Republic, which is rather dismal despite its quarter-century recognition in the Czech Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. Then the author proposes her model of the future enforcement of the right, based on the adaptation of the pattern that the Czech Constitutional Court has already developed for the economic, social and cultural rights, to the specific character of the values protected through the constitutional right to environment. She builds her scheme of the application of the right to environment on the following elements: determining the essential core of the right to environment; differentiating the way of the right’s review according to the types of the infringements to the right; and the modification of the rationality test when compared to its application in the economic, social and cultural rights.

In this Blog post at The Wrench I argue that it is more vital than ever that we refuse to allow the Trump regime to define what counts as protest. Already confined to "free speech zones," the criminalizing of free expression as a form of violence is a very real and present danger to the democracy. We must also embrace nonviolent civil disobedience as essential to the resistance--now more than ever.

States and corporations are being forced out of their comfort zones. A consensus is building among international human rights courts and committees that states can and will be held accountable for overseas human rights abuses by corporations domiciled in their respective territories. The authors suggest that this development is rooted in a transition from a territory-based to a subject-based approach to human rights obligations that de-centres international human rights law from state territory. In this article, they construct a conceptual framework for understanding how and why this is happening and articulate what are and will be the consequences for the theory and practice of international human rights law.

Topics: Urgenda in Comparative Perspective. Role of Human Rights in Climate Litigation? Enforcement of Climate and Environmental Law? Role of Courts?

Speakers:
Prof. Marcel Brus (RuG, Chair)
Prof. Roel Schutgens (Nijmegen)
Prof. Gerrit van der Veen (RuG)
Elbert de Jong, post-doc (UU)
dr. Jerfi Uzman (LeidenUniv)
dr. Kai Purnhagen (Wageningen)
dr. Edwin Woerdman (RuG, tbc)
Ellen Gijselaar, Phd researcher (UU)
Ted Thurlings, Phd researcher (Nijmegen)
Suryapratim Roy, Phd researcher (RuG/GCEL)
Saskia Fikkers, Phd researcher (RuG)
Marlies Hesselman, Phd researcher (RuG)

For questions and registration of participation, please contact the organizers:
Marlies Hesselman: [email protected]
Saskia Fikkers: [email protected]
Suryapratim Roy: [email protected]

With support from Department of International Law, University College Groningen, Energy & Sustainability Programme, and the Green Office.

TO DOWNLOAD THE FULL PAPER : http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2472339


The increasing sensibility regarding cultural heritage provides momentum to better define a legal framework for the protection of these peculiar intangible goods. It is indeed fundamental to ascertain whether the current intellectual property rights (IPRs) regime represents an adequate model of protection vis-à-vis intangible cultural heritage. A plethora of caveats must be taken into consideration, starting from the desirability of the commodification of intangible cultural heritage, i.e. its exploitation in commercialization through the IPRs regime, but also the outlining of the legal instruments needed for guaranteeing adequate advantages for the countries and communities representing the sources of origin of the intangible goods. 

Our analysis begins framing the crucial issues detected in literature regarding intangible cultural heritage and then proceeds to investigate the ways in which the actual IPRs regime grants protection to intangible goods. Our evaluation supports the idea that without a many-faceted remodeling, current intellectual property laws represent an unsatisfactory footing to protect intangible cultural heritage, as one can infer from the inefficacy of IPRs under the patent and copyright regimes to ensure protection of cultural heritage, besides falling short of fostering an appropriate comprehensive social policy.


TO DOWNLOAD THE FULL PAPER : http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2472339