Introduction Notes

International Environmental Law: 3rd March 2011: History, Developments, Cases and some important soft law: Text book: Burney and Boyle - don't use the first edition, but the 3rd and 2nd editions are both good. 3rd edition has Regwell. Organised thematically. Bodanski - designed to be picked up and read. Very readable, but doesn't have anything close to the information that Burney/Boyle have in their book. Bore, Ramsey and Rothwell has the advantage that it is in Asia-Pacific - perhaps focuses on environmental law that is relevant to our part of the world. 1999 - so not particularly up to date. Research handbook on international environmental law - straightforward and quite well organised. Fitzmorris and Merquois..? Kiss and Shelton - condensed version of their works. They are two foundation stones of international environmental law. Bodanski's Brief History: Bodanski has an overview of international environmental law - development of it. Divided into three phases. Examples in italics on the slides are the ones that we will look at. Nicola also wants to look at his idea of a transition from coexistence to cooperation between states. Will also look at sovereignty and equality between states. Three phases are cumulative. 1. Conservationist. Wildlife protection. This is the first kind of environmental law that developed. Cites the early conventions on birds - migratory birds. While Bodanski describes them as being wildlife protection treaties, most of the birds protected were protected for gaming reasons. He also refers to the North Pacific Fur Seals convention - came after Behring Sea Fur Seals Arbitration. Canadian vessels going fur sealing in international waters and taking species that the US was trying to protect. Not resolved through the arbitration, but subsequent to the arbitration they concluded bilateral convention to protect the seals. Bodanski also cites the Whaling Convention 1946, but this isn't really about protecting whales at all. The convention has come to be used by some states in this way, but it isn't really about that. Perhaps ambitious to include this in his classification. Some later conventions also fall into this phase of wildlife protection - Ramsar Convention, CITES 1973, Bonn CMS 1979 (Convention on Migratory Species) and ACAP (Agreement on the Conservation of Albatros and Petrels), quite an important agreement for NZ. Convention that was made under the Convention of Migratory Species. (Bonn CMS). The earliest organisations that were attached to environmental law were about wildlife protection e.g. IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature).

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