ABSTRACT
Environmental and ecological discourse, with a specific international law and governance discursivity and normativity of its own, has emerged. This chapter discusses the decoding of creative destruction in the concept of sustainable development (SD) in the last three decades. This idea has provided an important theoretical basis for reforms and developments in key international legal instruments such as the Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources, PSNR Declaration, and the precautionary principle (PP). The discourse on SD has further integrated the earlier PSNR contexts, yet it curiously also reiterates its norms and principles, particularly the 'development' and the 'well-beings' of the peoples. Considered as a cornerstone of environmental protection and SD, the PP was enshrined under Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration. Sovereignty is Janus-faced: it looks both as a community of peoples and as a community of states.
