ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the main work of the International Law Association (ILA) Committee on International Law on Sustainable Development, the 2012 Sofia Guiding Statements on the Judicial Elaboration of the 2002 New Delhi Declaration of Principles of International Law Relating to Sustainable Development. Drawing on several ILA Reports, it examines the groundbreaking judicial statements of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the application and interpretation of the principles of sustainable development from 1992 to 2012. The Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) principle is invoked when all countries face a common problem or a challenge to a shared environmental resource but when they have differential contributions to the problem and when they have differential capacities to deal with the problem. At its core, the precautionary approach permits – or even requires – action to prevent harm to the environment in the absence of full scientific evidence about the nature, likelihood and/or extent of harm.
