ABSTRACT
The preceding chapters of this book undertook an analysis and critique of a number of existing and evolving concepts of international environmental law: state responsibility for environmental harm; international liability for acts not prohibited by international law; human rights; and the common heritage of mankind. This analysis demonstrated that, to a large extent, current international environmental law is constrained by a paradigm which premises environmental protection and management on the advancement and defence of human interests and well-being. In traditional international legal terms, the mechanism used to further human interests has been the independent sovereign state. Surrounding sovereign states is a body of international law designed to protect sovereign rights to natural resources and to the use of territory, together with a system of reciprocal rights and obligations to govern relations between states. A characterising feature of this paradigm is the need for individual state consent, without which the acts of states cannot, according to strict positivist legal theory, be controlled. Reciprocity meant that obligations were largely balanced by, and undertaken on the basis of, corresponding advantages.
