ABSTRACT
Since the mid-1960s the obvious need to protect the deteriorating environment has led to environmental legislation in most countries of the world, to varying degrees and effect.1 On the international level the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in 19722 became the starting point for the development of international environmental law as a separate and the youngest field of international law. Since the Stockholm Conference there has been a remarkable proliferation not only of universal policy statements, such as the World Charter for Nature, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1982,3 but also of inter national legal instruments in a broad variety of environmental areas.
