Normative Aspects of Sustainability : Fundamental principles of law for the anthropocene?

Environmental Policy and Law

Volumn 44, Issue 1-2, 2014, Pages 13-27

  Robinson, Nicholas A ^a  

^a PACE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION; SUSTAINABILITY; SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT;

EID: 84902950903     PISSN: 0378777X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (73)

1. Gillis, J. 2013. "Heat-Trapping Gas Passes Milestone, Raising Fears". N.Y. Times, at 1, 11 May 2013.
2. See www.quaternary.stratigraphy.org.uk; and the essay by Steffen, W., Crutzen, P.J. and McNeill, J.R. 2007. "The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature?" Ambio 36(8): 614-621.
3. See the 5th Assessment Report, Terms of Reference, at www.ipcc.ch.
4. Clark, P. 2013. "Global Literary Circles Warming to Climate Disaster Fiction". Financial Times, at 4, 1-2 June 2013.The Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment in the UK notes more than 150 works published in the past eight years, notwithstanding the push-back from "climate sceptics".
5. Kuhn, T.S. 1996. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 3rd edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
6. The World Commission on Environment and Development. 1987. "Our Common Future". Oxford: Oxford University Press.
7. Holdren, J.P. 2008. Meeting the Climate-Change Challenge. Washington DC: National Council for Science and the Environment, at http://ncseonline.org/ sites/default/files/Chafee08final.pdf.
8. Robinson, N.A. 2012. "Beyond Sustainability: Environmental Management for the Anthropocene Epoch". Journal of Public Affairs 12(3): 181-194.
9. See Robinson, N.A. (Ed.) 1992. Agenda 21: Earth's Action Plan. New York: Oceana Publications; and the six volumes of the traveaux préparatoires of the UN Conference on Environment &Development (UNCED), Robinson, N.A. et al. 1993
10. Swaminathan, M.S. 2012. In Search of Biohappiness - Biodiversity &Food, Health &Livelihood Security. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing.
11. Rules of Procedure for Environmental Cases, AM No. 09-6-8-SC (effective 29 April 2010), at www.lawphil.net/courts/supreme/am/am-09-6-8-sc-2010.html.
12. See http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/env/pp/documents/cep43e.pdf.
13. See symposium on "Environmental Courts and Tribunals: Improving Access to Justice and Protection of the Environment Around the World". Pace Environmental Law Review 29(2), at http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/pelr/vol29/ iss2/
14. see also a prior symposium on judicial practice published in the Journal of Court Innovation 3(1).
15. Ura, K., Alkire, S., Zangmo, T. and Wangdi, K. 2012. A Short Guide to Gross National Happiness Index, at 4. Thimpu: The Centre for Bhutan Studies, at www. grossnationalhappiness.com.
16. Preliminary Report. UN Doc. A/HRC/22/43 (24 December 2012).
17. UN Doc. A/67/697 (16 January 2013).
18. A sociobiological and cultural evolutionary basis for such evolved norms is set forth in Robinson, N.A. 2013. "Evolved Norms: A Canon for the Anthropocene". In: Voigt, C. (Ed.) Rule of Law for Nature: New Dimensions and Ideas in Environmental Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. This essay also examines the principles of cooperation, biophilia and resilience.
19. Laland, K.N. and Brown, G.R. 2011. Sense &Nonsense: evolutionary perspectives on human behaviour. 2nd edition, at 218. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
20. UN General Assembly Resolution 37/7 (1982), at http://www.un.org/ documents/ga/res/37/a37r007.htm. The UN World Charter for Nature acknowledges that "the human species is part of nature and life depends on the uninterrupted functioning of the natural systems".
21. http://earthcharterinaction.org/content/.
22. Hand, J.P. and Smith, J.C. 1988. Neighboring Property Owners. New York: Shepard's/McGraw Hill; annual updates published by Thomson West.
23. Robinson, N.A. 2001. "Forest Fires as a Common International Concern: Precedents for the Progressive Development of International Environmental Law". Pace Environmental Law Review 18(2): 459-504.
24. Bowles, S. and Gintis, H. 2011. A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
25. Coen, E. 2012. Cells to Civilizations - The Principles of Change that Shape Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
26. Pagel, M. 2011. Wired for Culture: The Natural History of Human Cooperation. London: Allen Lane.
27. Ridley, M. 1996. The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Penguin.
28. Darwin, C. 1859. The Origin of Species, at 106. London: John Murray.
29. See the "Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, including Aichi Biodiversity Targets". Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity, at http://www.cbd.int/sp/default.shtml
30. See the Copenhagen Accord, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Decision 2/CP.15 (18 December 2009), at https://unfccc.int/meetings/ copenhagen-dec-2009/items/5262.php.
31. Ostrom, E. 1999. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
32. Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, 1992, later codified in the Aarhus Convention, supra, note 16.
33. Wilson, E.O. 1984. Biophilia: The Human Bond with Other Species. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
34. Burghardt, G. 2005. The Genesis of Animal Play: Testing the Limits. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
35. See Lausche, B.J. 2011. Guidelines for Protected Area Legislation. EPLP No. 81. Gland: IUCN.
36. Kellert, S.R. 2012. Birthright: People and Nature in the Modern World, at 195. New Haven CT: Yale University Press.
37. See the several cases brought by M.C. Mehta in the Supreme Court of India. 48 Oposa v. Factoran.
38. Holdgate, M 1999. The Green Web: A Union for World Conservation. London: Earthscan. IUCN was founded in 1948.
39. Lausche, B.J. 2008. Weaving a Web of Environmental Law. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag.
40. Heatherton, T. 2012. "From Ecocide to Genetic Rescue: Can Technoscience Save the Wild?", at 50-3. In: Sodikoff, G.M. The Anthropology of Extinction: Essays on Culture and Species Death. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.
41. Berry, T. 1999. The Great Work: Our way into the future. New York: Bell Tower.
42. See the studies of the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale, "World Religions and Ecology Series", published by the Harvard Divinity School Center for the Study of World Religions, studies on Indigenous Religions (J. Grimm), Hinduism (C.K. Chapple and M.E. Tucker), Jainism (C.K. Chapple), Buddhism (M.E. Tucker and D.R. Williams), Confucianism (M.E. Tucker and J. Berthrong), Daoism (N.J. Girardot, J. Miller and Liu Xiaogan), Judaism (H. Tirosh-Samuelson), Christianity (D.T. Hessel and R.R. Ruether) and Islam (R.C. Foltz, F.M. Denny and A. Baharuddin). See http://fore.research.yale.edu/ publications/books/book-series/ cswr/index/html.
43. Bellah, R.N. 2011. Religion in Human Evolution. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. He also references Gordon Burghardt's insightful studies on the human capacity for play.
44. McHarg, I. 1969. Design With Nature. Garden City NY: Natural History Press.
45. Kellert, S.R., Heerwagen, J.H.and Mador, M.L. 2008. Biophilic Design: The Theory, Science and Practice of Bringing Buildings to Life. Hoboken NJ: John Wiley.
46. See the 12 Manhattan Principles of the Wildlife Conservation Society's "One World, One Health" programme, at www.OneWorldOneHealth.org; and also http://www.wcs.org/conservation-challenges/wildlife-health.aspx.
47. See the many papers and lectures from different disciplines, available through the Resilience Center at the University of Stockholm, Sweden. See, e.g., B. Nykvist, "Social Learning in the Anthropocene: Governance of natural resources in human dominated systems" (Doctoral Thesis in Natural Resource Management, Stockholm University), available as one of the publications of the Stockholm Resilience Center, at www.stockholmresilience.org.
48. Resilience is required in and after responses to disasters. See Kolmannskog, V. and Trebbi, L. 2010. "Climate Change, Natural Disasters and Displacement: A Multi-track Approach to Filling the Protection Gaps". International Review of the Red Cross 879, at http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/ documents/article/review-2010/ irrc-879-kolmannskog-trebbi.htm.
49. See Walker, B. and Salt, D. 2006. Resilience Thinking: Sustaining ecosystems and people in a changing world. Washington DC: Island Press.
50. Wright, J., Wadsley, V. and Artandi, J. 1994. The History of the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies: A Century of Commitment, 1895-1995. Indianapolis IN: National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies.
51. Fackler, M. 2011. "Tsunami Warnings, Written in Stone". NY Times, 20 April 2011. It has been suggested that the capacity of humans to forget unpleasant times or events is an evolved instinct, but humans also have capacities to remember and fashion ways to counteract forgetfulness.
52. Darwin, C. 1868. The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication. London: John Murray.
53. Theodore Roosevelt, Address by the President, "Proceedings of the Conference of Governors of the United States, The White House, May 13-15, 1908" (printed by Act of Congress, 1908), at 8.
54. Darwin, C. 1874. The Descent of Man, at 635, and Chapter 5 on "Moral Sense". London: John Murray.
55. Princen, T. 1995. The Logic of Sufficiency. Cambridge MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.
56. Paragraphs 4.3 and 4.26, Agenda 21 (1992), UN Doc A/CONF. 151/4 (1992).
57. Supra, note 75, at 44-45, citing with favour political theorist Dryzek, J.S. 1987. Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy. Oxford: Blackwell. 78 Supra, note 32, at 268.
58. "Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress", at www.stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr/documents/rapport- anglais.pdf.
59. Helliwell, J., Layard, R. and Sachs, J. (Eds) 2012. World Happiness Report. New York NY: Earth Institute, Columbia University.
60. UN Doc. A/67/607 (16 January 2013).
61. See www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org.
62. These experiences are well analysed in Kotzé, L.J. and Paterson, A.R. 2009. The Role of the Judiciary in Environmental Governance - Comparative Perspectives. Mechelen: Wolters Kluwer, which examines the strengths and weaknesses of environmental adjudication in 19 nations.
63. Professors George (Rock) Pring and Catherine (Kitty) Pring (University of Denver Strum College of Law) conducted an empirical survey of many of these new courts; see Pring, G. and Pring, C. 2009. Greening Justice: Creating and Improving Environmental Courts and Tribunals. Washington DC: The Access Initiative, housed within the World Resources Institute.
64. Boyd, D.R. 2012. The Environmental Rights Revolution. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
65. 253 N.Y. 234 at 238 (1930).
66. See Leisch, K.R. 2010. "A Trusting Public: How the Public Trust Doctrine Can Save the New York Forest Preserve". Research paper posted on line by the Pace Law School Law Library.
67. Willoughby City Council v. Minister Administering the National Parks &Wildlife Act (1992), 78 LGRA 18 (Austl.).
68. M.C. Mehta v. Kamal Nath and others (1977), SCC 388 (India).
69. Daly, E. "Ecuadoran Court Recognizes Constitutional Rights to Nature". Widener Law School blog, at http://blogs.law.widener.edu/ envirolawblog/2011/07/12/ ecuadorian-court-recognizes-constitutional-right-to- nature/
70. See Arco Iris v. Ecuador Mineral Institute (1993), and R.F. Wheeler and E.G. Huddle v. Attorney General of the State of Loja (2011).
71. GR 10 101083 (30 July 1993).
72. Leopold, A. 1949. A Sand County Almanac, at 200. New York NY: Oxford University Press.
73. Jones, S. 2008. Darwin's Island: The Galapagos in the Garden of England, at 286. Boston MA: Little, Brown and Co.