Pub Date : 2021-07-08DOI: 10.1163/24686042-12340063
Ikramuddin Kamil
The Amu Darya Basin is included in various bilateral and regional treaties negotiated between Afghanistan and Russia/the former USSR, and among the Central Asian Republics. The former are boundary treaties, and do not cover the use of the Amu Darya. The latter are, inter alia, water-sharing agreements that govern the use of water. This article examines the current legal regime governing the Amu Darya. It addresses one specific question: What are the legal implications for Afghanistan of its exclusion from the regional legal framework governing the apportionment and utilization of the Amu Darya? The article argues that sustainable water resource management is dependent on the participation of all riparian states in the management of a shared watercourse and without Afghanistan’s inclusion in the regional water agreements or organizations governing the Amu Darya, no Central Asian regional water agreement or organization is complete. The article makes two further arguments. First, the equitable and reasonable utilization principle gives all riparian states the right to an equitable share in shared watercourses, therefore the downstream Central Asian Republics cannot prevent upstream Afghanistan from developing its freshwater resources. Second, even though Afghanistan is not a party to the agreements governing the use of the Amu Darya waters, the country can still be affected or harmed by downstream uses of these waters, as Afghanistan’s future use of the Amu Darya can be foreclosed or limited.
{"title":"Afghanistan, the Amu Darya Basin and Regional Treaties","authors":"Ikramuddin Kamil","doi":"10.1163/24686042-12340063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24686042-12340063","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The Amu Darya Basin is included in various bilateral and regional treaties negotiated between Afghanistan and Russia/the former USSR, and among the Central Asian Republics. The former are boundary treaties, and do not cover the use of the Amu Darya. The latter are, inter alia, water-sharing agreements that govern the use of water. This article examines the current legal regime governing the Amu Darya. It addresses one specific question: What are the legal implications for Afghanistan of its exclusion from the regional legal framework governing the apportionment and utilization of the Amu Darya? The article argues that sustainable water resource management is dependent on the participation of all riparian states in the management of a shared watercourse and without Afghanistan’s inclusion in the regional water agreements or organizations governing the Amu Darya, no Central Asian regional water agreement or organization is complete. The article makes two further arguments. First, the equitable and reasonable utilization principle gives all riparian states the right to an equitable share in shared watercourses, therefore the downstream Central Asian Republics cannot prevent upstream Afghanistan from developing its freshwater resources. Second, even though Afghanistan is not a party to the agreements governing the use of the Amu Darya waters, the country can still be affected or harmed by downstream uses of these waters, as Afghanistan’s future use of the Amu Darya can be foreclosed or limited.","PeriodicalId":29889,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Journal of Environmental Law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2021-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48178050","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-10DOI: 10.1163/24686042-12340055
Nicholas A. Robinson
The aim of this article is to examine how the principles of ecological civilization can help shape a consensus about restating environmental legal principles generally. This restatement is essential given the fact that many human laws have proven to be manifestly at variance with the natural systems of Earth’s biosphere. Disruptions caused by climate change increase and the sixth great extinction of species has ushered in crises in biodiversity. It is argued that with environmental degradation becoming worse world-wide, more is required of governments than just again endorsing steps to advance sustainable development. Rather, there is a need for more effective and resilient governmental management. States must agree upon the progressive development of the law necessary to deal with Earth’s changing, new, and real conditions. New environmental principles, such as the principle of resilience, will need to be added to the existing ones. Potentially, China can contribute greatly to the global debate about Earth’s ecological law principles by sharing its knowledge and understanding of ecological civilization.
{"title":"Ecological Civilization and Legal Norms for Resilient Environmental Governance","authors":"Nicholas A. Robinson","doi":"10.1163/24686042-12340055","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24686042-12340055","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The aim of this article is to examine how the principles of ecological civilization can help shape a consensus about restating environmental legal principles generally. This restatement is essential given the fact that many human laws have proven to be manifestly at variance with the natural systems of Earth’s biosphere. Disruptions caused by climate change increase and the sixth great extinction of species has ushered in crises in biodiversity. It is argued that with environmental degradation becoming worse world-wide, more is required of governments than just again endorsing steps to advance sustainable development. Rather, there is a need for more effective and resilient governmental management. States must agree upon the progressive development of the law necessary to deal with Earth’s changing, new, and real conditions. New environmental principles, such as the principle of resilience, will need to be added to the existing ones. Potentially, China can contribute greatly to the global debate about Earth’s ecological law principles by sharing its knowledge and understanding of ecological civilization.","PeriodicalId":29889,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Journal of Environmental Law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45999203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-10DOI: 10.1163/24686042-12340057
Mengxing Lu
Launched in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was promoted by the Chinese leadership as an open platform to boost global trade, economic growth and transnational cooperation. It has achieved impressive progress in economic terms. However, a concern that has been voiced by international society is that China is using the BRI host countries as a new ‘pollution haven’. As a response, the Chinese government launched a variety of policies and guidelines with the aim of integrating the concept of ecological civilization and green development into the implementation of the BRI. In general, China’s position is to require all Chinese companies to observe the local environmental laws and standards wherever they invest and operate. However, the minimum standards set by various environmental regulations of the host countries may not be effective in improving corporate environmental performance, particularly when the environmental standards in those counties are lower and more lenient than those that are in effect in China. The aim of this article is to explore whether the concept of Corporate Environmental Responsibility (CER) could motivate Chinese corporations to strengthen environmental risk management when they are operating and investing in these host countries. It is concluded that CER, as a form of private environmental governance, could provide added value for the implementation of ecological civilization and green development in the BRI but the success of this self-regulatory approach nevertheless calls for governmental intervention under certain circumstances.
{"title":"Corporate Environmental Responsibility: Another Road to Achieve Ecological Civilization and Green BRI","authors":"Mengxing Lu","doi":"10.1163/24686042-12340057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24686042-12340057","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Launched in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was promoted by the Chinese leadership as an open platform to boost global trade, economic growth and transnational cooperation. It has achieved impressive progress in economic terms. However, a concern that has been voiced by international society is that China is using the BRI host countries as a new ‘pollution haven’. As a response, the Chinese government launched a variety of policies and guidelines with the aim of integrating the concept of ecological civilization and green development into the implementation of the BRI. In general, China’s position is to require all Chinese companies to observe the local environmental laws and standards wherever they invest and operate. However, the minimum standards set by various environmental regulations of the host countries may not be effective in improving corporate environmental performance, particularly when the environmental standards in those counties are lower and more lenient than those that are in effect in China. The aim of this article is to explore whether the concept of Corporate Environmental Responsibility (CER) could motivate Chinese corporations to strengthen environmental risk management when they are operating and investing in these host countries. It is concluded that CER, as a form of private environmental governance, could provide added value for the implementation of ecological civilization and green development in the BRI but the success of this self-regulatory approach nevertheless calls for governmental intervention under certain circumstances.","PeriodicalId":29889,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Journal of Environmental Law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49621508","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-10DOI: 10.1163/24686042-12340054
B. Boer, Rowena Cantley-Smith, Tianbao Qin
This special issue marks the end of the fourth year of publication of our journal. It also marks an extraordinary year in terms of the urgent need for greatly enhanced regulation of the way that humans interact with the natural environment on a global and national basis. It is thus serendipitous that the focus of this special issue is a discussion of the concept of ecological civilization and environmental governance.1 Ecological civilization first emerged in the scientific literature in the 1980s, and has since that time attracted a great deal of academic comment from across the disciplines, including environmental law and political science. At the outset, we can recognise that ecological civilization can be broadly equated with the internationally accepted concept of ‘sustainable development’. Sustainable development has, of course, been part of China’s environmental lexicon since 1994, when China’s Agenda 21 was published.2 As noted by Prof. QIN Tianbao: ‘In 2012, China put forward the concept “eco-civilization”, which is regarded as the Chinese expression of sustainable development, further promoting the development of the principle of Sustainable Development.’3 Ecological civilization certainly incorporates the
{"title":"Introduction to the Special Issue on Ecological Civilization and Environmental Governance","authors":"B. Boer, Rowena Cantley-Smith, Tianbao Qin","doi":"10.1163/24686042-12340054","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24686042-12340054","url":null,"abstract":"This special issue marks the end of the fourth year of publication of our journal. It also marks an extraordinary year in terms of the urgent need for greatly enhanced regulation of the way that humans interact with the natural environment on a global and national basis. It is thus serendipitous that the focus of this special issue is a discussion of the concept of ecological civilization and environmental governance.1 Ecological civilization first emerged in the scientific literature in the 1980s, and has since that time attracted a great deal of academic comment from across the disciplines, including environmental law and political science. At the outset, we can recognise that ecological civilization can be broadly equated with the internationally accepted concept of ‘sustainable development’. Sustainable development has, of course, been part of China’s environmental lexicon since 1994, when China’s Agenda 21 was published.2 As noted by Prof. QIN Tianbao: ‘In 2012, China put forward the concept “eco-civilization”, which is regarded as the Chinese expression of sustainable development, further promoting the development of the principle of Sustainable Development.’3 Ecological civilization certainly incorporates the","PeriodicalId":29889,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Journal of Environmental Law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45397734","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-03DOI: 10.1163/24686042-12340049
Tatenda Leopold Chakanyuka
This article focuses on the impact of the ban of international trade of the ivory of the African elephant under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. This species is overpopulated in some countries and threatened in other countries. Overall, its current population and the level of decline suggest a species that is endangered. The population disparities have created misunderstandings in terms of how to address the issues. Controversy has surrounded the two instances of legal sales of ivory, and the continuing ban on ivory trade from 1989 has contributed to animosity between pro-ban Western ‘conservationists’ and anti-ban African countries, with accusations of ‘ecological imperialism’ being levelled at some of the protagonists. The article observes that the vast global ivory market has largely been sustained by countries that have failed to effectively enact laws and/or enforce them, as well as failing to deal with corruption and illegal markets within their jurisdictions. It is argued that identifying such culprit countries and their role in promoting elephant poaching and ivory trade, and identifying the reasons behind the poaching and illegal trade, is crucial in reducing the incidence of poaching. The article argues that with a better understanding of the illegal trade, CITES can take deliberate steps to assist countries involved in the ivory trade where they need that support.
{"title":"CITES and the African Elephant","authors":"Tatenda Leopold Chakanyuka","doi":"10.1163/24686042-12340049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24686042-12340049","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article focuses on the impact of the ban of international trade of the ivory of the African elephant under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. This species is overpopulated in some countries and threatened in other countries. Overall, its current population and the level of decline suggest a species that is endangered. The population disparities have created misunderstandings in terms of how to address the issues. Controversy has surrounded the two instances of legal sales of ivory, and the continuing ban on ivory trade from 1989 has contributed to animosity between pro-ban Western ‘conservationists’ and anti-ban African countries, with accusations of ‘ecological imperialism’ being levelled at some of the protagonists. The article observes that the vast global ivory market has largely been sustained by countries that have failed to effectively enact laws and/or enforce them, as well as failing to deal with corruption and illegal markets within their jurisdictions. It is argued that identifying such culprit countries and their role in promoting elephant poaching and ivory trade, and identifying the reasons behind the poaching and illegal trade, is crucial in reducing the incidence of poaching. The article argues that with a better understanding of the illegal trade, CITES can take deliberate steps to assist countries involved in the ivory trade where they need that support.","PeriodicalId":29889,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Journal of Environmental Law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/24686042-12340049","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44443877","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-03DOI: 10.1163/24686042-12340053
Menes Abinami Muzan
{"title":"Ecological Restoration in International Environmental Law, edited by Anastasia Telesetsky, An Cliquet and Afshin Akhtar-Khavari","authors":"Menes Abinami Muzan","doi":"10.1163/24686042-12340053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24686042-12340053","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29889,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Journal of Environmental Law","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/24686042-12340053","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41364127","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The boosting of investment to accelerate economic development is the main goal of the newly re-elected President of the Republic of Indonesia. In his inauguration speech in October 2019, President Joko Widodo declared five priority development goals comprising human resources development: infrastructure development; deregulation through a proposed ‘omnibus’ law; bureaucratic reform: and economic reform.1 He introduced two main laws as a means of boosting investment: a law on job creation and a law on small and middle
{"title":"Indonesia’s Omnibus Bill on Job Creation: a Setback for Environmental Law?","authors":"Raynaldo Sembiring, Isna Fatimah, Grita Anindarini Widyaningsih","doi":"10.1163/24686042-12340051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24686042-12340051","url":null,"abstract":"The boosting of investment to accelerate economic development is the main goal of the newly re-elected President of the Republic of Indonesia. In his inauguration speech in October 2019, President Joko Widodo declared five priority development goals comprising human resources development: infrastructure development; deregulation through a proposed ‘omnibus’ law; bureaucratic reform: and economic reform.1 He introduced two main laws as a means of boosting investment: a law on job creation and a law on small and middle","PeriodicalId":29889,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Journal of Environmental Law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/24686042-12340051","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43891122","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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