Re-Conceiving Health Protection in Environmental Regulation

Willaim Onzivu, Bradford University Law School, UK

Description

The paper reinforces the evidence that health protection has not been effectively optimized in the progressive development and implementation of international environmental law. It reinforce this evidence by revisiting the history of environmental law, the scope of health protection and health protection objective in environmental law, the status of the social pillar of environmental regulation and notions on effectiveness of environmental treaties. It also highlights existing evidence from case studies of climate change, water and transboundary waste in international environmental law.

To improve the status quo, the paper identifies and discusses options to optimize the health protection in international environmental law. The paper (re) conceives international environmental law using a conceptual framework of adaptive governance. The paper will conclude that an adaptive governance approach requires essential support pillars in any efforts to optimize health protection environmental law. In this connection, firstly, it proposes an environmental justice framework as an essential support pillar to address issues such as participation, a key element of adaptive governance. However, the paper argues that contemporary and predominant thinking on environmental justice is incomplete. Instead, it requires reoriented thinking on the redistribution of environmental health harms and benefits, promoting participation of all actors and providing mechanisms for the full recognition of all actors which i also refer to as inhabitants of environmental law. Secondly, the paper argues for the need to promote multi-sectoral collaboration among health and environmental sectors. Environmental law is goal oriented and it is argued that inhabitants of an environmental regulatory space flow directly from the objective of an environmental legal regime and hence both health and environmental actors must be recognized and fully participate in global and domestic environmental regulation. Thirdly, the paper argues for scaling up of the role of evaluation of environmental legal regimes beyond the predominant impact assessments today. It will explore various options in this regard. Finally, the paper argues for repositioning environmental ethics at the heart of environmental law. It focuses on appropriate conceptual frameworks for an environmental ethic that optimizes health protection in environmental law. It is also based on environmental ethics that a proposal for a public health pillar in sustainable development is argued. This is especially so in view of the continuing north south divide in thinking of the role of environmental law as the Rio Declaration celebrates 20 years of existence in 2012.

 
Jul 2nd, 1:30 PM Jul 2nd, 2:50 PM

Re-Conceiving Health Protection in Environmental Regulation

Room 302

The paper reinforces the evidence that health protection has not been effectively optimized in the progressive development and implementation of international environmental law. It reinforce this evidence by revisiting the history of environmental law, the scope of health protection and health protection objective in environmental law, the status of the social pillar of environmental regulation and notions on effectiveness of environmental treaties. It also highlights existing evidence from case studies of climate change, water and transboundary waste in international environmental law.

To improve the status quo, the paper identifies and discusses options to optimize the health protection in international environmental law. The paper (re) conceives international environmental law using a conceptual framework of adaptive governance. The paper will conclude that an adaptive governance approach requires essential support pillars in any efforts to optimize health protection environmental law. In this connection, firstly, it proposes an environmental justice framework as an essential support pillar to address issues such as participation, a key element of adaptive governance. However, the paper argues that contemporary and predominant thinking on environmental justice is incomplete. Instead, it requires reoriented thinking on the redistribution of environmental health harms and benefits, promoting participation of all actors and providing mechanisms for the full recognition of all actors which i also refer to as inhabitants of environmental law. Secondly, the paper argues for the need to promote multi-sectoral collaboration among health and environmental sectors. Environmental law is goal oriented and it is argued that inhabitants of an environmental regulatory space flow directly from the objective of an environmental legal regime and hence both health and environmental actors must be recognized and fully participate in global and domestic environmental regulation. Thirdly, the paper argues for scaling up of the role of evaluation of environmental legal regimes beyond the predominant impact assessments today. It will explore various options in this regard. Finally, the paper argues for repositioning environmental ethics at the heart of environmental law. It focuses on appropriate conceptual frameworks for an environmental ethic that optimizes health protection in environmental law. It is also based on environmental ethics that a proposal for a public health pillar in sustainable development is argued. This is especially so in view of the continuing north south divide in thinking of the role of environmental law as the Rio Declaration celebrates 20 years of existence in 2012.