International Environment Law: The Evolution Of International Environmental Law

The Evolution of International Environmental Law

Human beings have the motivation to protect what they believe is important in their lives. From protecting their own family to their country; they look for their country’s well being. In modern times nations developed to have peaceful relation when interacting with each other, each seeking their own well being. International laws started emerging though history. More recently, when states started figuring out their well being of their environment formed an important part for their people’s well being it became another subject that needed to be under protection. International Environmental Law made its appearance rather later that what it would have been desirable, since it emerged when the damage

The damage into the environment has deepened, become more evident and spread indistinguishable globally. It has come to the attention of national societies that it doesn’t matter if your country is not responsible for the devastation or this is done beyond your national boundaries because contamination and pollution do not respect arbitrary political boundaries. The isolated efforts to prevent this degradation from entering national boundaries have also been futile especially when it comes to pollution. It has become important to fight for the conservation of the environment in unity and as a whole since we only have one world that forms part of our global heritage and we need it to be healthy for us to stay healthy . Even though we have come late to this realization we are still in time to not let it worsen and

This time coming together in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992 they ended up with two very important documents to be adopted, The Declaration of Environment with 27 principles and Agenda 21 being the action plan . Even though that the principles in this declaration contained the basics of the previous declaration, they were modified to contain topics more specific for the times and how the international environmental law should be understood differently. They incorporate the socio-economic dimensions, conservation and resource management and non-state actors roles