Current Legal Developments International Court of Justice

摘要

The importance of the Pulp Mills decision in international environmental law cannot be overstated. It is the first time that the ICJ had the opportunity to decide a contentious case in which most of the pertinent issues surrounding the problem of transboundary environmental harm were at stake. Nevertheless, the results of the ICJ's effort to deal with these issues are rather mixed. On the one hand, the ICJ clarified the basic framework wherein the rules applicable to the prevention of transboundary harm operate. For the first time the ICJ stated that the 'obligation of prevention' is an obligation of due diligence, which in turn means that it is an obligation of conduct and not of result. The ICJ also stated that the obligation to conduct an EIA is now part of general international law. The weight the parties accorded to the obligations of notification and exchange of information led the ICJ to make a number of interesting remarks on their importance.