Global Environmental Governance: Law and Regulation in the 21st Century

摘要

The issue of environmental governance has, since the creation of the first measures to protect the global environment, presented a challenge both in terms of definition and application. It is perhaps the interaction between media-specific regimes, broad soft law instruments and divided leadership that has left this area so unclear and open to interpretation. While international environmental law has demonstrated the capacity of soft law to build consensus and achieve positive outcomes, it has not assisted to the same degree towards building a clear concept of environmental governance. The inherently global nature of the environment and increasing state and economic linkages brought about by globalisation clearly require an appropriate global framework to support conservation, management and the implementation of domestic, regional and international law. Global Environmental Governance: Law and Regulation in the 21st Century aims to provide an alternative approach to these challenges. Kotze commences his exploration of global environmental governance in context of globalisation and its impact on Westphalian structures and ecosystems. The subsequent chapters map the relationship between environmental law, environmental governance and the physical environment suggesting both a definition and role for global environmental governance.