The Nord Stream project, which comprises two natural gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, eminently illustrates several of the ambiguities that pertain to the ability of coastal States to regulate the ...laying and operation of transit pipelines in their exclusive economic zone and, conversely, the extent of the right of other States to carry out such activities. A highly significant issue is how seabed surveys undertaken in preparation for the laying of pipelines should be characterized, and thus regulated, under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. What is to be considered a ‘reasonable measure’ by a coastal State is another crucial issue which, together with the extent of the requirement for consent by the coastal State for any specific pipeline route, are decisive for defining the balance between potentially competing interests relating to submarine transit pipelines.
The oceans are by far the largest carbon sink and are estimated to have absorbed roughly 40 percent of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions since the beginning of the industrial era. The climate ...services performed by the oceans can be described as an interaction between a physical and a biological carbon pump. Whereas the role of the physical carbon pump is well established, the full scale of the climate services provided by the biological carbon pump has only recently been understood. This pump is made up of services provided by different marine species, from microbes to marine mammals. Many of these species are managed under the international law of the sea and subject to the concept of Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY). Although the MSY concept has developed since its inception, maximum generation of fish for human consumption remains the core objective according to the law of the sea. Under MSY based management, states are not required to consider the climate services represented by different marine organisms, making this regime unable to balance the interest of maximizing fish as a product against the oceans’ role in carbon sequestration. In order to make optimal use of the carbon sequestering features of marine organisms, this perspective proposes five action points. Foremost, MSY should be complemented with a new management objective: maximum carbon sequestration (MCS). Although many aspects of climate-based fisheries management remain to be explored, it appears clear that this would imply allowing stocks to recover to maintain a larger amount of biomass, increasing conservation measures for species particularly efficient in providing negative emissions, differentiation of fisheries within species as well as a new approach to ecosystem management. Climate reforming international fisheries law could make an important contribution to the operationalization of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, as well as the UN Sustainable Development Goals. As a first step, international guidelines should be developed on how to integrate the concept of maximum carbon sequestration in fisheries management.
Recent decades have seen an increasing emphasis on (re)structuring marine governance regulation to fit relevant natural systems in terms of scale and spatial scope, and thus also on the delimitation ...of spatial units. Being at the heart of ecosystem based management, this focus on the relationship between scale and space in nature and in regulatory systems necessitates an increased awareness of the use of spatial and scale-related concepts in marine governance regulation. Using the regulatory context of the Baltic Sea as the focal point, this article examines concepts central to marine governance such as ‘ecosystem’, ‘water body’ and ‘marine waters’. It investigates how changes in the physical environment are reflected in the legal concepts, but also how these concepts affect the understanding or definition of the ‘natural’ phenomena ostensibly representing the scales on which the regulatory system should be premised.
Human use of marine resources is changing, as is the marine environment itself, and our understanding of marine ecosystems and biodiversity is developing. This open access book explores the ...challenges this raises for legal regimes pertaining to the oceans and their domestic implementation. It engages with developments in areas such as bioprospecting, fisheries, deep-sea mining and shipping. Several case studies discuss genetic resources and the implications of the new UN Agreement on marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction. A team of experts suggest new approaches to questions of interpretation, established management principles, and institutional relationships. Not limiting their scope to the international law of the sea, they also examine international environmental law, intellectual property rights, and domestic law. The book broadens the scholarly debate and provides a timely reflection on the dramatic policy developments currently happening in the field of marine resource governance. It will be welcomed by lawyers, NGOs and policymakers. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the University of Gothenburg, Department of Law.
Regulation of Risk Basu Bal, Abhinayan; Rajput, Trisha; Argüello, Gabriela ...
2022, 2023
eBook, Book
Odprti dostop
Regulation of Risk provides comprehensive insight into regulation of risk in transport, trade and environment. Contributions provide national, regional and international perspectives on pressing ...questions: How is risk conceived in light of novel technological deployment, climate change, political upheaval, evolving geopolitics, and the COVID-19 pandemic? What legal tools such as contractual frameworks and governance structures are available to manage the changing landscape of risk? This book highlights the importance of dialogue and collaborative decision-making on risk between policymakers, institutions, societal stakeholders and the scientific community.
The Ecosystem Approach in Ocean Planning and Governance takes stock of the challenges associated with implementing an ecosystem approach in ocean governance. In addition to theorizing the notion of ...Ecosystem Approach and its multifaceted implications, the book provides in depth analyses of lessons learned and remaining challenges associated with making the Ecosystem Approach fully relevant and operational in different marine policy fields, including marine spatial planning, fisheries, and biodiversity protection. In doing so, it adds much needed legal and social science perspectives to the existing literature on the Ecosystem Approach in relation to the marine environment. While focusing predominantly on the European context, the perspective is enriched by analyses from other jurisdictions, including the USA.
Applying much needed legal and social sciences perspectives, the book provides in depth analyses of lessons learned and remaining challenges associated with making the Ecosystem Approach fully ...relevant and operational in various fields of marine governance. Readership: The book is relevant to everyone interested in what the Ecosystem Approach may offer in relation to sustainably governing the oceans, including academics, civil servants, politicians and civil society representatives.
The destruction of the Amazon is a major global environmental issue, not only because of greenhouse gas emissions or direct impacts on biodiversity and livelihoods, but also due to the forest's role ...as a tipping element in the Earth System. With nearly a fifth of the Amazon already lost, there are already signs of an imminent forest dieback process that risks transforming much of the rainforest into a drier ecosystem, with climatic implications across the globe. There is a large body of literature on the underlying drivers of Amazon deforestation. However, insufficient attention has been paid to the behavioral and institutional microfoundations of change. Fundamental issues concerning cooperation, as well as the mechanisms facilitating or hampering such actions, can play a much more central role in attempts to unravel and address Amazon deforestation. We thus present the issue of preventing the Amazon biome from crossing a biophysical tipping point as a large-scale collective action problem. Drawing from collective action theory, we apply a novel analytical framework on Amazon conservation, identifying six variables that synthesize relevant collective action stressors and facilitators: information, accountability, harmony of interests, horizontal trust, knowledge about consequences, and sense of responsibility. Drawing upon literature and data, we assess Amazon deforestation and conservation through our heuristic lens, showing that while growing transparency has made information availability a collective action facilitator, lack of accountability, distrust among actors, and little sense of responsibility for halting deforestation remain key stressors. We finalize by discussing interventions that can help break the gridlock.
•Amazon forest conservation as analyzed through a large-scale collective action lens.•Six variables representing levers for facilitating collective action are derived.•Lack of trust and accountability and conflicts of interest remain key stressors.•Third-party interventions for fostering collective action on the Amazon are identified.
In the last 20 years, the EU has adopted some rather ambitious pieces of legislation with the aim to achieve a good environmental status in freshwater and marine ecosystems. Both the Water Framework ...Directive (WFD) and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) have a strong focus on the natural environment and biological criteria for assessing the status of the relevant ecosystems. In the same time period, much research on environmental governance has focused on the interconnectedness of social systems and ecosystems, so-called social-ecological systems (SES). While having high aspirations, the legal frameworks underpinning current EU water and marine management do not necessarily reflect the advances of contemporary science relating to SES. Using the geographical intersection of the two directives, i.e., coastal waters as a focal point, the paper explores the inchoate integration of social and ecological perspectives in the EU marine governance. What are the main challenges for the current EU legal regimes for managing coastal waters in a way that builds on the understanding of social and ecological systems as interconnected? Having explored the two directives, the paper introduces the possibility of using marine spatial planning (MSP), and the EU directive establishing a framework for maritime spatial planning (MSPD) as a bridge between the social and ecological dimensions and discusses what implications this would have for the current system for governing coastal waters in Europe.
Abstract
The Arctic is subject to increasing levels of human activities and environmental stresses. The need to protect Arctic ecosystems and utilize the region's resources sustainably necessitates ...effective and coordinated management of human activities. A potentially important instrument is marine spatial planning (MSP). The article analyses the potential of the European Union (EU) to contribute to the development and implementation of MSP, or related instruments, in the marine Arctic. Although we conclude that EU law relevant to MSP currently has very limited applicability in the region, either directly or through the so-called EEA EFTA States, there are still ways in which the EU may contribute to making activities in the marine Arctic more sustainable. In this context, the EU's new 'policy for the Arctic' could be an important instrument, but it will not by itself affect the region's development or even guarantee concerted action by the EU Member States.
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