Transboundary Environmental Harm in the Arctic – In Search of Accountability for an Oil Spill

Recently, the Arctic has transformed from a peripheral region to an area of great interest, for instance in terms of oil drilling. Nonetheless, no legal instrument has addressed the matter of accountability for transfrontier oil pollution damage. This article accordingly evaluates whether the current legal constructs, meaning State responsibility, international liability, civil liability regimes, and multilateral environmental agreements, allow accountability to be established for transboundary environmental harm resulting from hydrocarbon exploitation in the Arctic. It also examines whether these constructions could serve as the basis for future legislative actions. This article treats these four constructions as layers of accountability. After examining all of the layers in their current formulation, this article asserts that the existing layers cannot establish accountability for transboundary environmental damage in the Arctic, nor do they as such offer an effective way to regulate accountability in the future. Therefore, the article concludes that the law of accountability necessitates a new approach, such as a non-compliance mechanism or hybrid system combining elements of multiple layers. Finally, the article calls for immediate legislative actions.Peer reviewe

Corporate Liability for Transboundary Environmental Harm

This open access book aims to elaborate on the legal prerequisites to establish the liability of corporations for transboundary environmental harm, not only by identifying existing liability rules, principles and standards but also by analysing their potential for further legal development. The authors consider international and transboundary liability law to currently be an underutilised tool for international environmental protection. The book seeks to address this by exploring what is needed in terms of legislative action and identifying options for judicial pliability, thereby providing an important legal contribution in furthering the development of an effective international and transnational environmental liability law regime

Handbook for New Actors in Space

Driven by Cold War tensions between the US and the Soviet Union, the space race began almost 60 years ago. Each power was racing to accomplish new feats in space and demonstrate its superiority. In 2017, while much remains the same, much has changed. Space actors comprise a wide variety of national and non-governmental entities comprising diverse rationales, goals, and activities. More than 70 states, commercial companies, and international organizations currently operate more than 1,500 satellites in Earth orbit. Driven largely by the commoditization of space technology and the lowering of barriers to participation, the number of space actors is growing. This broadening of space has both advantages and disadvantages. On the positive side, it is leading to greatly increased technological innovations, lower costs, and greater access to the beneficial capabilities and services offered by satellites. However, the accelerated growth in space activities and the influx of new actors has the potential to exacerbate many of the current threats to the long-term sustainable use of space. These threats include on-orbit crowding, radio-frequency interference, and the chances of an incident in space sparking or escalating geopolitical tensions on Earth. Michael K. Simpson, Ph.D. - Executive Director, Secure World Foundatio

Corporate Liability for Transboundary Environmental Harm

This open access book aims to elaborate on the legal prerequisites to establish the liability of corporations for transboundary environmental harm, not only by identifying existing liability rules, principles and standards but also by analysing their potential for further legal development. The authors consider international and transboundary liability law to currently be an underutilised tool for international environmental protection. The book seeks to address this by exploring what is needed in terms of legislative action and identifying options for judicial pliability, thereby providing an important legal contribution in furthering the development of an effective international and transnational environmental liability law regime

Changing Conceptions of Property and Sovereignty in Natural Resources Law: Questioning the Public Trust Doctrine

This Article considers and evaluates the \u27public trust doctrine, one of the most remarkable legal bases upon which natural resources law has relied in this ongoing transformation. The public trust doctrine is based on an amorphous notion that has been with us since the days of Justinian - the notion that the public possesses inviolable rights in certain natural resources. Commentators first hailed the doctrine in 1970 as offering the most promising legal basis upon which individual members of the public could maintain a lawsuit to protect natural resources from needless degradation and destruction. In the seminal article on the trust doctrine, Professor Joseph Sax reconstructed how the mostly dormant doctrine had historically functioned in the United States to safeguard public rights in navigable waterways, and he predicted that the doctrine could expand to embrace broader environmental concerns