A Global Pact for the Environment: The Logical Outcome of 50 Years of International Environmental Law

Yann Aguila
Additional contact information
Yann Aguila: Sciences Po Paris, 27 Rue Saint-Guillaume, 75007 Paris, France

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 14, 1-17

Abstract: The Global Pact for the Environment is a project for an international treaty that seeks to recognize the environmental rights and duties of citizens, states, and businesses. The text of the initial Pact project was drafted in June 2017 by a network of over 100 environmental law experts from more than 40 countries. In May 2018, the United Nations General Assembly paved the way for its negotiation by adopting the resolution “Towards a Global Pact for the Environment”. These talks resulted in a recommendation for states to adopt a “political declaration” in 2022 for the 50th anniversary of the Stockholm Conference. This article retraces the origins of the Global Pact project and makes the case for its adoption. It argues that a Global Pact is the missing piece to implement the 2030 Agenda and would help to “constitutionalize” fundamental environmental principles. The article further responds to concerns raised about the Global Pact project, such as interactions with existing instruments, the applicability of broad principles at the national level, as well as the risk of regression. It ultimately asserts that all stakeholders would reap benefits from its procedural and substantive provisions, should it be adopted.

Keywords: international environmental law; Global Pact for the Environment; Stockholm Conference; Rio Declaration; 2030 Agenda; Global Environmental Constitutionalism; environmental governance; multilateral negotiations; duties; principles; sustainability; law; rights; environmental governance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/14/5636/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/14/5636/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:14:p:5636-:d:383910

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().