The normative legal character of sustainable development

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Chapter 4 in North-South Regional Trade Agreements as Legal Regimes, 2017, pp 110-135 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Chapter 4 examines the normative character of the principle of sustainable development and assesses the extent to which it constitutes a justiciable norm. Through the analysis of the jurisprudence from the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body and the UN International Court of Justice, the normative content of the principle of sustainable development will be revealed. Building on the work of Virginie Barral,1 it will be argued that the principle of sustainable development has served as an important hermeneutic tool in both judicial settings, giving colour, texture and shading to legal rights and obligations. Given the development focus of the EPAs this finding is particularly significant because it suggests that the sustainable development provisions of the agreements lack justiciability. Simply put, it implies that the sustainable development provisions in the agreement may not be enforceable through the dispute settlement mechanisms established under the EPAs. Nevertheless, in scaffolding the commercial aspects of the agreement around the principle of sustainable development it is arguable that the parties must apply the EPA in a development-friendly way. 1 V. Barral, ‘Sustainable Development in International Law: Nature and Operation of an Evolutive Legal Norm’ (2012) 23 European Journal of International Law 380.

Keywords: Development Studies; Economics and Finance; Law - Academic; Politics and Public Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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