Explain using relevant examples and the key principles of

international law, why despite broad acceptance of the global

international commons, action to deal with global environmental
problems has been disappointing.

Introduction
A healthy environment is right of everyone living on the Earth and provision of the healthy
environment to the people is the responsibility of respective governments. However many efforts
are made by the governments to protect the environment and provide their citizens with the
healthy environment by formulating and being part of many international environment laws yet
the results are very disappointing (Amos, 2015). Still Earth is facing many environmental issues
like degradation of forest and agricultural land, depletion of many natural resources like water,
minerals, forest and rocks etc. degradation of the environment , poor public health, loss of
biodiversity, loss of resilience in ecosystems are the some prominent issues which environment
is facing. There is indication of the increase in the population of the world by 1.26 billion till
2016 which will increase more pressure on the natural resources and environment (Amos, 2015).
Despite many environmental laws, treaties and agreements environmental issue is worldwide and
because there is a lack of implementation in this sphere. Moreover, if one country implements
the laws and treaties and others dont then still it aggravates the situation of environment because
air, water and pollution cannot be bound by borders. For example, if the soil conditions of one
country are not good then if any other country imports the food items from that country or any
other raw products then their food supply would be affected (Clark, 2012). According to the
survey conducted by United Nations, the developed countries are not only biggest contributor of
pollution and environmental problems but also utilize the 25% of worlds resources. The
environmentalists believe that 23% of world population lives in the developed countries and they
are responsible for generating 65% of world environmental problems which has the horrible
impact on the rest of the world too. The story does not end with the developing world,
developing countries are also responsible for creating environmental problems too
(Ecovitality.org, 2015).
Environmental Laws and Regulations
A number of laws and treaties has been signed to protect and save the environment. The
prominent of them was signed in 2001 naming Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic
Pollutants (POPs) aims at banning certain chemicals immediately and restricting the use the
some other harmful chemicals. Moreover, it also makes the compulsory to dispose of the organic
pollutants and if they are used then use them with methods which are environmentally sound.

Many countries like America and Russia are part of this environmental treaty but yet nothing has
done yet for this so far still in many parts of world wildlife is affected by persistent organic
Pollutants (Environmentallaw.uslegal.com, 2015). These PoPs are affecting the wildlife, certain
birds, fish and mammals are being affected by these pollutants because no country has tried to
implement the treaty effectively in their countries. Still many factories and agriculture sector
deposit these organic pollutants in the river and oceans where they kill the marine life and many
factories which leave their waste material in the living areas they cause diseases in mammals and
animals. That is why all the countries lack in the implementation process of environmental laws
and results of this agreement are disappointing (Globalstewards.org, 2015.
Another environmental problem is climate change and to curb this problem and improve the
awareness about the countries gathered and negotiated United Nations Framework Convention
on climate change. The climate change problem was caused owing to the higher concentration of
carbon in the atmosphere which was owing to the higher level of industrialization by the
developed countries. The agreement aimed at setting a binding on the emission of greenhouse
gasses in the atmosphere which was causing the rapid depletion of greenhouse gasses. The
convention started in 1994 and was finalized in 1997 with name Kyoto Protocol (HedemannRobinson, 2007). The most nations of the world like USA, Russia, China, Japan, United
Kingdom etc. committed themselves for the reduction of Carbon dioxide emission and the
greenhouse gases which were responsible for climate change. However, the target of emission
reduction was varied between all nations. Some countries which included mostly underdeveloped
countries were permitted to increase their carbon dioxide emission yet on the other hand some
developed countries were made obligated to cut down their carbon dioxide emission to a
significant level (Sites.psu.edu, 2015). The average level to cut carbon dioxide emission up to
5% as compared to 1990 till 2012 but despite the obligation nations were not able to meet their
set target; further aggravating and horrible situation appeared when the entire nation achieved
their opposite targets (Visual.ly, 2015). For example, if a nation's target was to reduce carbon
emission -10% then they emitted carbon dioxide 10% etc. For example, -23.4 % more carbon
dioxide was emitted by Canada till 2012, Australia emitted -22%, New Zeeland -19.8 % while
UK emitted 10.1 % carbon dioxide (Visual.ly, 2015). This figure shows that despite the great
agreement and consensus of countries regarding carbon dioxide emission and climate change

Kyoto protocol was not implemented and was not able to get the desired results to solve the
environmental problem.
Montreal protocol is another treaty which was signed by almost 150 countries which aimed at
reducing the number of substances which are harmful to the Ozone layer. Ozone layer depletion
is another important climatic problem which is occurring owing to the emission of large amount
of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) (Kamp, 2015). Countries have signed the treaty of Montreal
protocol to reduce the depletion of Ozone layer yet they have failed to do so. According to
estimates of Economist, (2014) number of cars on the roads has surpassed the one billion which
are creating pollution and number of factories has increased to 50 factories per month all over the
world which are also emitting CFC in the atmosphere(Kellenberg & Levinson, 2014). These
numbers are increasing day by day but not reducing. Therefore, the number of diseases and
climate change owing to ozone depletion has also increased. The countries have committed
themselves to the save the environment, but they have failed in their effort by violating the same
laws of which they are signatories and have bound themselves to (Kellenberg & Levinson,
2014).
The most important environmental problem is air pollution. Therefore, the need to curb the
menace of air pollution to protect the environment of the world was felt a long time ago.
Therefore, in 1979 UN Economic Commission for Europe conducted convention on Long Range
Transboundary Air pollution (Laitos & Wolongevicz, 2014). Still the air pollution problem
persists. According to the report of World Health Organization (WHO), almost 90% of people in
the world are exposed to dangerous level air pollution. Moreover, according to their estimates 3.7
million were reported dead owing to air pollution in 2012 which makes it the largest
environmental health risk. India is listed the most polluted country and China is Ranked 14th
number among the most polluted countries in 2012 according to WHO (LawyerShop, 2015).
Seas and ocean pollution also counts in the environmental problem and to address that UN
convention in 1981 was held which made the law of the sea and many treaties were signed to
address the marine pollution (Legal Information Institute, 2015). Despite these treaties, marine
pollution is increasing day by and according to the survey of World Wide Fund for Nature Indian
ocean is the most polluted ocean and the Mediterranean Sea is the most polluted sea in the world.
Moreover according to WWF report 80% pollution and environmental problems in the ocean and

seas are due to the activities on the land (Macrory, 2013). The people living nears this area throw
their waste in the ocean and seas and factories also deposit their waste in the ocean and sea
which causes the environmental problem like acid rain and pollution. Due to the evaporation
from seas and oceans more carbon dioxide enters in the atmosphere causing the climate change
and depletion of the ozone layer (McDermott, 2010). The Gulf of Mexico is having the greater
number of nitrogen and phosphorus deposits in it which come from surrounding areas. These
chemicals have made its waters more hypoxic and low in oxygen which results in the killing of
large number of fish in the Gulf of Mexico (Orellana, 2007). Despite being the signatory of the
treaty to protect the marine environment, US has failed to implement the laws to protect the
marine environment. These examples show that there are numerous treaties and efforts made by
the governments all around the world to protect the environment yet there is the lack of
implementation in their part and no one is willing to take responsibility to implement the laws to
protect the environment (Orellana, 2007).
Wastage of oil and use of nuclear material also create the problem for the environment and
owing to this threat many important environmental laws and treaties to regulate the oil and
nuclear pollution were signed by the countries. International convention on Oil pollution
Preparedness, response and cooperation in 1990 along with the International Atomic Energy
Agency convention for Nuclear Safety, 1994 are the two important conventions in this regard
(Sites.psu.edu, 2015). Moreover, Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty which prohibits all the
countries to test the nuclear weapons in all types of environments whether it is being tested
underground, underwater, atmosphere or in space. This treaty was not ratified by US senate
(Speth, 2015). The Non-Proliferation Treaty which was proposed and accepted in 1968 and
extended indefinitely in May 1995 is aimed at controlling the spread of nuclear weapons. Almost
175 nations signed this treaty (Strobo, 2015). Despite all these treaties, nations are trying to lead
one another in the race of nuclear weapons. The recent example of this treaty violation is the
agreement between the USA and India (Strobo, 2015).
Food is also the important part of the environmental problem as it travels from one country to
other so the international regulations help in reducing the amount of environmental problems
traveling from one country to other through contaminated food. Therefore, The Codex
Alimentarius Commission, 1963 formulated by United Nations to protect the consumer health

from the contaminated food and guarantee the fair trade practices (Strobo, 2015). This laws
ensures that food being exported to any other country is hygienic and no pollutants have
contaminated For example if the vegetables are being exported or any product having vegetables
or any agro product having in it is made with polluted water or was having pollution in the
environment then that pollution or chemicals would also be present in the food with could cause
diseases.
Lack of Enforcement of Environmental Laws
120 world leaders gather in Rio +20 Earth Summit to sign up the new international goals related
to the environment, new pledges, targets, protocols, and treaties are signed and commitments are
made to protect the environment, but these promises and commitments have not proved
worthwhile so far (The Economist, 2014). The UN report suggests that although we have
numerous environmental goals, laws and treaties yet there is frequent decline in ecosystem,
climate is changing rapidly, soil and ocean degradation is on height, moreover there is significant
increase in air and water pollution has been recorded and oceans are being filled with the rubbish
and waste dumped in them and still all the leaders of world are getting the idea of sustainable
development wrong (The Economist, 2014).
According to reports of UN, now there is treaty congestion in the environmental programs of
UN. For example, the world leaders have signed more than 500 agreements to protect the
environment over the past 50 years. Among all the environmental agreements 61 are related to
protection of the atmosphere, 155 protection of biodiversity, 179 to protect the environment from
chemical and hazardous substances, 46 land conventions and 196 are related to water issues. The
environment has become one of the most prominent issues in the world (The Economist, 2014).
There are many possibilities which have resulted in the failure of these environmental laws and
treaties and some of them are listed here.
These agreements on the environment protection fail owing to many other agreements in the
trade sphere are being signed by the leaders which are enough to trump the environment. For
example leaders signed Rio Earth summit in 1992 and, on the other hand, four important trade
agreements were signed by the leaders like negotiations on the Uruguay Round of the general
agreement on tariff and trade (GATT) which led to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and

these trade agreements made environmental protection far more difficult in those countries which
are signatory of WTO and at the same of Rio Earth Summit (Visual.ly, 2015). Promotion of
global economic agenda is one of the strategies of rich countries which open up the poor
countries to the powerful corporations who just see their economic profits, ignore and destroy the
national and international environmental laws and agreements by lobbying and bullying. For
example, Oil companies are polluting the environment of Nigeria with impunity and arms of
developing countries are twisted by GM companies along with biofuel companies who are
destroying the forests to grow what they want (Wagner, 2004).
It has become common practice by the countries to sign the agreement in the international
conferences to protect the environment yet practically fail to ratify or implement that agreement
by making them part of their constitution. John Knox in his paper for the US center for
progressive reform has shown the negligence of US to ratify at least 10 important international
environment agreements (Clark, 2012). These agreements are Basel convention on waste, genetic
resources protection treaty, Antarctic Liability Annex, the convention on biodiversity, UN
convention on the law of the sea and many others are included in this list (Clark, 2012). Some
countries violate the international environmental laws with impunity and Canada is the case in
point. Canada is the signatory of Kyoto protocol and ratified it too but has also ditched the
agreement in the national interest by emitting a large amount of carbon dioxide. The developed
countries join the international treaties and agreement but fail to implement them result in the
undermining the global environmental protection (Clark, 2012).
According to analysts, so many environmental protection agreements are being made but the
reforms in UN are need of the hours to implore the countries to implement the laws. There are
almost 35 UN organizations working to protect the international environment yet the
environmental problems persist. So there is a need to reform the United Nations and give it the
power to check on the countries and force them to implement the environmental laws (Clark,
2012).

Conclusion
A healthy environment is right of everyone living on the Earth and provision of the healthy
environment to the people is the responsibility of respective governments. However many efforts
are made by the governments to protect the environment and provide their citizens with the
healthy environment by formulating and being part of many international environment laws yet
the results are very disappointing. The environment has become one of the most prominent
issues in the world. Many treaties and agreements by United Nations are passed. Kyoto protocol,
Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), Montreal protocol etc are the
prominent international environment protection laws. However, the financial interests of the
governments to promote the international trade and increase their revenues have failed to
implement the international environmental laws. Therefore, the economic agenda of the countries
is the main reason behind the disappointing results of environmental problems and failure of
international environmental laws despite the common concern of countries around the globe.

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