About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

13 Nat. Resources J. 357 (1973)
The Impact of Environmental Concern on the Development of International Law

handle is hein.journals/narj13 and id is 373 raw text is: THE IMPACT OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW LUDWIK A. TECLAFF* THE ORIGIN OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAW Until the middle of the twentieth century environmental concern made but a small contribution to the shaping of international law; Throughout most of history there was little understanding of man's capacity to affect the environment on a large scale; and, even when this capacity increased to global dimensions, its implications were only slowly realized. The influence of environmental concern was initially confined to an area where ecosystems of neighboring states were most intimately linked and yet were not vast enough to readily absorb the impact of heavy use and development-that is, to transboundary rivers and lakes. It is in fluvial relations between states that we find the first attempts to apply the principles of good neighborliness and abuse of right. Lauterpacht's examples to support the applicability of abuse of right to international law come from water disputes.' Andrassy bolsters the principle of good neighborliness with analogies from state dealings concerning water resources.2 But the status of abuse of right as a general principle of law, and thus of international law, is far from established even today,3 and any restrictions on states' rights to deal as they pleased with transboun- dary waters within their borders were rejected, not only by many 19th-century writers4, but also by the practice of some leading states.5 The problem with general principles like good neighborliness and abuse of right is that they lack sufficient precision to permit their application with any degree of confidence in concrete cases; and they become superfluous in any area such as modern fluvial law in which more or less concrete rules are developed. However, from the beginning of the 19th century, neighborliness did force states to conclude treaties which, as a rule, limited their free use of transboun- dary waters in the frontier zone. These treaties placed a heavy *Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law. 1. H. Lauterpacht, The Function of Law in the International Community 290-94 passim (1933). 2. J. Andrassy, Les relations internationales de voisinage, Academie de Droit International, II Recueil des Cours 77-181 (1951). 3. E.g., F. Berber states: it has been seen beyond all doubt that such a rnle of the abuse of rights does not exist as a general principle of law recognised by civilised nations. Berber, Rivers in International Law 210 (1959). 4. Id., at 14. 5. Such as the United States, in the celebrated turn-of-the-century dispute with Mexico over waters of the Rio Grande, during which Attorney-General Harmon delivered the opinion that the United States was not bound by any rules, principles, and precedents of international law in making use of waters flowing through its territory. 21 Op. Att'y Gen. 267 (1895).

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most