20.5: Resources and References

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Review

Key Points

The scientific understandings that humanity is utterly dependent on the natural environment,and that all life is inter-connected, needs to be incorporated in law, policy and governance.
All components of human security are inter-related, and all components of human security are directly and indirectly affected by the natural environment.
Human security is the concern of all humanity, even if global governance has not yet evolved to provide the processes or structure to support this understanding.
Justice and equity are crucial to understanding human security and GEG, to protecting humanity and the foundations of life. The impacts of environmental harms, and so their correlating impacts on human security, occur disproportionately to the poor and marginalized, to women, elderly and children, to people of minority faiths, limited opportunity and indigenous tribes.
GEG, as an extension of global governance, has the same challenges as global governance, including the power of state sovereignty, and power of particular states, to control or not participate in global negotiations, or to not be held accountable for harms outside their borders; the rise of nationalism among states; and the difficulty to motivate citizens to care about abstract issues or people far away. Particular to GEG is the sectoral nature of global ‘environmental’ governance that places it in competition with other issues; the absence of urgency, seriousness, and even justice for environmental harms; and the absence of a governing body for global environmental jurisprudence, its drafting, implementation and enforcement.
A more relational approach to global governance, as seen through the ethical and legal principle of ubuntu, and a less sectoral approach to environmental protection, could address some of the current challenges of GEG.

.Extension Activities & Further Research

What are the duties of the state, and how do those duties relate to others outside their borders?
If you could re-construct the GEG framework, how would you do so to be most effective to protect the natural environment and human security? For example, how would you incorporate limits to growth?
Why is GEG not afforded the same seriousness as more enforceable international treaties and agreements—such as world trade regimes? What would it take to heighten the seriousness of GEG agreements?
How do you think states can or should be held accountable for harms that they create outside their borders?
Identify two conflicting approaches within GEG and explain why you think one is a more effective approach than the other in advancing the general aims of GEG (e.g. the arguments around trophy hunting, cap and trade regimes, etc.).
Please identify a global environmental crisis and explain how it relates to human security, why you believe it has become a crisis, and how you would advise the parties of GEG to confront it.
Please identify five local, five regional, and five international non-governmental or governmental organizations that directly or indirectly inform GEG, and provide a brief background of their purpose, their guiding principles, and their methodology.
Referring to the seven challenges to GEG (second last item on the initial list of Big Ideas), describe some illustrative examples from the current news.
What do you personally foresee as the future evolution of GEG?

List of Terms

See Glossary for full list of terms and definitions.

global environmental governance (GEG)
global governance
governance
rooted cosmopolitanism
ubuntu

References

Dalai Lama. (1992, June 7). Universal responsibility and the global environment: Address at the Rio Earth Summit. https://www.dalailama.com/messages/e...al-environment

Epicurus. (1926). Epicurus: The extant remains (C. Bailey, Trans.). Clarendon Press. https://archive.org/details/Epicurus...ge/n1/mode/2up (Original work published ca. 300 B.C.E.)

Gwiazdon, K. A. (2018). The state versus the environment: The ethical and legal implications for state non-action in protecting the foundations of life. In L. Westra, K. Bosselmann, J. Gray, & K. Gwiazdon (Eds.), Ecological integrity, law and governance. Routledge.

Hegel, G. W. F. (1991). Hegel: Elements of the philosophy of right (A. W. Wood, Ed.; H. B. Nisbet, Trans.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511808012

Hobbes, T. (1881). Leviathan; Or, the matter, forme, and power of a commonwealth ecclesiasticall and civill. J. Thornton. (Original work published 1651)

International Criminal Court Office of the Prosecutor. (2016). Policy paper on case selection and prioritisation. https://www.icc-cpi.int/Pages/item.a...prioritisation

Metz, T. (2017, October 4). What Archbishop Tutu’s ubuntu credo teaches the world about justice and harmony. The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/what-arch...-harmony-84730

Najam, A., Papa, M., & Taiyab, N. (2006). Global environmental governance: A reform agenda. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/publications/gl...-reform-agenda

Nussbaum, M. C. (2011). Creating capabilities: The human development approach. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Nussbaum, M. C. (2013). Political emotions: Why love matters for justice. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Pattberg, P., & Zelli, F. (Eds.). (2016). Environmental politics and governance in the Anthropocene: Institutions and legitimacy in a complex world. Routledge.

Phillips, W. (1861). Disunion: Two discourses at Music Hall, on January 20th, and February 17th, 1861. Robert F. Wallcut.

Sen, A. (2009). The idea of justice. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Strong, M. (1992, June 3). Opening statement to the Rio Summit. MauriceStrong.net. https://www.mauricestrong.net/index....=165&Itemid=86

Tutu, D. (1999). No future without forgiveness. Doubleday.

United Nations. (2012). Follow-up to paragraph 143 on human security of the 2005 World Summit Outcome (UN A/RES/66/290). https://www.un.org/ga/search/viewm_d...l=A/RES/66/290

UN. (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development (UN A/RES/70/1). https://sustainabledevelopment.un.or...ld/publication

United Nations Development Programme. (1994). Human development report 1994: New dimensions of human security. http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human...nt-report-1994

UNDP. (2014). Human development report 2014 – Sustaining human progress: Reducing vulnerabilities and building resilience. http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human...nt-report-2014

Footnote

See generally the UN Harmony with Nature programme (www.harmonywithnatureun.org) which is the most complete compilation available of city and state action to incorporate legally-recognized rights for nature.
For more information on the Earth Charter, see, http://www.earthcharter.org, http://www.celdf.org and Chapter 16.
For an article that explores this topic, see Gwiazdon, Kathryn. (2017). International Law and Human Security: The Environmental and Geopolitical Impacts of China’s Artificial Island-Building at Fiery Cross Reef. In: Westra L., Gray J., Gottwald FT. (eds), The Role of Integrity in the Governance of the Commons. New York, New York: Springer International Publishing.
See Chapter 6 for a detailed description of the ICJ’s activities and powers.
In Chapter 11 such artificially constructed boundaries are referred to as ontologically subjective; they are contracted against ontologically objective concepts such as the abovementioned ‘scientific truths’.
Note: This quote is often improperly cited to Alexander Hamilton. The accurate citation is Philipps, Wendell. (1894). Speeches, Lectures, and Letters. Volume 1. Boston: Lee and Shepard. For a thorough exploration of the theory of justice, see also John Rawls, “Justice is the first virtue of social institutions” in Rawls, John. (1971). The Theory of Justice. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Cambridge University.
Hegel concludes §216, “It is patent to the most idle reflection that the most excellent, noble, and beautiful can be conceived of as still more excellent, noble, and beautiful. A large old tree branches more and more without becoming a new tree in the process; it would be folly, however, not to plant a new tree for the reason that it was destined in time to have new branches.” (Hegel, 1991, p. 214).

Review

.Extension Activities & Further Research

List of Terms

Suggested Reading

References

Footnote