Environmental law is a relatively recent idea that encompasses a wide range of topics such as climate change, energy sources, pollution, and corporate social responsibility. Sinha stated that environmental conservation cannot be realized without sufficient laws. Environmental education and raising environmental awareness are two vital ways to ensure that the environment is conserved for future generations. At the level of international conventional law, environmental measures have been provided for, expressed, and acknowledged as a framework for legislation. The European Union and the United Nations are some of the main parties that enforce these laws, as a method of protecting our environment. In this essay, I am going to explore the importance of environmental law in protecting our environment through an analysis of its two main policies.
One of the main principles of environmental law is environmental human rights. It was conceived in the Tehran Conference, which resulted in the promulgation of human rights agreements. It declared that all human rights are interrelated and indivisible, allowing complicated concerns like environmental rights to be considered. To characterize the relationship between human rights and the environment, complementary approaches were designed, with the most proficient one being that international environmental laws incorporate and utilize those human rights guarantees deemed necessary or important to ensure effective environmental protection. Giving human rights to the environment has enabled countries and organizations to enforce more laws to enable better protection of their environment.
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A prevalent example of how this law has been a success is giving the Whanganui River in New Zealand environmental personhood. Gordon (2017) explained that giving environmental personhood is the emergent concept of defining aspects of the environment as legal entities and independent persons. In 2014, the Whanganui River was protected by the Te Urewera Act, which gives the board the right to govern the area and its interests. The membership of the board is composed of the tribal group and representatives of the crown. This gives them the ability to administer funds to support the health and conservation of the river.
Enforcing this law also enables people to be held accountable for wrongdoing, as well as resolving disagreements between different stakeholders. Looking at law in a holistic approach, the success of the Whanganui River may inspire more healthy and sustainable solutions to legal problems around the world by recognizing the environment as people. It also highlights the role law plays in the contests over fundamental values and draws attention to the contribution that this legislation provides to the ongoing discussion concerning land, authority, and colonization.
The polluter pays principle is the second policy I want to explore in the context of the importance of environmental law. Tilton (2016) explained that this principle means that businesses and countries should be held accountable for the entire costs of their existing pollution to society. This policy is important as it improves both efficiency and shared equitable perceptions. The sanctions will cover all environmental costs, not only those that are immediately economically measurable but also those that have a detrimental cost to the environment. This principle can be used internationally to promote law and legislation as a mechanism to protect the environment.
Zhao and Zhu's (2015) study of the application of this principle to ship-source pollution in Hong Kong highlights its importance for limiting and compensating ship-source pollution, as well as the idea of implementing steps to fully implement it. The protection of Hong Kong's marine environment is concerned with pollution from ships. To control and rectify ship-source pollution, when the polluter is responsible, a thorough legal and policy framework has already been constructed to enforce justice and responsibility. This has found a reduced number of breaches in pollution from shipping companies as they are more concerned with the responsibility they now have. Another example of the polluter pays principle is Smith Lake and Mariano Lake, in New Mexico. Gallagher (2021) explains that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) collaborated with other departments to produce a five-year plan to address abandoned uranium mines in the Pacific Southwest in 2008. The polluter pays principle was enforced on the Homestake Mining Company of California as the abandoned uranium mines had contaminated the lakes and become a safety hazard and was estimated to cost $500,000.
These examples have shown the ability to put the responsibility on polluters as an effective mechanism for environmental protection. It enables firms, businesses, and countries to be held accountable for their actions and therefore gives them financial incentives to minimize the potential pollutants generated. This could lead to more investment into more clean and environmentally friendly technologies and methods. It also is supported by a vast percentage of the public as it takes the burden off taxpayers who are affected by pollution in their local areas.
Environmental protection is currently an important area of international regulations with the purpose of global action and at the same time a difficult task. Environmental law can be used as an effective mechanism for this (as evidenced by the implementation of environmental human rights and the polluter pays principle discussed in this essay), which implies its crucial importance.
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