Mitigating effects of sea-level rise on maritime features through the international law-making process in the Law of the Sea

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Increasing plastic pollution is looming worldwide, damaging biodiversity, marine ecosystems, and human health. At the global level, no overarching normative framework sets out the specific rules and principles of general application in international environmental law, leading to difficulties in compliance and enforcement of plastic pollution governance. Developing an effective and legally binding instrument to tackle this emerging issue is imperative. The United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) has called for developing an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment, based on plastic’s full lifecycle approach. As one of the active participants in the negotiations, the European Union (EU) has discussed various aspects of the instrument in detail and sought to introduce the EU governance experience at the international level. This article develops a framework that considers contextual, actor, and process factors to assess the extent of achieving EU targets. On this basis, we argue that the EU’s objectives for the international instrument may be achieved at a high level. However, how the EU responds to challenges will also impact subsequent development, which may require the EU to adopt a more moderate stance and compromise on some controversial issues.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflections on the European Union’s participation in negotiations of the global plastic pollution instrument under international environmental law

Xu,

Zhang,

Han

2024

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“…The UNFCCC addresses climate change and its impacts, rising sea levels due to melting polar glaciers, and warming and expanding ocean waters. The rise in sea level changes the coastal baselines, which are the starting points for measuring ocean areas, including continental shelves (Chen, 2022). The delineation of the ECS may also be affected if baselines shift due to a rise in sea level.…”

Section: Normmentioning

confidence: 99%

Binding force of extended continental shelf limits: investigating whether Article 76(8) of UNCLOS constitutes customary international law

Mao,

Li,

Liu

et al. 2023

International custom is considered to be the oldest and the original source of public international law. However, because it is unwritten, the identification of international custom has always been a controversial issue in the context of international law. Article 76(8) of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is the core article of the international system of laws governing the continental shelf. It stipulates the basic procedure for identifying the rights of coastal states to the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles (extended continental shelf, ECS) The issue of whether this paragraph constitutes customary international law is actually the question of whether the binding force of the limits of the ECS, which have been delineated based on recommendations of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, can extend to non-parties to the UNCLOS. This study starts with the “two elements” theory of traditional customary international law and then considers its new interpretation according to modern theories. Following this, the authors provide a jurisprudential and practical exploration of whether Article 76(8) of the UNCLOS constitutes customary international law from the perspectives of how treaties are used to form customary international law, and the current delineation practices of coastal states on the ECS.

“…Several shortcomings have been identified in the existing international legal framework, including the prevalence of softlaw instruments and the fragmentation of the international governance framework (Ferraro and Failler, 2020). Moreover, attempts to achieve new rules by applying any procedural option for international law-making in isolation may be impractical (Chen and Xu, 2022a). Thus, the resumed 5th United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-5.2) concluded with a resolution geared towards ending plastic pollution and completing a legally binding international instrument (referred to as "the instrument") in 2022, making a turning point in the battle against plastic pollution (UNEP, 2022).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflections on Japan’s participation in negotiations of the global plastic pollution instrument under international environmental law

Xu,

Zhang,

Guo

2023

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International negotiations towards a legally binding instrument on the global plastic pollution have obtained wide-ranging attention from international community. It is revealed that Japan has taken a conservative but proactive stance during negotiations. This study overviews Japan’s current legal framework on the management of plastic pollution including land and the sea. On this basis, the paper then analyzes Japan’s stance in the negotiations to examine the issues that are of most concern to Japan in international cooperation towards ending plastic pollution. It will further analyze Japan’s views on the legally binding instrument’s framework, operational mechanism and key components from the perspective of international environmental law. And it will also summarize Japan’s specific claims and objectives in the negotiations, and provide an evaluation of Japan’s stance.