This volume examines the impact of globalization on international environmental law and the implementation of sustainable development in the Global South. Comprising contributions from lawyers from the Global South or who have experience in the Global South, this volume is organized into three parts, with a thematic inquiry woven through every chapter to ask how law can enable economies that can be sustained, given the limited carrying capacity of the earth. Part I describes and characterizes the status quo of environmental and economic problems in the Global South during the process of globalization. Some of those problems include redistribution of environmental burden on the public through over-reliance on the state in emerging economies and the transition to public-private partnerships, as well as extreme uncontrolled economic expansion. Building on Part I, Part II takes an international perspective by presenting some tools that are in place during the process of globalization that lead to friction and interfaces between developed and developing economies in environmental law. Recognizing the impossibility of a globalized Northern economy, the authors in Part III present some alternatives through framework ideas of human and civil rights, environmental rights, and indigenous persons’ rights, as well as concrete and specific legal tools to strengthen justice and rule of law institutions. The book gives new perspectives to familiar approaches through concrete examples by professional practitioners and theoretical discourse by academic researchers, and can thereby form the basis for changes in practices, as well as further discussions and comparisons. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental law, sustainable development, and globalization and international relations, as well as legal professionals and practitioners.

State-of-the-art examination of the critical effects of globalisation on environmental governance.

“Globalization” is a word with many meanings. Some people say globalization is responsible for having lifted millions of people out of poverty over the past decades. Other people say that globalization is neocolonialism. All will agree that the processes that accompany globalization have had tremendous impacts on the environment. Commodification of the environment along with environmental degradation have led to an almost universal awareness of the negative effects of such crises as disrupted climate. The conservation and restoration of the environment, as well as the protection of biodiversity are essential for human life, including its economic components. The international community has responded to the challenge by shifting away from the Brundtland Commission's intergenerational concept of “development which meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” to equating “development” with economic development under the New York Convention. and reserving a third and separate pillar for economics over and against social concern and the environment. However promising the concepts “sustainable development” and “sustainability” may have been, they have become overused and meaningless. Like worn-out coins, they became just placeholders. To re-inscribe meaning in the metal of sustainable development, the authors in this book examine environmental problems caused, facilitated or exacerbated by globalization, as seen from the perspectives of the Global South and emerging economies. Investments, trade and technological advances are key driving forces of transition in these countries. The economic development component (also known as “green-growth” policies) may be preferred by globalizing forces, which also regard it as most suitable to cope with climate disruption, for example. With the globalization of economics comes some aspects of the globalization of law. The globalization of environmental law that is currently under formation in the Global South addresses the integration of the ecological and economic components by analyzing the contribution of emerging and developing economies. Sometimes, environmental law is part of the solutions; sometimes environmental law is part of the problems. In this book, the terms “Global South” and “emerging economies” are included as alternative conceptualizations to the “developed” and “developing” countries. But this alternative conceptualization itself is a divide that enables globalization.In the chapters of this book, the perspectives of the Global South and emerging economies are presented by lawyers from Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Mongolia, Nigeria, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, as well as from the European states of France, Georgia, Germany and Slovakia. The authors are natives of either emerging economies or of the Global South, or work extensively in those regions. All of the book's themes are mentioned in the title: globalization, environmental law, sustainable development, the Global South, implementation and challenges.

In this work, the authors offer a unified, transdisciplinary approach for achieving sustainable development in industrialized nations. They present an insightful analysis of the ways in which industrial states are unsustainable and how economic and social welfare are related to the environment, public health and safety.

Processes of globalization have changed the world in many, often fundamental, ways. Increasingly these processes are being debated and contested. This Handbook offers a timely, rich as well as critical panorama of these multifaceted processes with up-to-date chapters by renowned specialists from many countries. It comprises chapters on the historical background of globalization, different geographical perspectives (including world systems analysis and geopolitics), the geographies of flows (of people, goods and services, and capital), and the geographies of places (including global cities, clusters, port cities, and the impact of climate change).

This book looks in detail at how globalisation has affected activity levels in maritime shipping, aviation, and road and rail freight, and assesses the impact that changes in activity levels have had on the environment.

Put quite simply, the twin impacts of globalization and environmental degradation pose new security dangers and concerns. In this new work on global security thinking, 91 authors from five continents and many disciplines, from science and practice, assess the worldwide reassessment of the meaning of security triggered by the end of the Cold War and globalization, as well as the multifarious impacts of global environmental change in the early 21st century.

Globalization and the Environment critically explores the actors, politics and processes that govern the relationship between globalization and the environment. Taking key aspects of globalisation in turn - trade, production and finance - the book highlights the relations of power at work that determine whether globalization is managed in a sustainable way and on whose behalf. Each chapter looks in turn at the political ecology of these central pillars of the global economy, reviewing evidence of its impact on diverse ecologies and societies, its governance - the political structures, institutions and policy making processes in place to manage this relationship - and finally efforts to contest and challenge these prevailing approaches. The book makes sense of the relationship between globalisation and the environment using a range of theoretical tools from different disciplines. This helps to place the debate about the compatibility between globalisation and sustainability in an explicitly political and historical context in which it is possible to appreciate the ‘nature’ of interests and power relations that privilege some ways of responding to environmental problems over others in a context of globalisation.

This book presents an overview of the key debates that took place during the Economic and Social Council meetings at the 2007 High-level Segment, at which ECOSOC organized its first biennial Development Cooperation Forum. The discussions also revolved around the theme of the second Annual Ministerial Review, "Implementing the internationally agreed goals and commitments in regard to sustainable development."--P. 4 of cover.