Part II Analytical Approaches, Ch.13 Ethical Considerations

Subject(s):

International environmental law — Ethical standards

This chapter focuses on the dominant philosophical values currently operating within international environmental law. Collectively, international environmental law operates in a maze of anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric values. Often these values overlap both within and between regimes, and conflicts are relatively rare. Although anthropocentric values are more common than non-anthropocentric ones, there is no one dominant philosophical value that towers above others in international environmental law. Non-anthropocentric values are also becoming particularly noticeable across a large range of topics. However, what is obvious in international environmental law is that the debates about the philosophical value of the environment are not novel. In the space of twenty years, debates which were once the exclusive province of philosophy journals have moved to the core of many of the most high-profile international regimes which are seeking to resolve some of the most pressing difficulties of the twenty-first century.