Category:Environmental Laws: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:51, 1 July 2016

United States

(Updated: 2016)

The recent U.S. elections have produced a 'turn-back-the-clock caucus' in the US Congress. The resulting efforts to roll back environmental laws passed with success over the yrs will present a challenge to profound green progress. We should consider again the beginning of the green era in the U.S. and successive accomplishments in law and practice that clearly deserve to be built upon, not to be dismantled by retro-policies.

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Global/International

List of International Environmental Agreements

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Montreal Protocol - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol - Due to its widespread adoption and implementation it has been hailed as an example of exceptional international co-operation, with Kofi Annan quoted as saying that "perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date has been the Montreal Protocol" ... When comparing this very success story with attempts to establish an international policy on the Earth's climate or atomic energy, the entire process from a problem formulation to a global acceptance supported by a legal framework took less than a quarter of a single human generation live span.

Among the treaty's accomplishments are: The Montreal Protocol was the first international treaty to address a global environmental regulatory challenge; the first to embrace the "precautionary principle" in its design for science-based policymaking; the first treaty where independent experts on atmospheric science, environmental impacts, chemical technology, and economics, reported directly to Parties, without edit or censorship, functioning under norms of professionalism, peer review, and respect; the first to provide for national differences in responsibility and financial capacity to respond by establishing a multilateral fund for technology transfer; the first MEA with stringent reporting, trade, and binding chemical phase-out obligations for both developed and developing countries; and, the first treaty with a financial mechanism managed democratically by an Executive Board with equal representation by developed and developing countries.

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List of Environmental Law Suits

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Note: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investor-state_dispute_settlement Investor-State Dispute Settlement / ISDS]

Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) is an instrument of public international law, that grants an investor the right to use dispute settlement proceedings against a foreign government. Provisions for ISDS are contained in a number of bilateral investment treaties, in certain international trade treaties, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (Chapter 11) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (Chapters 9 and 28). ISDS is also found in international investment agreements, such as the Energy Charter Treaty. If an investor from one country (the "Home State") invests in another country (the "Host State"), both of which have agreed to ISDS, and the Host State violates the rights granted to the investor under public international law, then that investor may bring the matter before an arbitral tribunal. So, for example, if after an investor has acquired the right to sell cigarettes in a Host State, the Home State imposes a heavy tax on cigarettes (because they are carcinogenic), then the investor sue for his losses: This is a great protection for corporate investment, and a recognition of the primacy of corporate profits.

"If you wanted to convince the public that international trade agreements are a way to let multinational companies get rich at the expense of ordinary people, this is what you would do: give foreign firms a special right to apply to a secretive tribunal of highly paid corporate lawyers for compensation whenever a government passes a law to, say, discourage smoking, protect the environment or prevent a nuclear catastrophe. Yet that is precisely what thousands of trade and investment treaties over the past half century have done, through a process known as 'investor-state dispute settlement', or ISDS."

— Via The Economist, October 2014

Note: In early January 2016, the TransCanada corporation announced it would initiate an ISDS claim under NAFTA against the United States, seeking $15 billion in damages and calling the denial of a permit for Keystone XL "arbitrary and unjustified."

January 2016 / News Via The Globe and Mail

See Also:

(SJS: The legal provisions and politics of many trade agreements act to undercut and 'water down' environmental laws. The on-the-ground reality of many provisions within existing trade agreements that act against environmental law protections remain one of the foremost challenges for greens and the environmental movement. One necessity among many is to point out the problems with secret administrative rulings of trade treaties, the "ISDS" sections in the treaties, and reform/rewrite these sections to enable worker/environmental protections across economic systems and national borders. This is a "blue-green", labor-environment alliance, that needs to be continually developed for steady progress, locally and globally.)

General Agreement on Tariffs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Agreement_on_Tariffs_and_Trade

International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Centre_for_Settlement_of_Investment_Disputes

International Investment Agreement - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_investment_agreement

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement

Tran-Pacific Partnership (TPP) - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_investment_agreement

Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership

United Nations Commission on International Trade Law - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Commission_on_International_Trade_Law

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Siterunner / SJS: Reflecting about the 1992 US presidential campaign when I served in a number of roles as a Sr advisor to Jerry Brown.

One memory comes into view as the subject of environmental laws is discussed here at GreenPolicy. This is the NAFTA controversy, the treaty that was being debated between our campaign and the Clinton campaign. We opposed the treaty as it was negotiated, the Clinton campaign and much of the 'new' Democratic party as reflected in the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) supported it.

In the presidential debates at one point I was preparing briefing materials for Governor Brown and what we were focusing on was what we called the 'watering down' of worker and environmental law protections that had been so hard won over the years in the US. What we were saying is that, with the passage of these treaties as written, there would be 'a race to the bottom' and with trade treaties like NAFTA and GATT were costly in many ways that would set back progress on multiple fronts, from jobs to environmental protection and security. Why? Because of provisions that allowed 'secret tribunals' to arbitrate and decide on disputes over 'non-tariff trade barriers', i.e, worker and environmental protection laws.

The history of the 1992 campaign also illustrated how the Perot campaign (which eventually received 19% of the general election vote and was instrumental in the election of Bill Clinton, who received 43% of the vote) took up the Brown campaign motto and themes, including opposition to the NAFTA, agreement but did not focus in on the extra-admistrative authority contained in Investor-state dispute mechanisms and so-called non-tariff trade barriers.

The recent action by a Canadian corporation to sue the US for $15 billion in 'damages' over the US rejection of the XL gas pipeline based upon study and evidence of environmental and climate damage, is just one example of multiple instances where the tribunal's actions are a front- and back-end threat to progress on worker/environmental law that benefits the commons and, in the case of climate policy, is essential for global and national security.