Suchergebnisse

AbstractThis article explores the potential contribution of the development of a code of conduct to serve as a near‐term governance instrument to guide the responsible conduct of geoengineering research. This idea is grounded in the observation that geoengineering research and development processes are emerging within a polycentric governance landscape. A key feature of such systems is the recognition of an overarching system of rules which, inter alia, set out the key objectives to be achieved. To this end, the article presents the results of a multi‐year, transdisciplinary study that seeks to identify and describe salient legal concepts, norms, and processes relevant to the geoengineering research governance, and discusses how the interpretation and application of these may be promoted through the adoption of a flexible, voluntary instrument promulgated by various state and non‐state actors operating at different levels.

Abstract
This article explores the potential contribution of international human rights law – specifically, the oft-neglected 'right to science' – to the interpretation, operation and progressive development of international environmental law. Science and its applications play a critical role in environmental protection. At the same time, society faces persistent controversies at this interface. Environmental regimes may lack sufficient norms and tools for regulating upstream science and innovation processes because they tend to focus narrowly on physical harms to the environment and may not address the wider ethical, legal, social and political concerns. The human right to science, which is codified in various international and regional human rights instruments, may serve to augment international environmental law and contribute to more effective, equitable and democratically legitimate and accountable processes and outcomes in relation to the application of science and technology in environmental regimes. The article begins by outlining the scope and contents of, as well as the limitations on, the right to science, focusing on Article 15(1)(b) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and its overlaps with the norms of international environmental law.1 It then analyses the ways in which the right to science may influence the development of international environmental law by elucidating mechanisms for the integration of a human rights perspective in science and technology and by outlining its potential substantive contributions to the development of international environmental law.