Shawkat Alam, Sumudu Atapattu, Carmen G. Gonzalez and Jona Razzaque, International Environmental Law and the Global South

1. This volume opens with a paper entitled “The North-South Divide in International Environmental Law: Framing the Issues”. This article provides an overview of this volume and addresses the significance of the North-South division in the context of international environmental law. The paper concludes by “offering a North-South perspective grounded in the colonial encounter with environmental justice and sustainable development as overarching frameworks” (p. 19). The aim is to provide the multiple constituencies’ view, both in the North and the South, for a global readership. 2. Part I, “History of the North-South Divide and Global Environmental Governance”, consists of 6 articles. This part explores the theory, history and its colonial underpinnings of the North-South divide in international law (p. 23). A critical view of “[u]nsustainability” is, then, addressed, concluding that there is a need to “living below the consumer lifestyle in the global North but above the level of the most impoverished”, whether in the North or the South (p. 72). The importance of the South’s participation in the development and implementation of international environmental law is also emphasized in this part (pp. 145-149). It is perceived that the Southern States usually lack the technical expertise to participate in global environmental negotiations. Therefore, there is a need to build up capacity in the areas of finances, human resources, technical and policy domains (including its institutional framework) in order to cope with the issues of climate change, biodiversity and the hazardous waste trade

Colonialism · Context (archaeology · Corporate governance · Economics · Environmental governance · Environmental history · Environmental justice · Environmental law · Framing (construction · Geography · International law · Negotiation · Political science · Sociology · Sustainability · Sustainable development · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies · Ecology · Law