Historical Development of Environmental Law

▪About AD 80 the Senate of Rome passed legislation to protect the city’s supply of clean water for
drinking and bathing.

The Roman Aqueduct

▪The supply to public fountains took priority over the supply to public baths, and both took priority over
supplies to wealthier, fee-paying private users.

▪Some of the wealthiest citizens were given the right to a free supply, as a state honor. In cities and towns,
clean run-off water from aqueducts supported high consumption industries such as fulling and dying, and
industries that employed water but consumed almost none, such as milling.

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Historical Development of Environmental Law
▪In the 14th century England prohibited both the burning of coal in London and the disposal of
waste into waterways.

▪In 1681 the Quaker leader of the English colony of Pennsylvania, William Penn, ordered that
one acre of forest be preserved for every five acres cleared for settlement, and in the following
century Benjamin Franklin led various campaigns to curtail the dumping of waste.

▪In the 19th century, in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, the British government passed
regulations to reduce the deleterious effects of coal burning and chemical manufacture on
public health and the environment.

▪Prior to the 20th century there were few international environmental agreements.

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Ramsar Convention
▪Thirty-four countries in 1971 adopted the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as
Waterfowl Habitat, generally known as the Ramsar Convention for the city in Iran in which it was signed.

▪The agreement, which entered into force in 1975, now has nearly 100 parties.

▪It required all countries to designate at least one protected wetland area, and it recognized the important role of
wetlands in maintaining the ecological equilibrium.

What is a wetland?
As per the broad definition of Ramsar Convention, “Wetlands are “areas of marsh, fen, peatland or water, whether
natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt, including areas
of marine water the depth of which at low tide does not exceed six meters.”
Example of Wetlands
•Marine and coastal areas
•Lakes and rivers
•Marshes and peatlands
•Groundwater and human-made wetlands such as rice paddies, shrimp ponds, and reservoirs

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What is the purpose of the Ramsar Convention?

The convention works on three pillars that define the purpose of the Ramsar
Convention:

[Link] Use – To work towards the wise use of all wetlands

[Link] of Wetlands of International Importance – Designate suitable wetlands

under the Ramsar List to effectively manage those

[Link] Cooperation – To bring cooperation internationally over the

transboundary wetlands, shared wetland systems and shared species.

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 MONTREAL PROTOCOL
What it is?
• The “Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer” is a landmark
international agreement designed to protect the stratospheric ozone layer.

• The Montreal Protocol established the conditions that the production and
consumption of compounds that deplete ozone in the
stratosphere-chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), halons, carbon tetrachloride, and methyl
chloroform-are to be phased out by 2000 (2005 for methyl chloroform).

• The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has prepared a Montreal Protocol
Handbook that provides additional detail and explanation of the provisions.

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 Montreal Protocol – Important Points
▪It phases down the use of ODSs (ozone-depleting substances) in a stepwise, time-bound
manner.

▪It gives different timetables for developing and developed countries.

▪All member parties have specific responsibilities related to the phasing out of various groups of
ozone-depleting substances, controlling ODS trade, reporting of data annually, controlling export
and import of ODs, etc.

▪Developing and developed countries have equal but differentiated responsibilities.

▪However, both groups of nations have time-bound, binding, and measurable commitments under
the protocol, making it effective.

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 Montreal Protocol – Important Points
▪Under the protocol, there is a provision for it to be amended and adjusted according
to the new scientific, economic, and technological advancements made.

▪The Protocol has undergone nine amendments or revisions.

▪The governance body for the protocol is the Meeting of the Parties. Technical
support is given by the Open-ended Working Group. Both meet once every year.

▪The Parties are aided by the Ozone Secretariat, which is based at the headquarters
of the UN Environment Programmed (UNEP) at Nairobi.

▪It has been ratified by 197 Parties (196 member states of the UN plus the EU)
making it the first United Nations treaty to be ratified by every country in the world

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Montreal Protocol – Successes
▪With universal ratification and a time-bound binding framework, the Montreal Protocol has been
largely successful in setting out to achieving its mission of reversing the damage done to the ozone
layer.

▪It has been considered the most successful international environmental action taken by countries.

▪The Protocol has been successful in levelling off or decreasing the atmospheric concentrations of
the most important chlorofluorocarbons and related chlorinated hydrocarbons.

▪Although halon concentrations have gone up, their rate of increase has come down, and their
concentration is expected to decline by 2020.

▪The Protocol has successfully sent clear signals to the global market.

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Montreal Protocol – Successes
▪The full implementation of the Montreal Protocol is expected to help in the avoidance of over 280
million skin cancer incidents, almost 1.6 million deaths due to skin cancer, and millions of cases of
cataracts.

▪With the Protocol, the ozone layer is expected to recover by the year 2050.

▪Parties to the Protocol have been able to phase out 98% of ODSs compared to levels in 1990.

▪The Protocol is also helping fight climate change because most of the ODSs are also greenhouse
gases.

▪It is estimated that from 1990 to 2010, the protocol has helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions by
the equivalent of 135 gigatons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of 11 gigatons a year.

▪The Kigali Amendment, an amendment to the Protocol, has helped reduce HFC emission and
decrease global temperature rise.

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 KYOTO PROTOCOL

▪The Kyoto Protocol is an agreement made under the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

▪Countries that ratify this protocol commit to reduce their emissions of

carbon di-oxide and five other greenhouse gases.

▪The main treaty, UNFCCC was signed in 1992, followed by several

annual meetings, known as Conferences of the Parties (COP).

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Principles of Kyoto Protocols
▪Kyoto is underwritten by governments and is governed by global legislation enacted under the UN aegis

▪Governments are separated into two general categories: developed countries referred to as Annex 1 countries (Who have
accepted GHG reduction obligations): and developing countries, referred to as No-Annex Countries ( Who have no GHG
emission reduction obligations)

▪Any annex 1 country that fails to meet its Kyoto target will be penalized by having its reduction targets decreased by 30%
in the next period.

▪By 2008-2012 , Annex 1 countries have to reduce their GHG emissions by around 5% below their 1990 levels (for many
countries, such as the EU member states, the corresponds to some 15% below their expected GHG in 2008).

▪Kyoto includes “flexible mechanisms: which allow Annex 1 economies to meet their GHG targets by purchasing GHG
emission reductions from elsewhere. These can be bought either from financial exchanges (such as the new EU
Emissions Trading Scheme) or from projects which reduce emissions in non-Annex 1 economies under the Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM) or in other Annex 1 countries under the J1.

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 Cont….
▪Only CDM Executive Board accredited Certificate Emission Reductions can be brought

and sold in this manner. Under the aegis of UN, Kyoto established this Board-Based

Clean Development Mechanism Executive Board to asses and approve projects in

non-Annex economies prior to awarding CERs.

▪What this means in practice is that Non-Annex 1 Economies have no GHG emission

restrictions , but when a GHG emission reduction project (a “GHG Project”) is

implemented in these countries, that GHG Project will receive Carbon Credits which

can be sold to Annex 1 buyers.

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Cont….

• The Kyoto linking mechanism are in place for two main reasons:
• The cost of complying with Kyoto is prohibitive for many Annex 1 countries ( especially
those countries, such as Japan or the Netherlands for example, with highly efficient, low
GHG polluting industries, and high prevailing environmental standards). Kyoto therefore
allows these countries to purchase Carbon Credit instead of reducing GHG emissions
domestically;
• This is seen as a means of encouraging the Non-annex 1 developing economies to reduce
GHG emissions since doing so is now economically viable because of sale of Carbon
Credits.

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Objectives

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 Status of The Agreement
Dec. 11, 1997: The Kyoto Protocol is adopted at the Conference of the Parties (COP 3) in Kyoto, Japan.

March 16, 1998: The Kyoto Protocol becomes open for signatures.

Feb. 16, 2005: The Kyoto Protocol is entered into force.

As of October 2006, a total of 166 countries and other governmental entities have ratified the agreement
(representing over 61.6% of emissions from Annex 1 countries). Notable exceptions include the United Sates and
Australia. Other countries ,like India and China, which have ratified the protocol, are not required to reduce
carbon emissions under the present agreement despite their relative large population.

Dec. 8, 2012: The Doha Amendment is adopted for a second commitment period

March 25, 2013: Afghanistan becomes the 192nd signatory of the Kyoto Protocol As of August 2022, there
remains 192 signatories.

Dec. 12, 2015: The Paris Agreement is adopted by 196 parties at COP21 in Paris, largely superseding the Kyoto
Protocol.

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