Whether from public or private sources, whether regional or global, on a regular basis numerous and lengthy reports bear witness to the continued deterioration of the state of the environment. At the beginning of the 21st century, environmental changes are of great concern and in several respects carry the risk of being irreversible. The latest environmental assessment issued by UNEP, referred to as “GEO3” for Global Environmental Outlook, warns of continued deforestation and loss of biodiversity at an unprecedented pace in the history of humankind. According to the report, “the increasing pace of change and degree of interaction between regions and issues has made it more difficult than ever to look into the future with confidence” (UNEP, 2002). The World Bank's report on World Development in 2003 notes that the next fifty years could see world population increase by 50% reaching 9 billion people and a fourfold increase in gross domestic product reaching 140 billion dollars. This kind of growth risks, by its unreasonable expansion and unequal distribution, provoking social and environmental tensions threatening development efforts and living conditions. For more than thirty years, legal instruments have been used to protect the environment, and specifically international law when the stakes involve a strong transnational aspect. International environmental law has experienced remarkable growth both in quantity and in scope. Following a “frenetic” normative phase, during which the objective was to build a body of rules and little attention was paid to implementation, a relative ineffectiveness of the legal instruments adopted was observed. At the beginning of the 90s, legal scholars and practitioners started thinking about the reasons for such relative ineffectiveness and possible solutions. Lawyers and experts in international relations follow the same trend: after having focused mostly on the terms of adoption and the substance of international regimes, they are now focusing on implementation (RISSE, 2000). Until then, a rationalistic bias had lead to the hasty conclusion that: (1) governments make commitments only after having determined that these are in their interests, (2) and therefore they generally implement treaties and comply with their commitments and that (3) if they do not do so, sanctions will be applied to “punish” non-compliance as well as to deter other potential breaches. Reality is totally different and a lot more subtle, in particular in the environmental field where many diverse reasons can motivate States to make commitments, and where they sometimes make them without even intending to implement the commitments, or they otherwise attempt to implement their commitments but lack the necessary means (BROWN WEISS & JACOBSON, 1998). The issue of effectiveness has gradually become a major field of research in economics and international relations, and in international law (SPRINZ, 2000), giving rise to various analyses, from the most empirical to the most theoretical, with writers attempting to qualify or even quantify (CARSTEN & SPRINZ, 2000; SPRINZ, 2003) the degree of effectiveness of instruments and to explain the disparities observed. As part of a constantly evolving legal and institutional order, understanding these phenomena is a crucial preliminary requirement before attempting to strengthen the body of rules and instruments, and more broadly, improving the international “governance” of the environment. This is a burning issue. In spite of intense diplomatic activity, Heads of State and Governments which met during the Earth Summit Rio+5 in New York in June 1997 admitted they were “deeply concerned that the overall trends with respect to sustainable development [were] worse today than they were in 1992” and committed “[them]selves to ensuring that the next comprehensive review of Agenda 21 in the year 2002 demonstrates greater measurable progress in achieving sustainable development.” Five years later, the Johannesburg Declaration echoed this pessimistic assessment: “The global environment continues to suffer.” “Loss of biodiversity continues, fish stocks continue to be depleted, desertification claims more and more fertile land, the adverse effects of climate change are already evident, natural disasters are more frequent and more devastating, and developing countries more vulnerable, and air, water and marine pollution continue to rob millions of a decent life.” ... This study attempts first to describe and assess monitoring and implementation mechanisms (Section I), and second to put forward a few trails for improving and strengthening these mechanisms (Section II).

https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00426417/document

Mechanisms for monitoring and implementation of international environmental protection agreements

In Japan, as in many other countries, there is a growing sector of people engaged in work with contracts other than a standard employment contract. There is often a lack of awareness of employment-related obligations, perhaps also due to the asymmetry of information. This scenario concerns not only relations between those who benefit from the work and those who perform it, but also tripartite relations where there is more than one employer or where the person who employs the workers is different from the person who exercises direction and control over the work performance. This uncertainty entails an increase in employment disputes due to the need to establish employers’ liability or workers’ rights. In order to prevent court action, to increase the level of certainty in these relationships, and to promote fair labour relations as a way of enhancing work productivity, in 2003 Italian lawmakers have introduced the “certification of contracts” through the so-called “Biagi Law”. The certification of contracts is a procedure which verifies whether or not a contract complies with the law by establishing the nature of the relationship and the applicable law. This certification is also used as a tool for the qualification of companies who perform high-risk work in order to guarantee compliance with health and safety regulations. Certification may be seen as a special kind of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) aimed at a fair management of human resources, as well as conferring a competitive edge on certain companies over those which have not obtained certification. Certification could also be useful to public finance, as it could permit a reduction in the cost of inspections without threat to the labour market.

https://www.jil.go.jp/profile/documents/G.Gamberini.pdf

The Possible Implementation of 'Certification of Contracts' in the Japanese Legal System

Mécanismes internationaux de suivi et de mise en œuvre des conventions internationales de protection de l'environnement / Mechanisms for Monitoring and Implementation of International Environmental Protection Agreements

The field of business and human rights has recently seen many seminal developments in the creation of national and international binding and soft law standards in order to protect human dignity of rights holders. This article revisits the function, role and scope of the 2017 version of the ILO Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy. It asks if there is a need for its reform? It first provides in Sect. 2 a brief historical background and explore the its legal nature. Section 3 examines the contents of the revised Tripartite Declaration focusing on labour and/or human rights provisions thereby providing a critical account of provisions included or omitted. Section 4, thereafter, describes and critically analyses its implementation tools from promotion to interpretation procedure and provides a critical assessment of their usefulness for rights-holders. Equipped with the knowledge from previous sections, Sect. 5 thereafter provides an overall analysis and assessment of the recent revisions of the ILO Tripartite Declaration outlining both its advantages and disadvantages; places it in the wider context of standard-setting in business and human rights and provides some suggestions how to reform it and to better realize its potential. This article, therefore, argues that the ILO Governing Body should rephrase the vague and conditional language of the Tripartite Declaration and improve its implementation tools, particularly the interpretation procedures by opening it to individual claimants. In this way, it would emancipate the rights-holders to enforce the core labour rights included in the Declaration against adverse corporate conduct.

The ILO Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy Revisited: Is There a Need for Its Reform?

Many authors have recently put forward that no international legal regime offers an sufficient protection to those displaced as a result of climate change, and that such a regime is needed. This paper argues that governing international climate change-induced migration requires to overcome three fundamental challenges: reconciling individual fundamental rights with state sovereignty, the complexity of the environmental inducement to migration with a somewhat simplified legal framework, and equity consideration with unequal diplomatic influence. Furthermore, it identifies alternatives narratives, actions and actors which could participate in the invention of a necessarily new governance model. Thus, it shows that expanding or replicating the Refugee Convention to 'environmental refugees' is not possible, nor desirable: new forms of international governance must be invented.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm?abstractid=1955819

Governing International Climate Change-Induced Migration: The Chaos and the Dancing Star

Forthcoming, Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies INTRODUCTION For at least three decades, it has been quite common in the United States to talk of the coming of the Asian Century. Since the publication in 1979 of Ezra Vogel’s Japan as Number One, 1 Americans have been fascinated with the rise of Japan and then China, and the corresponding reports of the decline of the United States. This psychology may have intensified with the 2008-09 financial crisis and the understanding that China is now playing a central role in assuring global financial, and thereby political, stability. Notwithstanding some Orientalist hyperbole, there is no doubt that Asia has been, and will continue to be, a region of rising power, responsible for an increasing share of world output, innovation, and power, even as the United States declines in relative terms. What will the rise of Asia, mean for global governance? Oddly, I believe that any ―Eastphalian‖ world order will mean a return to Westphalia, at least as modern international lawyers understand the term. Drawing its name from the 1648 treaties ending the Thirty Years’ War and the Eighty Years’ War, Westphalia stands for principles of mutual noninterference, an emphasis on sovereignty, and formal equality of states. Eastphalia, should it materialize, will

Eastphalia as the perfection of westphalia

There seems to be an apparent, but not an obvious, difference in underlying philosophies of various intergovernmental institutions, even within the UN family. The author picks up a case of collaboration between the ILO and the WFP to highlight a possible clash of activities undertaken by these two organizations and describes the actual solution found between them. He concludes that similar solutions should be sought for where conflicts arise between different intergovernmental organizations, which share international public interest as their ultimate goal.

'Clash' of Operational and Normative Activities of International Institutions

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, contained in a resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council, are basically a non-binding instrument that does not legally oblige UN member States, nor enterprises, to implement the principles enshrined therein. However, the UN organs, such as the Human Rights Council, have been following up the recommendations made in the resolution and set up various mechanisms, such as the Global Forum on Business and Human Rights to review the states’ and enterprises’ practices or the Inter-governmental Working Group, to, inter alia, try to formulate a legally binding treaty. Specialized Agencies, and other regional institutions have, as a matter of their own mandate, also actually responded to the recommendation of the Human Rights Council and conducted a number of activities that amounted to an actual follow-up of the original instrument. This chapter analyses those activities conducted by the ILO on their own, but which have a bearing on the implementation of the UNGP in practice. It concludes that the historical (over 90 years old) mechanism of supervision plays an important role also here in the implementation of the UNGP, in the area of labour and social rights, with a caveat that rights protected by international labour standards are basically collective (i.e., collective employment relations are targeted in most cases, except for instruments, such as those against forced labour where infringement of an individual’s right can also be addressed), and individuals cannot lodge complaints and demand remedy. Observance of international labour standards is a matter of the government and enterprises are not directly accountable to the ILO standards. Reference is also made to the peculiar ILO instrument called Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy, which may serve as an additional tool to implement a part of the UN Guiding Principle, but with lesser degree compared to the traditional mechanisms to supervise the application of the international labour standards.

Supervision of International Labour Standards as a Means of Implementing the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights

The paper studies the status of labour law in Asian countries and observes that international labour standards should be applied rather than actual enforcement rendered by making use of a social clause in a trade agreement.

International Labour Standards in Asia and the Role of Emerging CSR Codes

Abstract This note tries to determine the most appropriate way to position international administrative tribunals (established by a number of inter-governmental organizations) in the public international legal order, and identify the substance of the so-called international administrative law applied therein. There is an emerging group of laws arising from numerous international administrative tribunal decisions that form a substantive body of legal rules applicable therein: a law of international civil service. Judges in those tribunals, who look for an appropriate source whenever they face a non-liquet situation, use the concept of international administrative law to overcome such difficulties. Judges should not hide themselves behind an ambiguous notion of international administrative law or general principles, but apply the law of international civil service with confidence.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/4D1E2464736CBBCC0C7E3B84A40BCB81/S2044251322000169a.pdf/div-class-title-a-few-thoughts-about-the-concepts-of-international-administrative-tribunals-and-international-administrative-law-div.pdf

Shin-ichi Ago

Papers

Eastphalia as the perfection of westphalia

'Clash' of Operational and Normative Activities of International Institutions

Supervision of International Labour Standards as a Means of Implementing the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights

International Labour Standards in Asia and the Role of Emerging CSR Codes

A Few Thoughts about the Concepts of International Administrative Tribunals and International Administrative Law