Foreword

• Author: Scott Fulton and Nicholas A. Robinson
• Profession: President, Environmental Law Institute Member of the International Council of Environmental Law/Executive Governor, International Council of Environmental Law Member of the Board of the Environmental Law Institute
• Pages: 13-19

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Foreword

Scott Fulton and Nicholas A. Robinson

Maria Antonia Tigre provides a deep dive into the challenges that character-

ize international environmental law today. Her study describes contempo-

rary negotiations about how, and even whether, to clarify and strengt hen the

norms that guide actions aecting the environment. e debates described

here are about the future, but they rest on the foundation of the past ve

decades during which environmental law wa s created.

Fifty years ago, both the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) and the

International Council on Environmental Law (ICEL) were established. at

the eld of environmental law did not then exist is signica nt. e founders

of ELI and ICEL had both foresight and the courage of their convictions.

In 1997, ELI honored ICEL’s founders, Wolfgang and Françoise Bu rhenne-

Guilmin, for their leadership in the Environmental L aw Programme of the

International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and in buildin g

ICEL, which had been establi shed in New Del hi to support I UCN’s endeav-

ors at creating and expanding environmental law internationally. Both ELI

and ICEL are members of IUCN. ICEL honored one of ELI’s inspirations,

Russell Train, with its Elizabeth Haub Award for Environmental Law in

1980. Suce it to say that since 1969, ELI and ICEL have been instr umenta l

in building the legal principles and methods for, as ELI puts it, “making law

work for people, pla ces and the planet.”1

ICEL commissioned this study, especially for the diplomats and jurists

who are examining how to strengthen international environmental law. is

book oers pathways to gain understanding of the competing trajectories

about law and the environment. Questions abound: How extensively should

government regulate conduct that aects the environment? Can burdens

of applying proposed new laws be added when existing laws remain to be

fully implemented? What is the just bala nce between aspirational policies

and norms versus binding rules and regulations? What do the basic juridica l

principles of care for the Earth mean in each dierent legal system? Who

should decide these questions? ese and other issues permeate the dia logue

among nations described in this study.

1. See ELI’s “Strategic Vision,” at https://www.eli.org/strategic-vision.