Preliminary Issues in Caribbean Environmental Law
| Author | Winston Anderson |
| Pages | 1-18 |
Page 1
1. Preliminary Issues in Caribbean
Environmental Law
Caribbean1 environmental law restricts
human activities that may adversely aect
the environment. For present purposes
the term “environment” refers to the “environs” or
“surrounds” of human beings2 and may be taken to
include “the physical surroundings that are com-
mon to a ll of us, including a ir, space, water, land,
plants, and wildlife.”3 is denition is still general,
but the term has been more fully dened in recent
legislation,4 and a more detailed analysis is pursued
elsewhere in this work.5 A central objective of the
1. In this book, unless otherwise indicated, the word “Caribbean”
may be taken to indicate the member states of the Caribbean
Community (CARICOM) as dened in the Revised Treaty of
Chaguaramas Establishing the Caribbean Community including
the CARICOM Single Market and Economy, signed by heads
of government of the Caribbean Community on July 5, 2001,
at their Twenty-Second Meeting of the Conference in Nassau,
e Bahamas, 2259 U.N.T.S. 293 [hereinafter “Revised Treaty”].
CARICOM consists of the following 15 countries: Antigua and
Barbuda, e Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada,
Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St.Lucia,
St.Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and
Tobago. e Revised Treaty entered into force January 1, 2006.
Prior to that it was made eective under a Protocol on Provisional
Application signed in 2002 by 12 of the 15 member states (e
Bahamas, Haiti, and Montserrat did not sign). e discussion
in this text is biased in favor of the environmental law in the
common law member states, but some attempt is made to refer
to environmental law of the two civil law members, namely,
Haiti and Suriname. e environmental relevance of the Revised
Treaty is discussed below.
2. See Crown v. Murphy, 64 A.L.J.R. 593 (Austl. 1990) .
3. See Delapenha Funeral Homes Ltd. v. Minister of Local Gov’t &
the Env’t, No. 1554 of 2007 (judgment June 13, 2008) (High
Ct.) (Jam.).
4. See e.g., Environmental Management Act, No. 3 (2000) (Trin.
& Tobago). §2 states that “environment” means all land, area
beneath the land surface, atmosphere, climate, surface, surface
water, groundwater, sea, marine and coastal areas, seabed, wet-
lands, and natural resources within the jurisdiction of Trinidad
and Tobago, and “environmental” shall have the corresponding
meaning.
5. See also T D E E S-
(Henry W. Art ed., Holt Paperbacks 1993), which denes
“environment” as “[t]he whole sum of the surrounding external
conditions within which an organism, a community, or an object
exists. Environment is not an exclusive term; organisms can be
and usually [are] part of another organism’s environment.”
subject is the protection and responsible mana ge-
ment of the environment, which may be pursued in
two main ways. Pollution of the environment may
be reg ulated a nd controlled, and nature’s bounty,
oftentimes referred to as natural resources, may be
managed and conserved. In crude terms, one may
say Caribbean environmental law regulates conduct
that both puts things into the Caribbean environ-
ment as well as takes things out.
To put the matter in more expansive terms, it
may be said rational management of the environ-
ment is undertaken to encourage and promote
certain objects. ese objects include6 promoting
a better understanding and appreciation of the
environment; encouraging the integration of envi-
ronmental concerns into private and public deci-
sions; ensuring the establishment of an integrated
management system; and developing and eec-
tively implementing laws a nd policies in relation
to the wise use of the environment that provide
adequately for human needs, economic growth in
accordance with sound environmental practices,
and enhanced regulatory framework for environ-
mental management.
In Tragedy of the Commons7 the economist Gar-
rett Hardin presents one of the most provocative
analyses of the need for legal management of the
environment. From his perspective, an empirical
study of what is regarded as rational conduct shows
that human actions are motivated by self-interest
irrespective of the consequences. is perspective is
especially exemplied in situations in wh ich every-
one shares the adverse consequences of the individ-
ual actor’s actions but in which the actor enjoys all
6. See e.g., Environmental Management Act, No. 3 (2000) (Trin.
& Tobago) §4.
7. Garrett Hardin, Tragedy of the Commons, 162 S 1241
(1968).
Page 2 Principles of Caribbean Environmental Law
the benets. For this reason, individuals consume
the natu ral resources for the community and dis-
charge wastes into the commons without sucient
regard for the communal interest. is is the case
even though in the long term both individual a nd
communal interests are best served by sustainable
use of the common resource.
And therein is the tragedy. In the metaphor used
by Hardin a rational herdsman will seek to maxi-
mize his gain by adding as many cattle as possible
to a common pasture. He alone enjoys the pro-
ceeds from the sale of these animals while all of the
herdsmen share the negative component of over-
grazing. But this is the approach of each and every
rational herdsman sha ring the commons; each is
“locked into a system that compels him to increase
his herd without limit—in a world that is limited.”8
Similarly, each person nds that his or her share of
the costs of the wastes he or she discharges into the
commons is less than the cost of purifying those
wastes before releasing them. Since this notion is
true for everyone, “we are locked into a system of
‘fouling our own nest,’ so long as we behave only as
rational, independent, free enterprisers.”9
The Environmental Problématique
It is now widely accepted that there is a complex
array of environmental problems. Among the issues
facing the world and the region, the environmental
challenge is virtually unique because of the range
and profoundly intricate nature of the test that it
presents.
At the global level, a fa ir summary of the prob-
lem in general is presented in Limits to Growth, a
book commissioned by an international group of
business people known as “the Club of Rome” and
published in 1972. Donella H. Meadows et a l.10
looked at the mathematics of exponential growth
and found that the ve elements studied—popu-
lation, food production, industrialization, pollu-
tion, and consumption of nonrenewable natural
resources—were increasing exponentially. e
authors made three summar y conclusions:
1. If the present growth trends in world pop-
ulation, industrialization, pollution, food
production, and resource depletion continue
unchanged, the limits to growth on this
8. Id.
9. Hardin, supra note 7.
10. See generally, D H. M ., T L
G (1972).
planet will be reached some time withi n the
next 100 years. e most probable result will
be a sudden and uncontrollable decline in
both population and industrial capacit y.
2. It is possible to alter these growth trends and
to establish a condition of ecological and
economic stability that is sustainable far into
the future. e state of global equilibrium
could be designed so t hat the ba sic mate-
rial needs of all people are satised and so
that each person has an equal opportunity to
realize his or her individua l potential.
3. If the world’s people decide to strive for t his
second outcome rather than the rst, the
sooner they begin working to attain it, the
greater will be their cha nces of success.
Twenty years later, in 1992, the same authors
rearmed that the conclusions they had reached
two decades earlier were “still valid” but needed
to be strengthened. “Now,” they expounded, “we
would write them this way”:
1. Human use of ma ny essential resources and
generation of many kinds of pollutants have
already surpassed rates that are physical ly
sustainable. Without signicant reductions
in material and energy ows, there will be in
the coming decades an uncontrolled decline
in per capita food output, energy use, and
industrial production.
2. is decline is not inevitable. To avoid it, two
changes are necessary. e rst is a compre-
hensive revision of policies and practices that
perpetuate grow th in material consumption
and in population. e second is a rapid,
drastic increa se in the eciency with which
materials and energy are used.
3. A sustainable society is still technically and
economically possible. It could be much
more desirable than a societ y that tries to
solve its problems by constant expansion. e
transition to a sustainable society requires a
careful bala nce between long-term goals and
an emphasis on suciency, equity, and qual-
ity of life rat her than on quantity of output.
It requires more than productivity and more
than technology; it a lso requires maturity,
compassion, and wisdom.
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