The Role of Customary Law in Sustainable Development

The Role of Customary Law in Sustainable Development PDF Author: Peter Orebech
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521859255
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 440

Book Description
For many nations, a key challenge is how to achieve sustainable development without a return to centralized planning. Using case studies from Greenland, Hawaii and northern Norway, this 2006 book examines whether 'bottom-up' systems such as customary law can play a critical role in achieving viable systems for managing natural resources. Customary law consists of underlying social norms that may become the acknowledged law of the land. The key to determining whether a custom constitutes customary law is whether the public acts as if the observance of the custom is legally obligated. While the use of customary law does not always produce sustainability, the study of customary methods of resource management can produce valuable insights into methods of managing resources in a sustainable way.

Indigenous Peoples, Customary Law and Human Rights - Why Living Law Matters

Indigenous Peoples, Customary Law and Human Rights - Why Living Law Matters PDF Author: Brendan Tobin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317697537
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 361

Book Description
This highly original work demonstrates the fundamental role of customary law for the realization of Indigenous peoples’ human rights and for sound national and international legal governance. The book reviews the legal status of customary law and its relationship with positive and natural law from the time of Plato up to the present. It examines its growing recognition in constitutional and international law and its dependence on and at times strained relationship with human rights law. The author analyzes the role of customary law in tribal, national and international governance of Indigenous peoples’ lands, resources and cultural heritage. He explores the challenges and opportunities for its recognition by courts and alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, including issues of proof of law and conflicts between customary practices and human rights. He throws light on the richness inherent in legal diversity and key principles of customary law and their influence in legal practice and on emerging notions of intercultural equity and justice. He concludes that Indigenous peoples’ rights to their customary legal regimes and states’ obligations to respect and recognize customary law, in order to secure their human rights, are principles of international customary law, and as such binding on all states. At a time when the self-determination, land, resources and cultural heritage of Indigenous peoples are increasingly under threat, this accessible book presents the key issues for both legal and non-legal scholars, practitioners, students of human rights and environmental justice, and Indigenous peoples themselves.

The Recognition of Indigenous Customary Law in Water Resource Management

The Recognition of Indigenous Customary Law in Water Resource Management PDF Author: Donna Craig
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
There is an inextricable link between indigenous rights, human rights and sustainable development. In this paper we consider the role of indigenous customary law in the sustainable management of water resources. We propose legal pluralism as the more effective context for recognition of indigenous customary law for sustainable water resource management as opposed to functional recognition or other minimalist forms of recognition.

The Nature of Customary Law

The Nature of Customary Law PDF Author: Amanda Perreau-Saussine
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139463217
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
Some legal rules are not laid down by a legislator but grow instead from informal social practices. In contract law, for example, the customs of merchants are used by courts to interpret the provisions of business contracts; in tort law, customs of best practice are used by courts to define professional responsibility. Nowhere are customary rules of law more prominent than in international law. The customs defining the obligations of each State to other States and, to some extent, to its own citizens, are often treated as legally binding. However, unlike natural law and positive law, customary law has received very little scholarly analysis. To remedy this neglect, a distinguished group of philosophers, historians and lawyers has been assembled to assess the nature and significance of customary law. The book offers fresh insights on this neglected and misunderstood form of law.

Indigenous Peoples, Customary Law and Human Rights – Why Living Law Matters

Indigenous Peoples, Customary Law and Human Rights – Why Living Law Matters PDF Author: Brendan Tobin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317697545
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 325

Book Description
This highly original work demonstrates the fundamental role of customary law for the realization of Indigenous peoples’ human rights and for sound national and international legal governance. The book reviews the legal status of customary law and its relationship with positive and natural law from the time of Plato up to the present. It examines its growing recognition in constitutional and international law and its dependence on and at times strained relationship with human rights law. The author analyzes the role of customary law in tribal, national and international governance of Indigenous peoples’ lands, resources and cultural heritage. He explores the challenges and opportunities for its recognition by courts and alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, including issues of proof of law and conflicts between customary practices and human rights. He throws light on the richness inherent in legal diversity and key principles of customary law and their influence in legal practice and on emerging notions of intercultural equity and justice. He concludes that Indigenous peoples’ rights to their customary legal regimes and states’ obligations to respect and recognize customary law, in order to secure their human rights, are principles of international customary law, and as such binding on all states. At a time when the self-determination, land, resources and cultural heritage of Indigenous peoples are increasingly under threat, this accessible book presents the key issues for both legal and non-legal scholars, practitioners, students of human rights and environmental justice, and Indigenous peoples themselves.

The Future of African Customary Law

The Future of African Customary Law PDF Author: Jeanmarie Fenrich
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139497820
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 563

Book Description
This book promotes discussion and understanding of customary law and explores its continued relevance in sub-Saharan Africa. It considers the characteristics of customary law and efforts to ascertain and codify customary law, and how this body of law differs in content, form and status from legislation and common law.

FAO Legislative Study

FAO Legislative Study PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Agricultural laws and legislation
Languages : en
Pages : 796

Book Description


Sustainable Development Principles in the Decisions of International Courts and Tribunals

Sustainable Development Principles in the Decisions of International Courts and Tribunals PDF Author: Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317670000
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 933

Book Description
The 2002 New Delhi Declaration of Principles of International Law relating to Sustainable Development set out seven principles on sustainable development, as agreed in treaties and soft-law instruments from before the 1992 Rio ‘Earth Summit’ UNCED, to the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, to the 2012 Rio UNCSD. Recognition of the New Delhi principles is shaping the decisions of dispute settlement bodies with jurisdiction over many subjects: the environment, human rights, trade, investment, and crime, among others. This book explores the expanding international jurisprudence incorporating principles of international law on sustainable development. Through chapters by respected experts, the volume documents the application and interpretation of these principles, demonstrating how courts and tribunals are contributing to the world’s Sustainable Development Goals, by peacefully resolving disputes. It charts the evolution of these principles in international law from soft law standards towards recognition as customary law in certain instances, assessing key challenges to further judicial consideration of the principles, and discussing, for instance, how their relevance for compliance and disputes related to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. The volume provides a unique contribution of great interest to law and policy-makers, judges, academics, students, civil society and practitioners concerned with sustainable development and the law, globally.

Sustainable Development, International Law, and a Turn to African Legal Cosmologies

Sustainable Development, International Law, and a Turn to African Legal Cosmologies PDF Author: Godwin Eli Kwadzo Dzah
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009354043
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 409

Book Description
A pioneering study that challenges the legal orthodoxy of sustainable development in international law from a non-Western perspective.

The Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law

The Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law PDF Author: Lavanya Rajamani
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192589032
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 1104

Book Description
The second edition of this leading reference work provides a comprehensive discussion of the dynamic and important field of international law concerned with environmental protection. It is edited by globally-recognised international environmental law scholars, Professor Lavanya Rajamani and Professor Jacqueline Peel, and features 67 chapters authored by 76 renowned experts in their fields. The Handbook discusses the key principles underpinning international environmental law, its relevant actors and tools, and rules applying in its substantive sub-fields such as climate law, oceans law, wildlife and biodiversity law, and hazardous substances regulation. It also explores the intersection of international environmental law with other areas of international law, such as those concerned with trade, investment, disaster, migration, armed conflict, intellectual property, energy, and human rights. The Handbook sets its discussion of international environmental law in the broader interdisciplinary context of developments in science, ethics, politics and economics, which inform the way in which environmental rules are made, implemented, and enforced. It provides an introduction to the foundations of international environmental law while also engaging with questions at the frontiers of research, teaching, and practice in the field, including the role of Global South perspectives, the contribution made by Earth jurisprudence, and the growing role of a diverse range of actors from indigenous peoples to business and industry. Like the first edition, this second edition of the Handbook is an essential reference text for all engaged with environmental issues at the international level and the applicable governance and regulatory structures.