244
tokenistic. Additionally, the short-term political cycles through which states’ democratic processes operate further inhibit any long-term commitments to environmental governance. Theories link this sovereign right of states and their political
institutions to exploit their own resources directly to property rights (Barnes 2006,
p. 34) even going as far as calling state sovereignty the ‘international mirror’ of
private property rights (Bosselmann 2016, p. 134). Doubts about the integrity of
democratic processes themselves also arise with these concerns (Bosselmann
2018, p. 3).
However, the essence of democratic processes fundamentally allude to a trust
relationship. This claim is succinctly pursued by Eyal Benvenisti, who sees sovereignty as an exercise of personal and collective self-determination (Benvenisti 2013,
p. 301), sovereign states as agents of humanity as a whole (Benvenisti 2013, p. 305),
and sovereignty as currently entailing the power to exclude portions of global
resources (Benvenisti 2013, p. 308).
As such, the concept of environmental trusteeship is not actually in conflict with
institutions of state sovereignty. Instead, it is the ordering of the state over and above
other interests that is problematic. But in order to somewhat equalise the shortcomings of a state-centred approach, a compromise is required which initiates less sovereignty so that states can be bound by their trusteeship obligations within a
commons-centred approach, but more sovereignty as could evolve through environmental trusteeship (Bosselmann 2016, p. 143).
2.2 Design of International Environmental Law
These days, international environmental law is framed by calls for urgent responses
to a changing climate, impending mass species extinction, and many other symptoms that can be collectively described as an Earth system crisis. These responses
should reframe states as a means to effectively govern the neglected global commons, rather than an end in themselves as a sovereign entity (Bosselmann 2015,
p. 2). Currently, legal governance institutions and their mechanisms are distanced
from the inherent moral purposes that they should serve, resulting in anthropocentric policy and frameworks at both the domestic and international levels (Bosselmann
2015, p. 34). The challenge here is that environmental law holds a central nonhuman component which causes the paradox that it operates with boundaries that
ecosystems by their very nature ignore.
Some weaknesses of the state-centred system are self-imposed in that while
states continue to insist on the primacy of their sovereignty and perpetuate an
anthropocentric, individualistic, and capitalist system, they are losing their power to
regulate (Bosselmann 2015, p. 9). Economic interdependence and globalisation has
meant that instead of states, transnational corporations have the majority share of
resources which enables their manipulation of the neoliberal global economy. This
means that those wealth-pursuing agendas are forwarded, to the detriment of the
global commons and on a wider scale, to the detriment of the environment. In fact,
K. Bosselmann
tokenistic. Additionally, the short-term political cycles through which states’ democratic processes operate further inhibit any long-term commitments to environmental governance. Theories link this sovereign right of states and their political
institutions to exploit their own resources directly to property rights (Barnes 2006,
p. 34) even going as far as calling state sovereignty the ‘international mirror’ of
private property rights (Bosselmann 2016, p. 134). Doubts about the integrity of
democratic processes themselves also arise with these concerns (Bosselmann
2018, p. 3).
However, the essence of democratic processes fundamentally allude to a trust
relationship. This claim is succinctly pursued by Eyal Benvenisti, who sees sovereignty as an exercise of personal and collective self-determination (Benvenisti 2013,
p. 301), sovereign states as agents of humanity as a whole (Benvenisti 2013, p. 305),
and sovereignty as currently entailing the power to exclude portions of global
resources (Benvenisti 2013, p. 308).
As such, the concept of environmental trusteeship is not actually in conflict with
institutions of state sovereignty. Instead, it is the ordering of the state over and above
other interests that is problematic. But in order to somewhat equalise the shortcomings of a state-centred approach, a compromise is required which initiates less sovereignty so that states can be bound by their trusteeship obligations within a
commons-centred approach, but more sovereignty as could evolve through environmental trusteeship (Bosselmann 2016, p. 143).
2.2 Design of International Environmental Law
These days, international environmental law is framed by calls for urgent responses
to a changing climate, impending mass species extinction, and many other symptoms that can be collectively described as an Earth system crisis. These responses
should reframe states as a means to effectively govern the neglected global commons, rather than an end in themselves as a sovereign entity (Bosselmann 2015,
p. 2). Currently, legal governance institutions and their mechanisms are distanced
from the inherent moral purposes that they should serve, resulting in anthropocentric policy and frameworks at both the domestic and international levels (Bosselmann
2015, p. 34). The challenge here is that environmental law holds a central nonhuman component which causes the paradox that it operates with boundaries that
ecosystems by their very nature ignore.
Some weaknesses of the state-centred system are self-imposed in that while
states continue to insist on the primacy of their sovereignty and perpetuate an
anthropocentric, individualistic, and capitalist system, they are losing their power to
regulate (Bosselmann 2015, p. 9). Economic interdependence and globalisation has
meant that instead of states, transnational corporations have the majority share of
resources which enables their manipulation of the neoliberal global economy. This
means that those wealth-pursuing agendas are forwarded, to the detriment of the
global commons and on a wider scale, to the detriment of the environment. In fact,
K. Bosselmann